The experiences of diverse people present challenges and opportunities for knowledge production. The knowledge base undergirding social work has been found to be dominated by Anglo-American cultural values assumed to be universally applicable. The relevant texts on social work knowledge were examined. The analysis revealed that culture is the cornerstone of any society’s response to social problems, that the hegemony of Eurocentric paradigms remain intact, that there is complicity with the coloniality of power in knowledge production resulting in epistemic injustice, and that decolonisation and indigenisation are critical imperatives towards the achievement of global cognitive justice. A contrapuntal epistemology of social work is recommended.
The current social work knowledge that is characterised by colonial domination in South Africa demands new visions. These visions should be aimed at producing an epistemic revolution that would see the re-emergence of previously silenced knowledges. The continued Eurocentric hegemony reflected in the content and form of the social work curriculum and pedagogical practices creates an epistemic scandal that requires decolonial intervention and redress. Following an examination of the decolonisation discourse from textual archives on coloniality, decoloniality, social work and its history, several tenets and principles were identified to guide the process of decolonising social work education in South Africa. These include focusing the curriculum and pedagogy of social work on the African world view (Afrocentric social work), adopting cultural relativity as an approach in social work education, and promoting dialogue between diverse cultural orientations and knowledges found in South Africa, including Western knowledge without harmonising the knowledges and/or creating a hierarchy.
The entanglement of African people with a system of westernised social work alien to their world view produces a paradigmatic and epistemic crisis. Consequently, African scholars are called upon to employ evidence-based methods to develop contextually rooted theories and models for African social work. Despite the outcry and numerous texts amplifying the need for decolonised social work typologies, there is still a scarcity of locally developed social work approaches or models. The lived experiences of African clans raising children with congenital abnormalities offer a window into the untapped yet rich world of African ways of being and knowing. This article presents Afrocentric social work practice guidelines for assisting African clans raising children with congenital abnormalities. Guided by the “Africana existential philosophy” and the intervention design and development model, the author used data generated from an original study of African clans’ lived experiences to develop a set of Afrocentric social work practice guidelines. The development of these empirically based practice guidelines for Afrocentric social work may encourage more efficient, effective and responsive social work practice with this population. It is also anticipated that the guidelines may further expand on a decolonised social work curriculum and help to formalise the resurgence of indigenous knowledge systems in social work research, practice and training. These guidelines do not exclude other theoretical options but rather complement them and provide an alternative perspective from the Global South.
The notion of 'family' as a Western construct describing the basic social system does not resonate with the African conceptualisation of the foundational social system found among African communities. The indiscriminate use of the word 'family' within the African context breeds conceptual confusion. This chapter utilises the lived experiences of African clans raising children with Down syndrome to illuminate the silenced but traceable contours of an indigenous social institution referred to as an African clan. A qualitative research approach was adopted and complemented by a phenomenological research design. Data were sourced through semi-structured clan interviews and focus group discussions with clan members raising children with Down syndrome and analysed using a thematic approach. The findings uncovered a clan system characterised by a clan name, totem, rendition of clan praises and an inherent clan-based approach to raising a child with Down syndrome. The main thrust of the arguments advanced by this chapter is that the African clan as a foundational social institution should form the cornerstone and vital unit of intervention for Afrocentric or decolonial social work. Thus, theories and techniques may be constructed in South Africa based on empirical research findings such as the one on which this chapter is based.
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