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Challenging colonial continuities and racism within contemporary EU migration regimes: postcolonial perspectives in social work

  • The history of Social Work and the modern Western university paradoxically represents both the high point and low point of human progress. Conceived in an epoch of immense human discovery, it is important to understand this period as characterised by white Western Imperialist and Colonial projects and the rise of capitalist accumulation. In combination, these processes, not confined to the geo-political points of origin, continue to have devastating impacts across the world, characterised by the exploitation, displacement, and destruction of human beings as well as natural ecosystems. Hegemonic colonial structures and practices created and reproduced global racialised hierarchies with the dominance of the Global North and the 'Othering' of knowledge forms and ways of life emerging from the Global South. Struggles for decolonisation and anti-racism come from an ongoing refusal by the victims of capitalism and imperialism to accept defeat and to continue to struggle for life, liberty and dignity. In the current moment, especially following the brutal public execution of George Floyd in the US and the Black Lives Matter movement, especially amongst youth, we have witnessed a global response, incorporating gestures of solidarity, through the ‘taking of the knee’ through to direct action to remove statues and monuments celebrating various characters associated with Empire, slavery and colonial exploitation. Again, the current discriminatory practices against non-European and non-White refugees from Ukraine highlights the coloniality of human rights. As Social Work scientific community and practitioners, we stand united with all people of good will working for peace and justice across national borders. In times where many forces try to divide and polarize this world, as Social Workers we seek to overcome ”Oppression Olympics“ (Walby et al., 2012: 234) and to foster solidarity as a collective strategy of resistance. In this regard, this panel contribution focusses specifically on the relevance of postcolonial perspectives to challenge contemporary EU migration regimes and developing anticolonial approaches in Social Work. In trying to sketch out how Social Work research, education and practice are often entangled in (re)producing hegemonic discourse, the panel will critically discuss the inherent ambivalences and ambiguities of decolonisation processes in the face of a vast range of epistemic violence, which is also referred to as Epistemicide (de Sousa-Santos, 2014; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018). Some concluding remarks will be made by highlighting the relevance of epistemic disobedience in challenging coloniality of knowledge in Social Work.

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Metadaten
Author:Robel Afeworki Abay, Tanja Kleibl, Paul Stubbs, Ndangwa Noyoo
Persistent identifier:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361909494_Challenging_Colonial_Continuities_and_Racism_within_Contemporary_EU_Migration_Regimes_Postcolonial_Perspectives_in_Social_Work
Parent Title (English):Social work – a hinge of practical utopia
Document Type:Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Year of publication:2022
Release Date:2024/03/15
Institutes and faculty:Fakultäten / Fakultät Angewandte Sozialwissenschaften
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