Introduction

Abstract

The Introduction provides an overview of postcolonialism and postcolonial theory. The term ‘postcolonialism’, which began to be used from the 1990s, represents perspectives critical of or resistant to colonialism or colonial attitudes. Anti-colonial thinkers had always insisted that decolonization had to begin with colonized peoples decolonizing themselves mentally from the ways in which they had begun to see things from the perspective of the colonizers. Postcolonialism too is about changing one’s mind-set and values. In a comparable way, ‘postcolonial theory’ involves a conceptual reorientation towards the perspectives of knowledges, as well as needs, developed outside the West.

International field education: A case study of developing an anti-colonial group study program in Mexico

“…Drawing from Said’s (1978) concept of orientalism, a form of othering, Mukherjee and Chowdhury (2014) advance that ‘existing stereotypes about countries are deliberately used on flyers to draw attention of prospective [students] and thus increase recruitment’ (p. 580). Colonized persons and countries being constructed as ‘inferior, childlike, or feminine, incapable of looking after themselves’, casts their knowledge, practices and ways of knowing as subservient (Young, 2003: 2), reinforcing colonizers as superior, civilized and expert (Young, 2003). Persson (2017) offers the example of Swedish social work students ‘being treated as an expert or a saviour’ (p. 47).…”

“…Persson (2017) offers the example of Swedish social work students ‘being treated as an expert or a saviour’ (p. 47). In contrast, postcolonialism ‘seeks to change the way people think, the way they behave, to produce a more just and equitable relation between the different peoples of the world’ (Young, 2003: 7). Postcolonialism emphasizes cultural differences and contexts, rendering visible power and positionality in existing academic networks and communities’ knowledges.…”

“….] incapable of looking after themselves’ (Young, 2003: 2), IFE is likely to reinforce this approach unless anticolonial discourse and actions are forefronted. By constructing non-Western partners as passive, poorly resourced and unprofessional, Western institutions become the self-anointed and de facto professionals, the capable and well-resourced leaders (Fisher and Grettenberger, 2015).…”

“…Knowledge is political – part of and subject to the shifting and complex relations of power that exist between nations, institutions and individuals (Vibert and Sadeghi-Yekta, 2018). Therefore, students must be humble about their knowledge base, re-examining ‘universal’ social work values (Castleden et al, 2018; Ghose, 2012; Young, 2003), and be willing to adapt to, integrate and adopt local perspectives where appropriate (Corbin, 2012). Ethical practices when conducting research or social work practice with oppressed people, for example, requires creating lasting mutual commitments, before, during and after investigations and interventions.…”

Latin American perspectives on Indigenous social work: in search of mind, body, and soul

“…Postcolonial theories and movements have not only confronted the colonial past, but they are also worried about the persistency of a colonial mentality, that is, the perception of ethnic and cultural inferiority and internalized forms of racial oppression (Decena, 2014), which—among other things—contribute to maintaining the western, Global North’s monopoly on what it is valid knowledge, and particularly in this case, what counts as social work knowledge. A central task for postcolonialism, therefore, is also to beget the diversity of cultural experiences and counter-knowledges, aiming to dismantle the western monopoly on knowledge by taking other knowledges and other perspectives as seriously as those of the west (Young, 2003). Similarly, postcolonial social work can be understood as:a movement from within the social work profession, aiming at critically looking at social work education, research, and practice with the objective to decolonise the system of social work.…”