Environmental Citizenship and Social Work: Reflections on the Significance of Social Work Services in the Informal Settlements of South Africa

Social workers can play a significant role in promoting environmental citizenship to benefit vulnerable groups, such as those residing in informal settlement areas. With the proliferation of informal settlements in many African countries, the role of social workers in advocating for environmental citizenship is even more crucial. Their involvement should be evidence-based and entrenched in research that promotes an understanding of the impact of environmental degradation on human lives and their roles in environmental citizenship. Such knowledge should then inform environmental citizenship policies and programmes. Despite this crucial role as imposed by their professional mandate, policies, legislations and international treaties to address the conditions of marginalised and vulnerable people, environmental degradation continues to aggravate the vulnerability of people living in informal settlements. Furthermore, the scholarly contribution of social workers to environmental citizenship is delicate, with limited knowledge around the subject matter. Following the integrative literature review method, this paper outlines the nature of environmental citizenship, the relevance of social work to environmental citizenship, and the approach that social workers can adopt to contribute towards environmental citizenship in informal settlements. Literature around environmental citizenship in informal settlements, environmental disasters and informal settlements, and social work, as well as environmental citizenship and social justice, served as a population, from which a sample meeting predetermined inclusion criteria was purposefully drawn and analysed. The study confirms that, by its nature, environmental citizenship is central to social work and that there is a need to empower social workers around the subject matter.