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The Routledge Handbook of Postcolonial Social Work reflects on and dissects the challenging issues confronting social work practice and education globally in the post-colonial era. By analysing how countries in the so-called developing and developed world have navigated some of the inherited systems from the colonial era, it shows how they have used them to provide relevant social work methods which are also responsive to the needs of a postcolonial setting.
This is an analytical and reflexive handbook that brings together different scholars from various parts of the world – both North and South – so as to distill ideas from scholars relating to ways that can advance social work of the South and critique social work of the North in so far as it is used as a template for social work approaches in postcolonial settings. It determines whether and how approaches, knowledge-bases, and methods of social work have been indigenised and localised in the Global South in the postcolonial era.
This handbook provides the reader with multiple new theoretical approaches and empirical experiences and creates a space of action for the most marginalised communities worldwide. It will be of interest to researchers and practitioners, as well as those in social work education.
The Western or Northern conceptions of civil society, based on classical liberal thought, are the main reference points for interpreting civil society in the global South within development studies and practice. From a critical postcolonial epistemological perspective, we will question many of the key assumptions underlying this approach. Having been involved in the various steps of framing a civil society research project in Mozambique, a project that aimed to look at the conceptual considerations necessary for civil society studies in the global South, we share in this chapter some methodological learning generated from the project and our previous experience. We work through some of the various understandings of civil society in Mozambique based on our analysis of the country context, covering the colonial period of the late nineteenth century up to contemporary postcolonial times, and provide a brief overview of various aspects of civil society and their political-societal significance. Based on preliminary research conclusions we will then put forward some broader epistemological and methodological hypotheses for civil society research in a Southern context.
In Ireland the role of development NGOs is rarely interrogated. There is, rather, a shared discourse across the government, NGO and academic sectors which does not really encourage critical enquiry. Yet, in light of the recent Oxfam and Goal scandals, we must ask, as critical-engaged intellectuals, if development NGOs are now ‘part of the problem’ or ‘part of the solution’ to use a 1960s phrase. After a brief context- setting section Why Now? which discusses recent events around the NGOs, we start our enquiry with a set of Deconstructions of relevant terms such as ‘development’, ‘civil society’, ‘human rights’ and the term ‘NGO’ itself, too often referred to in reverential or uncritical ways in the NGO literature and more widely. We then move on to consider whether it is a case of Irish exceptionalism which explains why the political economy of development and NGOs debate in Ireland seems so insulated from international debates. Finally, we open up a Discussion which tries to pose some of the main matters arising from our enquiry. We understand our discussion might seem challenging to some, but we think we are right to pose the issues and hope we might spark an open debate on whether NGOs are part of the solution or, rather, part of the problem. This debate is too important to be left to the NGOs alone.
By demonstrating that Western conceptions of 'civil society' have provided the framework for interpreting societies in the Global South, Decolonizing Civil Society in Mozambique argues that it is only through a critical deconstruction of these concepts that we can start to re-balance global power relationships, both in academic discourse and in development practices.
Examining the exclusionary discourses framing the support for Western-type NGOs in the development discourse - often to the exclusion of local social actors - this book dissects mainstream contemporary ideas about 'civil society', and finds a new means by which to identify local forms of social action, often based in traditional structures and spiritual discourses.
Outlining new conceptual ideas for an alternative framing of Mozambique's 'civil society', Kleibl proposes a series of fresh theoretical issues and questions alongside empirical research, moving towards a series of new policy and practice arguments for rethinking and decolonizing civil society in the Global South.
Internationale Soziale Arbeit neu denken - Zur Verschärfung Globaler Ungleichheit durch COVID-19
(2020)
Covid-19 hat sich über die ganze Welt ausbreitet und kann sie an den Rand eines ökonomischen und politischen Kollapses führen. Das Virus trifft zwar alle, doch mit Unterschieden. Die Krankheit wird zum einen die sozialen Probleme in den reichen Gesellschaften des Nordens verändern und auch vergrößern, doch insbesondere in den Ländern des Globalen Südens kann der Ausbruch in seinen ökonomischen und sozialen Folgen verheerend sein. Kann der Globale Norden noch eindämmende und die Folgen abfedernde Maßnahmen etablieren, so schlagen die Auswirkungen im Globalen Süden voll durch. In diesen Gesellschaften sind verheerende Folgen zu erwarten, die Armut, Elend, Hunger und Migrationsbewegungen intensivieren werden. Dadurch wird aber auch die Globale Ungleichheit zwischen den Nationen größer. In dieser Krise wäre Solidarität über nationale Grenzen hinweg gefragt; doch genau diese ist kaum erkennbar. Die Internationale Soziale Arbeit ist aufgefordert, ihre Ausrichtung neu zu definieren.
Verärgerte Geister und Götter? Naturkatastrophen, Krisen, Hexerei und religiöse Attacken in Mosambik
(2019)
Our aim is to problematise the dominant discourses and practices around civil society from a Southern perspective. We first examine critically, from a broadly Gramscian perspective, the way in which the concept of civil society has been deployed in development discourse. This highlights its highly normative and North-centric epistemology and perspectives. We also find it to be highly restrictive in a post-colonial Southern context insofar as it reads out much of the grassroots social interaction, deemed ‘uncivil’ and thus not part of duly recognised civil society. This is followed by a brief overview of some recent debates around civil society in Africa which emphasise the complexity of civil society and turn our attention to some of the broader issues surrounding state-society relations, democracy and representation in a Third World context, exemplified through our case study research in Mozambique, Inhassunge district (Zambézia Province). The privileging of Western-type Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as drivers of democracy and participatory development in Mozambique have considerable implications for current debates around good governance, civil society strengthening and social accountability programmes and strategies.
Der Caritasverband der Diözese Eichstätt e. V. verfügt über 37 Einrichtungen und beschäftigt etwa 2.400 Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter. Etwa 27.500 Mitglieder tragen den Verband. In seiner fast hundertjährigen Geschichte (Gründung 1918) engagiert sich der älteste bayerische Diözesanverband in unterschiedlichen sozialen, medizinischen und pädagogischen Arbeitsfeldern. Die Eichstätter Caritas leistet heute auch umfassend Asylberatung und Arbeit für geflüchtete Menschen.
This paper seeks to problematize the dominant discourse and practice around civil society from a Southern perspective. We first critically examine the way in which the concept of civil society has been deployed in development discourse. This highlights its highly normative and North-centric epistemology and perspectives. We also find it to be highly restrictive in a Southern context insofar as it reads out much of the grassroots social interaction deemed ‘uncivil’ and thus not part of civil society.
Subsequent sections introduce a historical analysis of civil society development and a preliminary mapping of current civil society in Mozambique which begins to set out a more complex understanding of civil society, a concept sometimes reduced to the world of the NGO’s. This is followed by a report on a recent roundtable discussion with civil society actors in Mozambique that sparked our interest in this theme. This discussion also articulates a more complex and conflictual understanding of civil society than that held by many international NGO’s for example. Finally, we discuss some of the matters arising from our movement from the abstract (the deconstruction of the concept of civil society) to the concrete (our conversations with a range of civil society actors). This work is the start of a broad longer term project with partners in Mozambique seeking to map and thus better understand the complexity of civil society in a country widely seen as test case for development strategies.
Globalization results in the exclusion and marginalization of diverse categories of stakeholders at the local level in developing countries, while decentralization leads to integration and participation of some of these stakeholders. In this evolving process, increasingly facilitated by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the role of language and literacy, and their relationship with culture, have been given scant attention. ICTs facilitate language marginalization and homogenization, while it is an open question whether they contribute to language growth and survival. Within the context of development cooperation and natural resource management, the Community-Based Natural Resource Management Network (CBNRM Net), which serves the global CBNRM community of practice, uses ICTs to communicate with its global membership. CBNRM Net is concerned with how globalization and decentralization is influencing traditional and modern CBNRM practices. This includes how the present massive use of ICTs to facilitate communication, relying largely on English, is affecting literacy and language in the area of traditional knowledge on CBNRM. The paper presents a framework for analyzing use of language, and impacts on culture, in online communication and networking.
Die Wodaabe in Niger
(1998)
The dramatic pictures of violence on the Polish - Belorussian border are just the latest manifestation of the dehumanization, securitization and externalization of the EU migration management policies. A trend that can be traced to early 2000s has achieved a new level in recent years after a brief opening of EU borders in 2015. The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified these dynamics in different ways and deepened inequalities of the transnational mobility (Lee 2020; Sumba 2021; Afeworki Abay, Kassaye & Kleibl 2022; Matela & Maaza 2022). In addition to physical violence by state and non-state actors along the EU external border, EU migration management employs strategies that condone prolonged exposure of mobile people to death and to a host of human rights violations (Mbembe 2003, 2019; Mayblin & Turner 2020; Mayblin 2016, 2019; Abuya, Krause & Mayblin 2021; Sadeghi 2019). At the same time, civil society members, media representatives and those who attempt to assist mobile people are also increasingly criminalized, exposed to right-extremist violence and targeted by excessive legal, financial and bureaucratic burdens that make their work difficult, if not impossible. Externalization as a central characteristic of EU border management refers to the propounding mechanisms of moving the border forward (Andrews 2021; Getachew 2019; Gutiérrez Rodríguez 2018a, 2018b; Mayblin, 2017; Mayblin, Wake & Kazemi 2019). Outside of the EU, externalization policies construct EU border controls in so-called countries of origin and transit. In this process, EU migration management is fused with foreign policy, international development and international trade mechanisms. These incursions disrupt socioeconomic dynamics and local mobility patterns as far as Iran-Turkey borderlands, West African ECOWAS region or the border between Ethiopia and the Sudan. The internal and external EU migration management developments are inseparable and materialized legacies of colonialism, enduring gender inequalities, politics of citizenship and racialized economies (Andrews 2021; Getachew 2019). This book therefore aims to critically analyze how Social Work and EU migration management regimes co-constitute each other. The here presented book will offer theoretical discussions and practical experiences around the following questions: In which way is Social Work complicit in the EU migration management regime? Where do Social Workers find opportunities to build solidarities, become subversive of the hegemonic structures and work for empowerment? How do Social Workers deal with the increasingly restrictive political, legal and economic environment, in which they engage with mobile people? How can Social Work become more apt to working with people who are at times highly mobile and at times immobilized in remote camps, forests or desert outposts? Moreover, this book espouses the broadest definition of Social Work as a human rights profession and an academic discipline but also as an indigenous way of social assistance and social change (Staub-Bernasconi 2012, 2016; Healy & Link 2011; Kleibl, Lutz & Noyoo 2020). By paying attention to the temporal and spatial aspects of Social Work with mobile people, we explicitly refuse the apolitical, decontextualized view of Social Work as neutral „helping“, instead we plea for critical reflection on the entanglements of Social Work in complex, intersecting power dynamics. Hence, this book seeks to critically analyze how Social Work becomes entangled in categorization of people to make them „legible“ and „visible“ to EU migration management and how Social Work itself is categorized in order to be disciplined as a „helping“ profession and an instrument of the state/EU migration management. We ask how Social Work could be transformed to work in a multiscalar, transnational scale, truly living up to the ambition to employ „glocal“ approach.
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.