Abstract

Enveloped by a massive change process, we are witnessing mass upheavals and overhauling of structural realities in India. The overarching predominant framework that once determined the country’s reality is either being contested within various politico economic spheres or are reasserting itself violently in various other socio historical spaces. Social Work education and practice has responded differently to each of these eras of change in the Indian context. It conceived this dynamic context of practice or work through the notion of a ‘field’. What does this category signify within these changing times and context for social work education? How is this conception being formulated? Is there a need to relook our historical conceptualization? Are received conceptions still relevant in contemporary times? This article engages from a critical perspective with these pertinent questions confronting social work education and practice. It proposes a reassembling of the category ‘field’ towards re-conception of the notion located in our time and space based on the experience of the author as a social work educator in the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.