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Nation states’ neoliberal policies do not regard asylum seekers and undocumented migrants as deserving of a good life. Social work in welfare states is highly connected to the policies of nation states. There is a need to address theories in social work that have a transnational focus at the local level. Axel Honneth’s recognition theory enables an approach to forced migration from the direction of personal relations and personhood itself. The core idea is that if people cannot gain recognition, this causes harm to their self-realisation. The purpose of this paper is discuss how the recognition theory overcomes a national focus in social work.

This paper is theoretical. The relations of recognition are discussed in the context of transnational social work in welfare states with forced migrants.

The theory of recognition in social work practice with people who do not have a residence permit is best articulated by an understanding of rights concerning all the attributes of the person, i.e. as a needy being, autonomous and particular in a community.

Forced migrants’ backgrounds provide a specific backdrop for misrecognition, which may harm self-relations. The relations of recognition contribute to social work by providing the sensitivity required to evaluate the complexity of views and attitudes that affect the way we encounter service users. The relations of recognition (care, respect and esteem) give normative criteria for communication in order to take another person as a person, which, in turn, contributes to healthy self-relations of forced migrants.

The family is one of the foundations of society; its significance for societal redistribution in modern societies, though, remains particularly unclear. A major reason for this is that theoretical approaches to societal redistribution have not adequately included family either in social philosophy or in welfare state theory. As a consequence, also empirical analyses of differences and developments in societal redistribution have not included family or only in as far as family is affected by other redistributive principles. This paper contributes to filling this theoretical gap.

This paper theorises family as a redistributive principle. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, it identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution.

Approaches to redistribution are shaped by distinct concepts of equal or unequal exchange, the relevant actors they identify and by different understandings of the economy. These distinctions are central to understanding the position of family in societal redistribution. With reference to the major theoretical concepts of redistribution, this paper identifies the relevant dimensions of family in societal redistribution and develops a typology of its inclusion in societal redistribution. Further investigations might draw on this typology and detect the theoretical foundations of its conceptualisations and its similarities to and deviations from the developed types.

This paper provides a theoretical groundwork for theoretical and empirical investigations of societal redistribution and for better comprehending its international variation. It aims to initiate a fundamental rethinking of the usual understanding of societal redistribution that widely ignores family as a redistributive principle of its own.