Border thinking in social work: The role of indigenous knowledge in the development of relations between the Global North and the Global South

Internationalisation of Social Work

“…The criticism has led to a search for ways to re-evaluate repressed knowledge and traditions and to develop a new self-understanding that shows the world what it has lost by imposing purely instrumental reason, and what it could gain by reconsidering this. This brings us close to "border thinking" approaches that consider how various forms of knowledge can exist next to one another but also in dialogue with one another (Lutz et al, 2017). This also reflects the controversy between "indigenous, local, and pluriverse knowledge" on the one hand and "scientific knowledge" on the other.…”

“…The conclusion is that the separations of internal and external, self and society, nature, and culture, which are typical for the thought of the Global North, are hindrances and must be redressed (Lutz et al, 2017). This involves overcoming dualism in thought with the goal of providing a new basis for the interdependence of all living things.…”

“…al., 2009). "Border thinking" is required, an understanding of the other, in which widely varying cultural and biographical backgrounds are decoded, so that they can be taken into consideration in daily cooperation (Lutz et al, 2017). This requires both intercultural competences and stances as well as a process of understanding, which means an ethnological perspective.…”

Intersections and collaborative potentials between global citizenship education and education for sustainable development

“…A critical-decolonial perspective may call on 'border thinking' to unsettle the colonial modern meta-frame, opening the way for more diverse and intercultural approaches. Border thinking engages with communities and social movements representing sections of society that have suffered most from deprivation, marginalisation and stigma and diverse experiences and traditions of thought that are routinely denied, forgotten or repressed within the colonial-modern meta-frame (Lutz, Inkje and Stauß 2017;Khoo and Kleibl 2020). Border thinking is excruciatingly salient at political borders, where the treatment of visitors, migrants and refugees simultaneously embodies and negates immediate needs of global citizens, let alone the imaginative reconstruction of abstract cosmopolitan citizenship or sustainable futures (Gamal and Swanson 2018;Lessenich 2019).…”