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Curricula der Sozialen Arbeit besitzen in vielen Bereichen eine eurozentrische Ausrichtung, welche historisch-kolonial gewachsene Strukturen der Ungleichheit und Machtgefälle zwischen und innerhalb Regionen verdecken. Daraus entwickeln sich Dynamiken zwischen sozialen Gruppen und diversen Identitäten und damit verbunden, gesellschaftliche Inklusions-und Exklusionsprozesse, welche in der Forschung, Lehre und Praxis der Sozialen Arbeit nicht ausreichend berücksichtigt bzw. reflektiert werden. Die postkoloniale Situation beeinflusst weiterhin tiefgreifend die Wissensproduktion innerhalb der Profession sowie den Transfer von Wissen innerhalb der Lehre und Praxis im Globalen Süden und Norden. Da postkoloniale Theorien und Praxisansätze globale Machtverhältnisse und soziale Ungleichheiten, Rassismen, Diskriminierungs- und Stigmatisierungsprozesse in den Blick nehmen, sind sie von besonderer Bedeutung für die Internationale Soziale Arbeit. Am 12. November 2021 werden die Fachgruppen Internationale Soziale Arbeit (ISA) und Flucht, Migration, Rassismus- und Antisemitismuskritik (Migraas) der DGSA eine gemeinsame Fachtagung, falls möglich in Präsenzform, an der Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Würzburg-Schweinfurt (FHWS) abhalten. Im Rahmen der Veranstaltung sollen fokussiert Projekte und Lehrformate im Kontext postkolonialer Sozialen Arbeit vorgestellt, in Workshops ausprobiert, diskutiert und gemeinsam weiterentwickelt werden. Die Tagung wird deshalb partizipativ folgende Fragestellungen ins Zentrum rücken: Wie können postkoloniale Perspektiven in der Lehre und Praxis Sozialer Arbeit verankert werden? Welche Formate sind dafür besonders geeignet? Welche kreativen Möglichkeiten gibt es, Studierenden Aspekte postkolonialer Sozialer Arbeit partizipativ zu vermitteln? Welche Herausforderungen lassen sich dabei erkennen? Diesen Fragen wollen wir uns im Rahmen der Tagung stellen. Dabei geht es auch darum von bereits bestehenden Ansätzen zu lernen, vorhandene Ideen aufzugreifen, sie weiter zu entwickeln und uns dabei zu vernetzen. Die Tagung ist interdisziplinär ausgerichtet und offen für Akteur*innen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis, welche unterschiedliche, für die Soziale Arbeit relevante, postkoloniale Perspektiven einbringen wollen (z.B. Soziologie, Ethnologie, Ökonomie, Politikwissenschaft, Theologie, Literatur-und Geschichtswissenschaften, etc…). Das Ziel ist gemeinsam auf den Weg zu gehen, um postkoloniale Perspektiven und dekoloniale Ansätze innerhalb der Theorie und der Praxis Sozialer Arbeit zu stärken.
The current pandemic forces parts of Social Work practice, research and education to reinvent itself. Alongside new online formats and blended-learning models, new ethical questions and dilemmas arise. These include issues of resources, control and power, access, accessibility, mobility and rising inequalities, positionality of researchers, data protection and the duty of care in social scientific research and education with migrants and other ,vulnerable’ populations. While individual-oriented models which have arguably been a hallmark of the European Social Work practice, come to its limits during the pandemic, communal practices and local self-organized support systems come to the forefront. How can the Global North learn from approaches of the Global South? The symposium draws on this notion of joint learning and raises important questions about the (im)possibility of equal research partnership during times of worsening structural inequalities. This symposium draws on Social Work related research projects in cooperation with partners in Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria and Ethiopia. The situatedness of the research projects has implicit and explicit ethical implications that pointed out the need for postcolonial reflections. The first perspective focuses on critical whiteness in research practice and pandemic-related challenges regarding field access and exchange opportunities. The second part of the discussion calls for situated ethics based in transnational multi-site research with migrating persons. Drawing on the theory of Social Work as a human rights profession in a global context, the final part of the discussion then moves to emphasize the mandate of Social Work researchers, practitioners and education to consider the perspectives of those unheard and unseen in the current discourse. The range of papers point towards the dilemma of a predominantly white Northern perspectives of Social Work profession that is only slowly reflecting upon and researching its own role in upholding and reproducing the colonial matrix of power. This symposium concludes by making some suggestions how to work towards an ethical space of engagement in which power imbalances are recognized and an in-between space, in which one can in fact only stumble forward together, created.
In recent years, Mignolo’s concept of “border thinking” became an increasingly relevant critical framework to analyze the complexity of migration processes to postcolonial Europe (Lutz, Sachau, & Stauß, 2017; Zannou, & Pfaffenstaller, 2020). It differentiates between external and internal borders; whereby the latter refers to the modern/colonial world system and its epistemological conceptualizations in the postcolonial era that continue to be dominated by the hegemonic order of Eurocentric discourses - here on migration (Mignolo, 2000). Within a reductionist approach to the complexity of migration processes (Mayblin, 2016), motives of migration are often analyzed within a single-story framework that considers solely the perspectives of European-destination countries – disregarding the external border that considers the perspectives of the subaltern (Zannou & Pfaffenstaller, 2020). In addition, the applied framework constructs Europe as in need to protect its welfare systems from overload and exploitation, and its societies from infiltration (Mayblin, 2016). The so-called “root causes” for migration are sought in “underdevelopment” and inter- and intraregional conflicts for land/resources and power. Its close and complex relations to colonial legacies however, are often left unconsidered (Zannou, & Pfaffenstaller, 2020; Lutz, Sachau, & Stauß, 2017). Yet, the imprints of colonial rule on former colonized states continue to impact social, political and economic structures on both sides, thereby shaping knowledge production (Mignolo, 2013). In our presentation, we critically discuss the dominant Eurocentric discourse on “migration management” and its universality claims. Focusing specifically on social work, we sketch out how the production of research and the (self) understanding of the social work profession within the welfare state are often entangled in (re)producing hegemonic discourse. With Mignolo, we reflect on the possibilities of “epistemic disobedience” (Mignolo, 2009; 2013) and its demands for universality in social work education, research and practice.
Social Work curricula in many areas have a Eurocentric orientation, which obscures historical-colonial structures of inequality and power imbalances between and within regions. This leads to the development of dynamics between social groups and diverse identities and, connected to this, social inclusion and exclusion processes, which are often not sufficiently taken into account or reflected in the research, teaching and practice of Social Work. The postcolonial situation continues to profoundly influence knowledge production within the profession as well as the transfer of knowledge within teaching and practice in the Global South and North. Since postcolonial theories and practice approaches focus on global power relations and social inequalities, different forms of racism, discrimination and stigmatization processes, they are of particular importance for International Social Work. On November 12, 2021, the Expert Groups "International Social Work" and "Flight, Migration, Racism and Anti-Semitism Criticism" of the German Association of Social Work (DGSA) will hold a joint symposium-if possible in attendance at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (FHWS). Within the framework of the event, focused projects and teaching formats in the context of postcolonial Social Work will be presented, tried out in workshops, discussed and jointly developed further. The conference will therefore focus on the following questions: How can postcolonial perspectives be anchored in the teaching and practice of Social Work? Which formats are particularly suitable for this? What creative possibilities are there for communicating aspects of postcolonial Social Work to students in a reflective and participatory way? What challenges can be identified? These are the questions we want to address during the conference. The aim is to learn from existing approaches, to take up new ideas, to develop them further and to network. The conference is interdisciplinary and open for actors from science and practice who want to bring in different postcolonial perspectives relevant for Social Work (e.g. sociology, ethnology, economics, political science, theology, literature and history, etc...). The goal is to set out together in order to strengthen postcolonial perspectives and decolonial approaches within Social Work theory and practice.
The multiple and simultaneous realities of Social Work practice have always been more complex than its theories suggested. The knowledges, desires and perspectives of its addressees are much more nuanced than standardized empirical qualitative and quantitative research methodologies (that inform theorization) could possibly grasp. In consequence, many assumingly universal and evidence-based methods and instruments in Social Work do not lead towards anticipated outcomes that aim to support the social, political, ecological and economic needs of the addressees. Social Work theories in turn often lack the consideration of, under others, race, class and gender subordination and domination effects, which form integral parts of power dynamics between the oppressed and the oppressors at play in the 21st century. This leads to downplaying the need to theorize and support solidarity from below, as well as to strengthen relational accountability between those that want to advance social justice. In addition, structural elements “from above” such as political and welfare systems and development economies do not receive significant attention either. In consequence, many theories do not lead to concepts, approaches and praxis that sufficiently grasp the historical and contemporary situatedness in which Social Work operates.
While there is an evident need for establishing thorough processes of decolonizing Social Work in education, research and practice, there is only a limited number of literature available on the complex decolonization project. It includes the co-edited volume Decolonizing Social Work by Mel Gray, John Coates, Michael Yellow Bird and Tiani Hetherington (2013), Trabajo Social y Descolonialidad, by María Eugenia Hermida and Paula Meschini (2017) or the Routledge Handbook of Postcolonial Social Work, by Tanja Kleibl, Ronald Lutz, Ndangwa Noyoo, Benjamin Bunk, Annika Dittmann and Boitumelo Seepamore (2020). These foundational works contribute immensely to the much-needed discussion on the diversification of Social Work theories and methods, yet their foci cannot possibly attempt to address a full scope to the decolonization of all Social Work dimensions in greater detail. Furthermore, most publications (e.g., Tascón and Ife, 2020; Fortier and Hon-Sing Wong, 2018) focus on theoretical reflections, leaving the important gap regarding the necessary knowledge transfer into practice, research and education still broadly opened.
Since the publication of Linda Tuhiwai Smith's book (1999), Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, researchers in various disciplines in social and health sciences have increasingly become aware of the importance of adopting decolonial research methodologies. However, the transnational project of decolonization might be challenging and complex to implement in research projects and teaching formats in Social Work. The chapter contributions in this co-edited volume give insight from a broader geopolitical perspective into how established Eurocentric concepts, perceptions, practices, and paradigms in Social Work have been continuously re-assessed and re-nuanced within the last two decades (Tamburro, 2013; Noyoo, 2020; Kleibl et al., 2020; Castro Varela and Mohamed, 2021; Gray et al., 2023; Harms-Smith and Rasool, 2020). Within the broader project of Western academia, one effect of decolonization is challenging the allegedly objective “scientific knowledge, in view of its rigor and instrumental potential, [as] radically different from other ways of knowing, be they lay, popular, practical, commonsensical, intuitive, or religious” (de Sousa Santos, 2018b: 5). Moreover, decolonial concepts such as “epistemic de-linking” (Mignolo, 2007: 450) and “epistemic disobedience” (Mignolo, 2009: 8) are indispensable in unpacking the colonial roots of epistemic violence and foregrounding ‘Epistemologies of the South’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014) in Social Work research in order to establish “a time of epistemological imagination aimed at refounding the political imagination (…) to strengthen the social struggles against domination” (de Sousa Santos, 2018a: 126-127). The continuous problematization of Eurocentric knowledge production (e.g., methodological nationalism, culturalization, westernization) is therefore important for establishing critical dialogues in Social Work. Most importantly, decolonizing university education (Rodríguez, 2018; Mbembe, 2016; Mignolo, 2013; de Sousa Santos, 2017) in general is the first step in order to disrupt the colonial continuity of knowledge production that “operates as an invisible power matrix that is shaping and sustaining asymmetrical power relations between the Global North and the Global South” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2014: 181). In moving beyond theoretical discussions and reflections, this co-edited volume addresses the essential questions regarding the implementation of decolonial approaches in research methodologies and teaching formats in Social Work. This co-edited volume is therefore an important contribution for critically minded Social Work educators and students who seek to understand the complex structures of the colonial past, the contemporary postcolonial moment as well as to decolonize their teaching, researching, and visions of decolonialized Social Work.
The fact that the coloniality of power and knowledge (Quijano; 2000; Mignolo, 2007, 2011; Grosfoguel, 2013) has only been addressed poorly in Social Work contributes to what Paulo Freire (1970: 12) referred to as “a culture of silence”. A culture of silence exists where those who are oppressed are not heard in society, and where a lack of knowledge about their contexts creates a high risk for the perpetuation of racism, discrimination, and the violent process of ‘blaming the victim’. Research methodologies and teaching formats in Social Work have always been embedded in the colonial archives of Eurocentric knowledge (Quijano; 2000; Mbembe, 2016; Grosfoguel, 2013). As Freire (1970: 5) argues that “The social worker, as much as the educator, is not a neutral agent, either in practice or in action”. In the last decade, Social Work education and research methodologies have been continuously criticized for being complicit in downplaying and silencing the brutality of the colonial project (Harms-Smith and Rasool, 2020; Kleibl et al., 2020; Tamburro, 2013). This includes but not only limited to the ignorance of the social, political, ecological and economic implications of colonial legacies as well as post and neocolonial continuities in the 21st century. In addition, the development of Western political and welfare systems ‘from above’ do not result in significant social change and transformative justice. In consequence, many theories do not lead to concepts, approaches and praxis that sufficiently grasp the historical and contemporary situatedness of coloniality of knowledge and power in which Social Work keeps operating (Afeworki Abay, 2023; Daňková et al., 2024; Kleibl et al., 2024). In response to the continuities of colonial epistemologies and methodologies in Social Work, the chapter contributions in this co-edited volume show the relevance of Pluriversality as one of the various decolonial strategies to unsettle the coloniality of Eurocentric knowledge production (Quijano; 2000; Mignolo, 2007, 2017; Grosfoguel, 2013). One of strategies of decolonizing research methodologies and teaching formats is to universalize and normalize ways of knowing and knowledge production that Eurocentric systems of knowledge portray as ‘not valuable’ or ‘not objective enough’ (Tuck and Yang, 2012; Tlostanova and Mignolo. 2012; Afeworki Abay, 2023). Likewise, an important analytic strategy for decolonizing research methodologies is to draw upon marginalized and Indigenous knowledge systems (Smith, 1999; Tamburro, 2013; Zavala, 2016) that have been to taken-for-granted in the social, political, economic, and environmental discourses in Social Work.
Decolonizing Social Work
(2024)
Over the last three decades, “decolonization” has become an increasingly emergent framework in tracing and addressing the complex mechanisms of coloniality of knowledge and power (Mignolo, 2011; Quijano, 2000). Surprisingly enough, decolonial perspectives have hardly been considered in Social Work education, research and practice (e.g. Harms-Smith & Rasool, 2020; Kleibl et al., 2020; Gray et al., 2016; Tamburro, 2013; Lutz, Sachau, & Stauß, 2017). Even though, there is a growing body of literature that addresses the need for decolonization of Social Work with indigenous people (e.g. Tanemura et al., 2016; Ives & Thaweiakenrat Loft, 2016) or individuals and communities in and from the Global South (e.g. Noyoo, 2020; Kreitzer, 2016; Freire, 1970), many Social Workers in the Global North (both in academia and practice) argue that the need for decolonization does not apply to their work. This is particularly true in countries of the Global North that claim to have had little engagement with colonialism (e.g. Ranta-Tyrkkö, 2011). Historically, much of Social Work theory and practice was developed in the Global North and exported across the globe as a byproduct of colonization and – in the postcolonial era – in form of development aid (Schirilla, 2018). Within the hegemonic discourses, knowledges produced at the peripheries and in the context of social struggles has been delegitimized and rendered invisible. Therefore, Social Work remains dominated by Euro-American perspectives, which oftentimes reproduce epistemic violence (Spivak, 1988). This acknowledgment, then, calls for a critical analysis of Social Work education, research and practice as well. Recent emerging discussions on implementing decolonial approaches in Social Work (Harms-Smith & Rasool, 2020; Tamburro, 2013; Lutz, Kleibl & Neureither, 2021) have drawn the attention to the possibilities of “epistemic disobedience” (Mignolo, 2009: 8). They brought forward Afrocentric approaches to pedagogy (van Wyk 2014; Watson-Vandiver & Wiggan, 2021), pedagogies that centralize the oppressed (Freire, 1970; Kohan, 2021), non-extractivist research approaches and methods that focus on embodied knowledge and corporeal emancipation (de Sousa-Santos, 2018), as well as creating South-South links (Rivera, 2012).
Decolonial Methodologies in Social Work: Foregrounding Pluriversalism in Teaching and Research
(2024)
While decolonial perspectives have continuously been discussed in contemporary academic discourse in Social Work in the last two decades, yet, the complex legacies of colonialism are often left unreflected within methodological and pedagogical conceptualizations in Social Work (Harms-Smith and Rasool, 2020; Tamburro, 2013; Kleibl et al., 2020; Harms-Smith and Afeworki Abay, 2024). With this understanding in mind, it is imperative to critically engage with the growing interest of mainstream discourse on decolonizing research and education in Social Work and as well as to understand the broader project of decolonization as a way of “epistemic de-linking“ (Mignolo, 2007: 450) from colonial thoughts and practices. Decolonial perspectives in Social Work’s knowledge production require a deep look into the core concept of Pluriversality in foregrounding theories, epistemologies and methodologies of the South. According to Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2018), decolonizing theories, epistemologies and methodologies is an asymmetrical and long-term process that requires deep analysis and reflection both in formerly colonized and colonizing regions. As there are only insufficient methodological reflections on these complex topics of “decolonization” in Social Work (see among others: Kleibl et al., 2024), the aim of this book is to go one-step further and put a spotlight on the increasing number of critical teaching formats as well as research projects in Social Work that aim to challenge the current status-quo of coloniality of power, knowledge and being (Quijano, 2007). This co-edited volume provides discussions and experiences with decolonial approaches in research and education of Social Work. It centres methodologies developed in the Global South (de Sousa Santos, 2014; Connell, 2014) in an attempt to decolonize Eurocentrism, as the knowledge produced by subaltern communities and scholars of the global South have been rendered invisible.