Decolonizing Social Work

**3**

**1. Introduction**

**Chapter 1**

**Abstract**

*Aissetu Barry Ibrahima*

Using Indigenous Approaches

Interventions, and the Grassroots

Indigenous approaches are crucial for indigenous people across the world including Africans, in assessing the impact of imperialism and its manifestations in colonialism, liberalism, globalization, and Western research. Such approaches acknowledge the fundamental importance of local culture, recognizing that geographical, empirically based knowledge provides culturally appropriate solutions to problems. Indigenous approaches serve as a bridge between policies, interventions, and the grassroots. Social work, as a practice-based profession and an academic discipline, should acknowledge and include indigenous knowledge and methodologies in its curriculum. It is important to empower and provide space and a voice for the grassroots to articulate problems and participate in solving them by sharing their own wisdom and experiences. It is shortsighted and unworkable to rely upon prescribed Western policies and curriculums with the assumption that they will seamlessly transfer to other, fundamentally different, people and cultures. Failing to discard such an "apples to apples approach" will only result in a prolonged failure to adequately address the socioeconomic problems in Sub-Saharan Africa and will only perpetuate the problems associated with imperialism and [neo]colonialism. This chapter provides conceptual definitions to constructs such as decolonization and indigenous knowledge and demonstrates the importance of decolonization and indigenous approaches in social work scholarship and practice as it relates to Africa.

**Keywords:** decolonization, development, grassroots, indigenous approaches, policies

The current state of African society and the practice of social work in Africa must be viewed through a historical lens. As Said [1] said "Past and present inform each other, each implies the other and each co-exists with the other. Neither past nor present has a complete meaning alone. How we formulate or represent the past shapes our understanding and views of the present (p. 4)". Colonial administrators and missionaries introduced social work in South Africa in the 1920s to address

To better understand the current structural issues, development policies, and programs in Africa, we need to know the history of colonialism and its vivid manifestations to date. Before colonialism, African societies were ethnic nationalities. Land ownership formed society's economic base while a kinship system guided the governance and social support system [6]. The social support system was collectivist

white poverty, particularly [white] orphans and juveniles [2–5].

as a Bridge between Policies,
