Disrupting Whiteness in Social Work

Focussing on the epistemic – the way in which knowledge is understood,

constructed,

transmitted and used – this book shows the way social work

knowledge has been constructed from within a white western paradigm, and

the need for a critique of whiteness within social work at this epistemic level.

Social work, emerging from the western Enlightenment world, has privileged

white western knowledge in ways that have been, until recently, largely unexamined

within its professional discourse. This imposition of white western

ways of knowing has led to a corresponding marginalisation of other forms

of knowledge. Drawing on views from social workers from Asia, the Pacific

region, Africa, Australia and Latin America, this book also includes a glossary

of over 40 commonly used social work terms, which are listed with their epistemological

assumptions identified. Opening up a debate about the received

wisdom of much social work language as well as challenging the epistemological

assumptions behind conventional social work practice, this book will be

of interest to all scholars and students of social work as well as practitioners

seeking

to develop genuinely decolonised forms of practice.