Social work carries within it traces of some of society’s most fundamental struggles. Dr Maurer has developed a framework for understanding how the institutions, practices, and principles of social work function as living repositories of historical conflicts. Her concept of social work as “memory of conflicts” offers a fresh lens for examining both the field’s complex past and its contested present.

Dr Maurer’s theoretical framework emerged from her engagement with feminist perspectives and their relationship to social work, both historically and in contemporary practice. In the early 2000s, she began developing the idea that social work can be understood simultaneously as a site of memory concerning societal conflicts and as an open archive that holds answers to social questions across time and geographical contexts.

The foundation of this approach rests on the understanding that diverse institutions and practices of social work represent what Dr Maurer calls “condensations and materialisations” of specific societal and historical conflicts. These conflicts encompass struggles related to class divisions, gender inequality, and racial discrimination. However, these representations remain mixed and continue to show the contested parts of social life rather than presenting clear-cut solutions.

Dr Maurer draws inspiration from Pierre Nora’s influential concept of “lieu de mémoire”, or sites of memory, which highlights how the same historical event can acquire very different meanings depending on national and political contexts. However, she adapts Nora’s framework to better suit social work’s specific characteristics. She translates the term “site of memory” into “memory of societal conflicts” to emphasize the dimension of conflict inherent in social work. This translation serves a crucial purpose: it prevents the concept from becoming static or exclusionary while maintaining focus on the contested nature of social work’s development.

The second aspect of Dr Maurer’s framework involves understanding social work as an “open archive” of societal and professional debates. These historical resources must be actively sought through particular questions, specific kinds of attention, and deliberate approaches to understanding the field’s complex heritage.

The development of this framework cannot be separated from its historical context, particularly in Germany where Dr Maurer works. Social work’s history in Germany cannot be understood without considering the major conflicts of the twentieth century, which fundamentally changed European societies. The path from Imperial Germany through to the Nazi regime and beyond created deep breaks in the social order while also maintaining certain troubling continuities.

Dr Maurer’s framework also emerged from her engagement with critiques of science and knowledge that arose during second-wave feminist movements. These critiques led to the development of feminist historical research that challenged prevailing representations of history. Rather than simply adding women to existing historical narratives, feminist scholars took a critical stance toward authority and investigated the societal relations and conditions that made thorough analysis possible.

This feminist approach to historical research raised fundamental questions about the nature of historical processes and representation. Could women’s historical experiences be adequately understood through traditional frameworks that viewed history primarily as a class struggle? How could researchers address phenomena such as patriarchal authority, colonialism, and racism? These questions became particularly acute when examining women’s involvement in authoritarian and fascist regimes, forcing researchers to grapple with the tension between understanding historical complexity and maintaining clear moral positions.

The theoretical foundations of Dr Maurer’s approach draw from various philosophical traditions. She engages with questions about whether history should be understood as a back-and-forth process, as primarily driven by class struggles in the Marxist tradition, or as the expression of specific relations of cultural dominance as proposed by Antonio Gramsci. Dr Maurer’s work extensively engages with theories of memory and remembering, particularly the contributions of Maurice Halbwachs, who identified the social dimensions of memory formation. According to these theories, individual memory, social memory, and academic historical research interact in complex processes to produce images of history, sites of memory, and rituals of commemoration. Social memory performs various functions including social integration and collective consciousness formation.

Jan Assmann’s refinement of collective memory concepts proves particularly relevant to Dr Maurer’s framework. Assmann distinguishes between cultural memory, which provides stable knowledge that guides behavior across generations, and communicative memory, which emerges from interactive practices in everyday life. Cultural memory relates to identity formation and knowledge storage, while communicative memory remains more fluid and tied to living people.

Building on these theoretical foundations, Dr Maurer develops her own specific concept of societal memory that deliberately incorporates qualities of dissent, difference, and diversity. The implications of Dr Maurer’s framework extend directly to social work, education and professional development.

These questions carry particular significance for social work because they relate to the functions that historical research serves for professional and disciplinary identity formation. Dr Maurer suggests that understanding social work as an open archive and memory of conflicts can serve as a conscious intervention in debates over how the past should be represented and understood. This approach reflects systematic engagement with disputes over historical interpretation.

The practical applications of this framework become evident in Dr Maurer’s suggestions for social work education. Rather than presenting students with a linear narrative of professional development or a simple catalogue of historical achievements, educators could focus on transmitting the history of questions and problematizations that have shaped the field. This approach would help students understand that current challenges have deep historical roots.

Dr Maurer argues that a consciously cultivated memory of conflicts, supported by historical research, can create or restore awareness of how questions and problems have developed over time. Knowledge about past struggles and controversies leads to different perceptions of contemporary conflicts. She suggests that focusing attention on realities that have been suppressed in dominant representations, or critically reconstructing often one-sided perceptions of these realities, requires different research perspectives and strategies.

Dr Maurer’s concept of social work as a memory of conflicts and open archive ultimately provides a means for understanding how the field carries forward traces of past struggles while remaining open to reinterpretation and transformation. This framework suggests that effective social work education and practice require ongoing engagement with the field’s contested heritage.

The significance of this approach extends beyond academic historical research to practical questions about how social workers understand their professional identity, navigate contemporary challenges, and imagine future possibilities for the field. By recognizing social work as a living repository of societal conflicts, practitioners and educators can better understand the constraints and opportunities embedded in their profession.