Abstract
The execution of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police Department on 25 May 2020, coupled with the global COVID-19 pandemic and the disproportionate impact it is having on Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities and indigenous people across the world, has given new impetus to ongoing demands for tackling dehumanizing behavior and endemic institutional racism. Across the world we have seen black and white people showing solidarity with the #blacklivesmatter movement through their participating in unprecedented public protests and ‘taking the knee’. Though published in 2019, and hence before these momentous events, the appearance of The Routledge Handbook of Postcolonial Social Work is extremely prescient, especially in its mapping out of the ongoing struggle for racial justice in what the authors’ term a ‘neoliberal postcolonial era’.
In the introductory chapter, Noyoo and Kleibl describe this as the period following the end of the cold war in the 1980’s and the ‘rise of neo-fascist groups and ultra-right-wing political formations in Europe, and an increase in radical groups, including religious and other movements in the Global South’ (p. 1). The overall stated aim is to advance perspectives from the Global South 1 concerning social work and indigenous people. In this regard, though the book is rooted in the struggles against racism faced by indigenous people, both citizens and professionals, because many of the ideas about social work, and ‘race’ were imported from the colonial powers of the Global North the book offers a powerful critique of the wider project of colonisation.
Based on a huge range of contributors across 27 chapters, it is evident that this edited collection has been a considerable undertaking and readers will not be disappointed with the outcome. Structured into four sections, the book provides an impressive mix of chapters drawing on theory, biography, policy, case studies and applied research.
Section 1 focusses on establishing a broad theoretical and historical understanding of the underpinning themes associated with the colonial encounter and its impact on indigenous people. Masson and Harms Smith lay out the nature of the physical, cultural and epistemic violence of colonialism and highlight how this feeds into the ongoing process and trauma of ‘coloniality’. Most critically, they document how social work itself has become an instrument of this ongoing violence. This is followed by a chapter from Mayo which draws on the work of Gramsci and Freire and how their insights into the nature of hegemony, dehumanisation, ideology, critical pedagogy, praxis and freedom, continue to provide a rich theoretical basis for both understanding and confronting oppression. Subsequent chapters focussing on colonialism and childhood, inhumane treatment of asylum seekers, models of social development and feminist approaches all draw attention to the tensions between ideas emerging from the European Enlightenment and how these are often co-opted into the colonial project; often by being presented as ‘universal’ solutions and ‘decolonial social work’.
Section 2 links these theoretical and philosophical insights to postcolonial social work and social movements. In doing so, key tensions are explored surrounding the lens through which political actors and activism are both envisaged and the relationships and orientations these have with state agencies, professionals and liberation struggles, both local and further afield. A key consideration in all these chapters in this section is the relationship that social work does, should and perhaps can have with the wide range of social movements and community activist groups and what learning can be gained from engaging with grassroots struggles.
Section 3 focuses on indigenisation of social work; that is how can models and methods of social work be adjusted and reformed in accordance with the local cultural context and the respective, specific colonial experiences? Some of this work resonates with ideas relating to ‘cultural competence’ and ‘multiculturalism’ with one critical difference. Whereas as these previous approaches were adaptive, here the authors explore the possibilities of transformed social work based on disrupting dominant European epistemological and ontological assumptions about human functioning. This inevitably opens up ongoing debates circulating around universalism versus cultural relativism, especially when it comes to questions of protection from harms (Singh and Cowden, 2013)
The final section seeks to uncover some of the contextual challenges and possibilities by examining a number of case studies from countries in Central and Southern Africa. Each provides fascinating insights into the multidimensional complexities of working in societies undergoing considerable change. These include issues relating to rural-urban migrations, conflict, governance and climate change, all of which are overlaid onto existing legacies of colonialism.
The struggle against racism in social work is not new and there is a well-established literature on the emergence of anti-racist and anti-oppressive social work. However, neoliberal appropriation of social work since the 1980’s has led to a beleaguered profession that appears to be strong on rhetoric, but weak on addressing structural racism. Increasing awareness of ongoing legacies of colonialism, primarily as a consequence of grass roots social movements harnessing the power of social media, has drawn attention to the ongoing brutality and oppression of black, brown and indigenous peoples throughout the world. Whilst this book is deliberately focused on the Global South and the struggle to address the needs of indigenous people, who are amongst the most marginalized people in the world, many of the insights will resonate across the globe. The only downside is that this groundbreaking book is so expensive and this will mean that the vast majority of people will only be able to access it through institutional subscription. In the context of the #blacklivesmatter movement, many publishers have made books on ‘race’, racism and colonialism much more accessible that in the past. My hope is that Routledge will also follow suite.