Decolonising and Reimagining Social Work in Africa: Alternative Epistemologies and Practice Models [1 ed.] 1032202602, 9781032202600

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Decolonising and Reimagining Social Work in Africa

This book explores contemporary debates on decolonisation and indigenisation of social work in Africa and provides readers with alternative models, values, and epistemologies for reimagining social work practice and education that can be applicable to a wide range of countries struggling with similar concerns. It examines how indigenisation without decolonisation is just tokenistic since it is concerned with adapting, modifying Western models to fit local contexts or generating local models to integrate into the already predominantly contextually irrelevant and culturally inappropriate mainstream Western social work in Africa. By exploring decolonisation, which calls for dismantling colonialism and colonial thinking to create central space for indigenous social work as mainstream social work, especially in Africa, it goes beyond tokenistic decolonisation to articulate some of the indigenous social work practice and social policy models, values, ethics, and oral epistemologies that should take centre stage as locally relevant and culturally appropriate social work in Africa. It also addresses the question of decolonising research methodologies, highlighting some of the methods embedded in African indigenous perspectives for adoption when researching African social work. The book has been written with both the coloniser/colonised in mind and it will be of interest to all social work academics, students and practitioners, and others interested in gaining insights into how colonisation persists in social work and why it is necessary to find ways to disrupt it. Sharlotte Tusasiirwe (PhD) is lecturer of social work and community welfare at Western Sydney University, Australia.

Decolonising and Reimagining Social Work in Africa Alternative Epistemologies and Practice Models Sharlotte Tusasiirwe

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Sharlotte Tusasiirwe The right of Sharlotte Tusasiirwe to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Tusasiirwe, Sharlotte, author. Title: Decolonising and reimagining social work in Africa : alternative epistemologies and practice models / Sharlotte Tusasiirwe. Description: 1 Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023001028 (print) | LCCN 2023001029 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032202600 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032525532 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003407157 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Social service--Africa. | Decolonization--Africa. | Social epistemology--Africa. Classification: LCC HV438 .T87 2023 (print) | LCC HV438 (ebook) | DDC 361.7/7096--dc23/eng/20230316 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023001028 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023001029 ISBN: 978-1-032-20260-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-52553-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-40715-7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003407157 Typeset in Goudy by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

Contents

List of figures Introduction

viii ix

1 Social work in Africa: history and contemporary issues

1

African social work/helping  1 Social work education and practice challenges in Africa: empirical evidence  12 Other challenges social work is facing in Africa  17 Critique and limitations of Western social work in the West  20 Note 22 References 22

2 Examining approaches proposed to free social work from Western colonial dominance: indigenisation and decolonisation 26 Indigenisation 26 Issues that cannot be fixed by indigenising only  27 An alienating Eurocentric curriculum and narrow conceptualisation of social work  28 Undisrupted colonial thinking about knowledge production and consumption 30 Decolonising approach to learning and teaching in action: an example  33 Decolonising self and mind: processes  37 Questioning 38 Remembering and or rediscovery  38 Unlearning and re-learning to revalue  39 Re-imagination, sharing, and action  40 Summary: a Decolonising-First theory-practice  41 References 42

vi  Contents

3 African cultural traditions and decolonising research

44

Need for decolonising research  44 Words of caution on empiricism  45 Principles of Indigenous African research framework and design  46 Research for the benefit of the community  46 Recognising the importance of Indigenous or local languages of the communities 47 Recognising the importance of local and community structures  48 Respect processes of ethics of Indigenous Africans rooted in African philosophies 49 Indigenous African oral storytelling methodology  49 Indigenous African research methods  51 Decolonising research ethics: ethics and values of working with indigenous Africans in research  58 Conclusion 66 References 66

4 Decolonising social work practice: Indigenous community models, their principles, and applicability

68

Mutual helping model  69 The role of a social worker in applying a community-led mutual helping model  76 Burungi Bwansi model of indigenous community development  77 Application of Indigenous models of helping in social work: guiding principles  81 Conclusion 83 References 84

5 Decolonising values and ethics of social work: conceptualising Obuntu-led social work values and ethics Introduction 85 Valuing hospitality, connection, and reframing professional boundaries  87 Termination of relationships vs making meaningful and long-lasting relationships 88 Valuing social worker expression of feelings and emotions and lived experiences 89 Valuing the mother tongue in social work practice  90 Valuing community accountability (Baragira ngwenki/ What will people say?)  91 Valuing spiritual interconnectedness  93

85

Contents  vii Valuing interconnectedness with the environment  94 Conclusion 94 References 95

6 Decolonising social policy

97

Colonisation in social policy  97 Neo-colonialism in social policy: evidence from Uganda  98 Decolonising social policy: some alternative ideas  104 Decolonising by implementing a Obuntu/Ubuntu consensus decision-making model 105 Decolonising through aligning social policies with local philosophies  107 Decolonising by centring community-led definitions in policy  107 Decolonising policy as conditionality and responsibility of donors and international partners  108 Conclusion 109 References 109

7 Orature (proverbs and stories): decolonising epistemologies

111

Introducing orature  111 Scholar’s successful practical use of orature in different fields and contexts in Africa and the diaspora  113 Potential use of orature in a social work classroom and or practice  115 Using orature: a reflection from my social work classroom in Australia  117 Proverbs and their application in different social work fields  118 Critical thinking and reflection in social work  122 Conclusion 122 References 123

8 Furthering the decolonisation project

125

Recapping the decolonising agenda  125 Dismantling ideology of the colonised and colonial privilege of colonisers  126 Decolonising in the West: addressing extraversion  127 Low hanging fruit: Students’ research in higher education institutions in Africa and the West  128 Refrain from single storied, self-deprecating, self-hatred and sabotage education, scholarship, research, etc  130 References 132

Index 134

Figure

6.1

Hierarchy of policy and programme making from donors to local communities

104

Introduction

In 2004–2005, after I had come back to my village from the city where I was pursuing my bachelor’s degree in social work, I was asked a simple question about social work that I am still struggling to find complete answers to, with this book becoming a start to exploring some ideas to piece together the puzzle. My mother who is a very well-­respected community member and leader, very fluent in our Indigenous language, but with limited knowledge of English language, asked me to explain to her what social work is and what it is called in our Indigenous language so that she can tell her fellow community members when they ask her what her daughter was studying to be. Some of our village mates were studying to be lawyers translated as abanyamateeka in my local language; others were studying counselling to be abahumuriza or counsellors while others were studying to be teachers or abashomesa. So what was I studying to be, she asked me, because she was struggling to explain to her fellow community members when they asked her. After my first year, based on what I had learnt so far, I simply told her I am studying to be a social worker. So she asked me to explain who a social worker is or what social work is in the language of the community. I started remembering all the roles of social workers, which indeed include being advocates, but I could not say I will be omunyamateeka; social workers indeed teach, but I could not call myself a teacher/omushomesa, and we are indeed counsellors, but we do go beyond counselling to do other roles so counsellor/omuhumuriza does not fully capture what social workers do in my local language. I quickly thought that what was relevant to my mother was that professional social workers worked with poor people and so I finally explained that I was studying to be an expert or professional in helping poor people, but not in the ‘local’ or ‘backward’ way that my mother did to help poor women in the community. To emphasise that we are professionals, I explained that my mother’s way of helping was not rational, formal, or even based on assessment of who was deserving or not. Here I was drawing on my knowledge of the history of social work from the charity organisation model and the influence of casework and diagnosis done, as coined by social work legends like Mary Richmond whom I was taught to look up to. I was labouring to make clear the professional-­traditional difference to show that professional social workers were different from what local people like my mother do in my community, denigrating the indigenous social work they do. However, she asked me one thing that up to now I have still not been able to answer. If she went to the

x  Introduction sub-­county or district offices, how would she say that she wanted to see a social worker? What were social workers called in Runyankole/Rukiiga language? During the conversation, I felt as if I was being disrespectful by not telling my mother about my profession in a language she understood well. I had gone to university and now I was being proud by using only English terms to refer to a “social worker”, yet I could not tell my mother that I was also struggling with understanding what it was I was studying and what it was called in my local language. I could not tell my mother that I was also struggling to connect with the models of social work particularly the Mary Richmond case work and welfare model, which was detached from the collective-­consensus approaches used in the local community my mother had socialised me. My mother does not understand English since her parents could not afford the fees for a formal school where she would have had the opportunity to learn English. Because of the stigma of being excluded from English conversations, she is very concerned about her children’s education and works very hard to ensure none of her children misses out on formal education like she did. While my hunt for the runyankole translation has yielded responses like social worker means omuhwezi (helper), or omunyabuntu (a person with Obuntu/Ubuntu), etc, the struggle to frame social work as is in local languages is a critical one. However, my struggles of translation, interpretation, and application of Western professional social work, its concepts, theories, and models, comprise the everyday struggles of social work students, lecturers, and practitioners in Uganda and Africa broadly (Twikirize, 2014). The major challenge is that social work in Uganda and Africa, in general, is taught from a predominantly European and North American perspective, cultural events and models of helping which are impossible to contextualise to most African contexts. The location of social work in the welfare state model and social policies of colonial social administration makes it difficult to establish connection to African ways of helping in our communities. Being taught or practising something that you cannot connect or contextualise is indeed epistemic racism. Epistemic racism is a situation where knowledges and ways of knowing and being of people that have experienced colonisation remain marginalised, invalidated, mis(under)represented while knowledges of the colonisers are established as legitimate, resulting in curriculums and a profession where the colonised rarely see themselves reflected in the profession’s knowledge base, values, ethics, models, etc. I am writing this book after enduring many years of epistemic racism in the social work profession and it is a call to dismantle it through articulating alternative epistemologies, worldviews, and constructions of social work from an African perspective. Social work is not a technical trade where pre-­determined or one-­size-­fits-­all ‘models’ can be applied the same everywhere and to everyone in need of social work but there is room for different types or constructions of social work models that represent or speak to the diverse contexts social workers work from. In calling for epistemological diversity and ending of epistemic racism, I have been questioned several times to show how a construction of social work from an African perspective, embedded in African cultural values and epistemologies, would look like. Hence, this book is an attempt to conceptualise social work

Introduction  xi education models (Chapters 1 and 2), its research methods (Chapter 3), Indigenous community-­led practice models (Chapter 4), social work ethics and values (Chapter 5), social policymaking (Chapter 6), and orature epistemologies (Chapter 7), imagined from an African worldview and lived experiences. There is no point arguing for embracing epistemological diversity in social work or inclusion of knowledges from both the North and South, when the knowledges from the South or alternative epistemologies are not articulated. This book problematises the Western-­centric construction of social work, bringing its limitations, especially in the African context, and provides alternatives that may be more relevant to the African Indigenous peoples. Critiquing or problematising the white Western models of social work does not mean that I do not appreciate their usefulness and applicability and contribution to the social work profession. Indeed, I am currently situated in Australia and I have lived in Sweden where I have witnessed the important role of welfare state social work to the people, who to some extent can be said to ‘worship’ the state government because of the critical role it plays in their wellbeing. Problematising the white Western model is aimed at bringing out what the gaps are and the need to re-­imagine alternatives. The foundation for re-­imagining alternatives does not come from just problematising the white Western model, it comes from the hurt, the desire to see a profession that practices what it preaches by being respectful, and just, to the different contexts, knowledges, and peoples social work seeks to support. Social work cannot claim to be a profession that liberates while it keeps on dominating and perpetuating hegemony in the construction of what is regarded as legitimate models, ethics and values, social policymaking, knowledges, etc. Also, the presence of the crises today are a big indication that we are doing what we can but we need more ideas, models, initiatives, and more re-­imaginations beyond a single story about places, cultures, contexts, profession.

The dangers of a single story: an indelible need for a non-deficit story It is important to state from the outset the viewpoint adopted when writing this book because I believe no one can write about everything that people want to hear or read. In this book, I adopt and centre a non-­deficit view about Africa, its Indigenous Africans, cultures, knowledges, among others. You will notice that I start the first chapter with an exploration of African ways of helping and the theories, values, and worldviews, in which they are embedded. I do not start with the social problems-­narrative of Africa, and this is not to downplay that they do not exist. The reason I adopt a non-­deficit view is my intention to tell the story about African ways of helping that have remained in the margins and yet remain responsible for the collective survival of African people wherever they are. To use Nigerian author Adichie Chimamanda’s words, the motivation of this book is to go beyond the single story about Africa and one of the deficits which is one where Africa is talked about as: A place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals, and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves, and waiting to be saved, by a kind, white foreigner … Africa

xii  Introduction as a place of negatives, of difference, of darkness … there are other stories that are not about catastrophes. And it is very important, it is just as important, to talk about them. (Adichie, 2009, n.p.) For most of the almost 25 years I have spent as a student in the formal education system in Uganda, Sweden, and Australia, the deficit story has dominated, that African culture is oppressive, that Africa is poor and needs white saviours, Africa has no legitimate knowledge and has to depend on others to move forward etc. This single but dominant story has suppressed the multiple stories that comprise the lived experiences, especially around why Africans are still in existence despite all these deadly problems and deficits told. When I did my PhD research (2019) exploring stories in the margins, indeed, the older women, social policymakers and community workers that I had conversations with, confirmed to me that I need to tell their full/multiple stories of survival, vulnerability, resistance, collective care, Indigenous knowledge, and wisdom accumulated from lived experiences. I am inspired by African social workers Mugumbate and Chereni’s provocative appeals to African social workers to write about: “Those knowledges you did not learn at college but they define the type of social work happening in your village, suburb, town, community, chiefdom or home? Those impactful personal experiences no one except us will write about” (Mugumbate & Chereni, 2020, p. vi). Therefore, this book is like an African fireplace where I tell stories, some of which are mine; others are community stories; stories of my students, and stories of other scholars I have come across in my journey as a black Indigenous African social worker who studied in the community and in formal schools in Uganda, Sweden, and Australia. I invite readers to listen deeply to these stories. In African culture, stories are told, sometimes based on lived experiences, so that people can learn from them. Stories are told in an open way to allow everybody to pick up their own message/lesson based on their circumstances. This means that stories can have very many interpretations and messages over which the storyteller has no control. I do write the book in a simple way so that it is more accessible to readers at different levels because what is important is for the stories to reach many including those that may struggle to understand complex academic jargon. I chose to write simply because the jargon often met in many books just forces people, especially students from our contexts, to just cram them to pass or simply use the buzz or fashionable terms when actually they do not deeply believe or even connect the terms to the local communities they serve. My lived and living experiences as influenced by my upbringing are among other things that have influenced my thoughts about the need to decolonise social work. I am an Indigenous African tracing my roots and ancestors from the Basingo clan, Banyankore/Bahororo tribe, now found in Western Uganda. I have grown up in a rural village where I have experienced and witnessed, the vulnerability, social problems but also the power and teachings of community and culture for the collective survival of everyone there. I do not have much experience with the state or government being at the forefront of responding

Introduction  xiii to the needs of people in my community, be it in domestic violence, or natural disasters, or emergencies, helping orphans, etc. The community has been the number one first and sometimes the only sustained responder to social problems in my area. But when I have come to learn about what social work is, I have been stunned at how it is narrowly defined to encompass helping done in institutions of Western modernity, i.e. governments and NGOs. Where communities have been talked about, it has been predominantly about how they have been helped by the government or NGOs or external volunteers or experts to establish initiatives or programmes for them. Here experts come to the community to help it. Positioning social workers as experts has meant that what is regarded as legitimate social work has been strictly defined, and this professional model is one that everyone else is expected to adopt. However, as Sewpaul and Henrickson (2019) write from their experiences as part of a task force tasked to come up with a global definition of social work, “no single understanding of social work could be conclusively applicable to all regions and countries of the world” (p. 1470) because the context in which it is practised, taught, and researched varies considerably. This variance demands different constructions of social work to be explored, as guided by the diversity in contexts, worldviews, values, ethics, knowledges, etc in existence. Thus, I am attempting to redefine a model of social work, its research, values and ethics, social policymaking, etc that could be applicable to an African context. This is just a start and I invite others to also add to complete the work. Some clarity on some of the terms used in this book is necessary. The profession and concept of social work is contested and its universal applicability is still disputed. In this book, social work is understood as literally as an idea of helping involving working with people to improve and enhance their wellbeing. The position taken is that there are many different ways of doing social work, the dominant Western understanding of social work as embedded in and led by professional social workers, is not universal but is just one of the many ways of doing social work. While the term West is ambiguous, I refer to Western social work or white Western social work which, in the context of this book, is used to refer to the professional model of social work imported to African countries by former colonisers and maintained through neo-­colonialist influence. Western social work is predominantly informed by and embedded in white Western knowledge, ideas, lived experiences, worldviews, and perspectives. Following the whiteness ideology, constructions of social work embedded in non-­Western knowledges are silenced, devalued, disrespected, ignored, and marginalised when only one way of helping, doing, knowing, and being is promoted and, in some cases, imposed above all others. The terms “Indigenous”, “local” and “traditional” are used interchangeably in this book and refer to the “distinct knowledges, practices and ways of living and doing that have their majority origin within specific communities” (Twikirize & Spitzer, 2019, p. 8). Indigenous knowledge can be unique and used anywhere at any level in a given culture or society, but it is usually accumulated from the experiences of many generations through their interface with the environment as a whole (social, economic, cultural, spiritual, political, ecological). In my writing process:

xiv  Introduction I recognise that worldviews are not binary consisting of Indigenous and non-­ Indigenous, but more fluid between various peoples of the world with strong overlaps and great chasms. However, without working to reflect Indigenous peoples’ understandings, we may be unconsciously, perhaps consciously in some cases, leading other Indigenous peoples down the path of internalised oppression [that is believing the colonial deficit narrative that they have no knowledge to contribute; their worldview, ways of knowing and thinking is backward, inferior or even non-­existent, among others]. (Hart, 2010, p. 11) The author wishes to acknowledge the support of Professors Jane Mears and Mel Gray, who read through and provided feedback on some of the chapters of this book and the indigenous women and men that have taught me indigenous ways of being, knowing, doing, through word, action and observation. I acknowledge a community of families that have helped care for my kids to write this book.

References Adichie, C. (2009). The danger of a single story [Transcript]. www.ted.com/talks/ chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript. Hart, A. M. (2010). Indigenous worldviews, knowledge, and research: The development of an Indigenous research paradigm. Journal of Indigenous Voices in Social Work, 1(1), 1–16. Mugumbate, J., & Chereni, A. (2020). Now, the theory of Ubuntu has its space in social work. African Journal of Social Work, 10(1), v–xvii. Sewpaul, V., & Henrickson, M. (2019). The (r)evolution and decolonization of social work ethics: The global social work statement of ethical principles. International Social Work, 62(6), 1469–1481. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872819846238 Twikirize, M. J. (2014). Indigenisation of social work in Africa: Debates, prospects and challenges. In H. Spitzer, M. J. Twikirize, & G. G. Wairire (Eds), Professional social work in East Africa: Towards social development, poverty reduction and gender equality. Fountain Publishers. Twikirize, M. J., & Spitzer, H. (2019). Indigenous and innovative social work practice: Evidence from East Africa. In M. J. Twikirize & H. Spitzer (Eds), Social work practice in Africa: Indigenous and innovative approaches. Fountain Publishers.

1 Social work in Africa History and contemporary issues

This chapter introduces several fields of African social work and the philosophies, theories, and cultural values in which they are embedded, namely, African environmental social work, social work during grief and bereavement, African child adoption, care for older people, African family conflict and domestic violence resolution approach, spirituality-sensitive social work, and African mental health and suicide prevention mechanisms. Through colonisation, the professional social work model adopted in Africa ignored African cultural values, theories, and philosophies, even though they were (are) responsible for the survival of African communities. The chapter discusses the challenges and opportunities that social work in Africa is experiencing to provide the basis for indigenisation and decolonisation approaches proposed to address them in the next chapter. It also provides a critique and limitations of the Western social work model in the West.

African social work/helping Human needs and problems have always been part of society and the way societies have responded to these needs keeps changing. Social work as an academic discipline and a helping profession is about the use of knowledge and skills to respond to human needs and improve the wellbeing and functioning of people and the environment. Social workers work towards human and environmental flourishing. In African communities, collective helping approaches are predominantly adopted as opposed to individualised ones (Chilwalo, 2020; Wamara et al., 2022). In African communities, mutual responsibility for giving and receiving help is the norm (Chilwalo, 2020). It is generally accepted that everyone will need help at various points in life and, therefore, helping others is a personal and collective obligation and responsibility. Thus, help-­seeking is expected and those helped must reciprocate when called upon to do so. As Kazeem (2011) explains, for the self-­contained, self-­reliant person who keeps his mental and physical suffering or capability to himself so that others may not tap from his ability or express their sympathy when in distress, is regarded as churlish and one to be feared. (p. 2) DOI: 10.4324/9781003407157-1

2  Social work in Africa Whether rich or poor, everyone will need assistance with the simultaneous expectation that they will help, when necessary, though help-­giving and receiving can occur at the same time. Every individual in the community or society has a contribution to make towards the welfare and wellbeing of others, and a mutual obligation and responsibility for those experiencing problems is emphasised since problems are seen as part of being human. However, the social work literature and curricula has largely marginalised these African philosophies and approaches to helping and responding to needs in African communities, due to mostly ‘legitimate’ definitions of social work helping being confined to social services led by institutions of Western modernity (government and non-­governmental organisations or NGOs) and framed by ideologies of self-­determination and self-­ responsibility. Though the literature makes general statements of Indigenous communities’ reliance on Indigenous tribal structures and family, kinship, and mutual helping networks (Twikirize, 2014), there is a need for more ethnographic understanding of Indigenous African structures and their models of helping. In Africa, for example, family is defined differently, therefore, when such a concept is not expanded, often the conventional Western view of a nuclear family is assumed by many (Tascon & Ife, 2020). Therefore, in this section, I briefly expand on African social work helping systems in the fields of Indigenous African environmental social work, child adoption, mediation and counselling, African spiritually sensitive social work practice, and suicide prevention. This is not exhaustive and there are many other areas that need to be explored to shed light on African social work and the values and philosophies in which it is embedded. African environmental social work African community-­led environmental social work is embedded in the clan-­totem system and African cosmology. Africans are born into families that form part of an extended family system. Families then form clans that form tribes. In most cases, the concept of family refers to an extended family system comprising individuals related by blood, kinship, and a tribal identity. The family also includes the unborn, the living, and also those that have died or ancestors. Among the Baganda and Banyankore in Uganda for example, a person can have many fathers and mothers, that is, their actual father and then brothers to the actual father who are referred to as taata omuto or shwento (younger father). The same relation applies to sisters of your mother who are addressed as maama omuto or maawe-­ento (younger mother). The word cousin does not exist in most Indigenous Sub-­Saharan languages/dialects where mostly sisters or brothers are used (Rukariro, 2022). Beyond blood relatives, the extended family also includes people who may not be related by blood but have been adopted or have been brought up and cared for in that family. Clans and tribes are recognised as important in shaping social relations. Hence, where one comes from, or one’s clan and tribal origin is of vital importance compared to other contexts where other factors like social or material status are given prominence.The clan system regulates the marriage system and is used to protect against taboos like incest since one is not allowed to marry someone of the same clan because they are technically relatives. The clan system also influences the human relationship with the environment, particularly through the totem system.

Social work in Africa  3 Clans in Africa have totems allocated to them. The allocations of totems have been passed down from generation to generation (Rukariro, 2022). Through totems, Africans live in a way that is interconnected with, relational, and caring for the community and the environment. Totems are sacred objects, animals, birds, plant species, that clan members have a responsibility to protect for the next generation (Makgopa, 2019). They are a metaphoric and symbolic representation of the clans and groups of people. Totems unify a community or clan that shares them, who then take collective responsibility to care and protect them, ensuring human and environmental cohesion. It is through totems that animals, plants, birds, nearing extinction have been preserved and protected for the next generations. In Uganda, for example, there are over 100 plant and animal species that are considered totems among the Batooro (omuziro), Banyoro, and Baganda (omuzilo) tribes. Animals like the lion, pangolin, elephant, bushbuck, and crocodile; birds like the black crow, ibis, etc and plants like mushrooms etc are among the totems. A similar totem system can also be found among other tribes in other African countries like Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic (Rukariro, 2022). Mitupo (totems) exist in Zimbabwe among the Shona ethnic groups as well as in South Africa among the Zulu, Ndebele, etc. One cannot eat or kill their totem because they represent them and their clan. In fact, in some communities, like in Botswana, people can be identified and referred to using their totem, reinforcing interconnectedness and communality (Chilisa, 2014). Relationships can easily be established on the basis of one’s clan and totem and support provided as care for a brother or sister from the same clan and totem. Totems are believed to have spiritual significance and they are believed to watch over or assist a larger group than an individual person (Makgopa, 2019). Totems helped to prevent misbehaviour in society, for example, one could not swear by one’s totem if one had committed a crime, as this could cause bad luck for them and their family. Totems also represent the strengths and weaknesses of that clan and the people in it. They represent characteristics they must aspire to. In Kenya, for example, the Terik clan’s totem is the African elephant, and this challenges the clan to be as communal and as caring as elephants are. Totems reinforce strengths recognition, self-­confidence, and action in the community. They are “arbitrarily chosen to make the physical world adaptable, which is an efficient way of coping with the mode of life” (Makgopa, 2019, p. 160). As Chilisa (2014) explains: Our totems teach us that there has to be something that we are good at and that we have to take up that particular talent and run with it. Our people have been told they can’t achieve, they can’t do this, they can’t do that. In trying to free ourselves from these consequences of colonisation, our connection with the environment is our last and first resort. (p. 42) African cosmology reinforces the spiritual aspect of the environment, whereby local features like lakes, forests, mountains, plants, natural occurrences, like earthquakes, are accepted to harbour or demonstrate the presence of local spirits (­Chepkwony, 2007). The presence of a spirit implies the sacredness of the

4  Social work in Africa environment and the need for care and protection for it to also care and protect us. African cosmology is contained and passed on through stories, songs, dances, proverbs, among others. For example Banyankore traditional dances are about caring and valuing of animals particularly the cow and so are songs about the birds like the heron, how and what it eats, which knowledge emphasise protection of its habitat. Totems and values of interconnectedness are not restricted to only Africa but are also found in other continents like Australia though they are also largely marginalised in the predominantly anthropocentric, white social work (Morseu-­ Diop, 2013). The challenge for Africa is that totems are dying out and this is due to partly the “negative impact that formal education has had on the indigenous knowledge systems (IKS)” where such cultural ways of being are excluded from the Eurocentric curriculum (Makgopa, 2019, p. 159). Thus, Africans have to be intentional to restore and incorporate Indigenous knowledge systems for the protection of the environment and its humanity. Given the significance of totems and culture in the conservation and care for the environment, some organisations are to date drawing on this cultural significance to encourage the community’s efforts to preserve their totems, clans and identity. For example, Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Centre is revitalising environmental awareness by encouraging donations to preserve one’s totem and to encourage community interconnection with the environment (Rukariro, 2022). The current climate crisis around the world, including increasing natural disasters, loss of biodiversity, rising sea levels, and extraordinary rates of extinction, require re-­imagining of social work beyond the current anthropocentric Western discourses and practice models. They require social workers to challenge neoliberalist and capitalist systems that prioritise profit, growth, individualism, above everything else including living interdependently with the environment. Re-­ imagining environmental social work entails recognising the roles that an African Indigenous way of being with the environment, which places humans as interconnected rather than above/superior to the environment, can bring in creating collective, sustaining, caring, and resilient economic, political and social systems. Currently environmental and climate change activism is dominated by the voices of high-­income white males, sidelining the community that may not get the privilege of media attention (Blasingame, 2020). There is a need not only to reject “western-­capitalist oppression and never-­ending growth, but also to reverse a lack of appreciation for the power of community” (Blasingame, 2020, n.p). African community social work approach to grief and bereavement Grieving and bereavement and the support required are a communal and collective responsibility. When an individual dies, it is experienced as a family and community loss. When news is spread about a community loss, people gather at the individual’s home to comfort the family. Unlike in other cultures where mourning is by invitation, there are no such formalities in the African context, everyone is expected and welcomed to support the grieving family, including the social workers. At a time of loss, the grieving family is not expected to be left

Social work in Africa  5 alone or in private but rather support through physical and spiritual presence, complemented with financial or material contributions as well as help with the domestic chores like cooking and serving food to the mourners is expected and provided. African hospitality does not stop, even when there is death, mourners expect to be cared for. In fact, a decent burial is one where the mourners are well-­fed and cared for and this is believed to please the spirit of the person that has died. The opposite can result in curses, and bad luck, since the living and the dead are believed to be interconnected. Condolences are expected and money can be contributed but also items like food and drinks can also be brought. As many people as possible are expected to come to support the family and community that has lost a significant one. People need to spend the day and night with the grieving family and the local community may not engage in work for an agreed period, often two to three days. When it is an older person or head of the family, more days are expected as a sign of respect. Mourners spend the night singing songs that comfort the bereaved and also celebrate the deeds and life of the person that has died. Today in most rural communities, burial aid groups have been established to organise the funerals, contribute, cook and serve food to mourners, as well as make financial contributions (Jones, 2007; Twesigye et al., 2019). These groups are exemplars of the mutuality model discussed in detail in Chapter 6. As a form of support and emotional release, crying is expected when a loss has been experienced and one can cry as loud as they want as this helps them in expressing the pain they are feeling about the loss. After the burial, if the person has left orphans, a decision must be taken on how these children will be taken care of especially following the African adoption approach. African child adoption approach A collective approach to caring for children who have lost their parents is still common in African communities. There are different approaches that are taken to care for double orphans (those children who have lost both parents) or single orphans (those who have lost one parent). For double orphans, the children can be distributed among extended family members and kins who have the capability to live with and care for them. No discriminatory treatment is expected as the children are supposed to be taken care of as one does for one’s biological children. Where one parent is still alive, the family can agree that the children stay together with the remaining parent, and the family will support them by sending food, money for education, health care, etc. The mama mkubwa concept in Kenya is an example of this approach to caring for orphans where an elder maternal sister in a family (mama mkubwa) is the one charged with the role of caring for the family in times of death or any other crisis (Spitzer, 2014). The African approach to the adoption of children is unique in that children do not lose their privileges and connections with their original family, for example, their names are not changed, and often there is no paperwork/certificates done or signing needed. Parental rights are not extinguished as children stay in contact with both families. The child belongs to both the original family they

6  Social work in Africa were born in and where they are adopted, and they maintain and value both connections. This connection of two families allows the child to grow up knowing their identity, family tree/history, extended family, and culture, which are usually a challenge in other societies that have strict laws about releasing information on the biological family of legally adopted children. Help and support can also come from community members that may not necessarily be related to the family. It is not uncommon to find community members each supporting a child with the little they can because it is believed that whatever someone has, even if it is small, should be shared. There is a proverb that what gives is the heart and giving is not necessarily about what or how much wealth people have accumulated but the heart of giving. Below I share my story to shed light on the systems that support children who have lost their parents.

My story: Care for orphans When my father died in 1997, I became a single orphan and my mother needed help taking care of seven of us. I am the firstborn, and I was 12 at the time of loss. My mother has Indigenous knowledge in organic agriculture and so had to rely on her effort and skills to produce food and also raise money to pay school fees for us. Supporting seven children was going to be impossible without any help from family and the community. The first point of support my mother received was from my extended family. One of my uncles (shwento/young father) used to call us to come and collect food items like bananas, milk, fruits, and many others. He also provided us with bananas that we used to make fermented banana juice, which we sold to raise money for school fees and other daily expenses. With this uncle’s help, I managed to complete primary school. Joining secondary school required more money and, in this, I was helped by my other uncles but also by my secondary school teacher. This teacher saw that I had the potential to excel but I was struggling with finding school fees on time. The teacher is not related to me by blood, but he is now part of my family as my parent, given the kind of support and nurturing he provided me. He gave me shelter, so instead of walking for three hours after school back to my home, he offered to let me stay with him at the school quarters where I would also help him in preparing food and caring for his children who were attending a primary school nearby. My mother established and also joined already existing mutual help groups in the community focused on addressing the different needs of our family. Establishing rotational farming groups ensured we had enough food for our family and community members. The savings and loans groups she joined ensured we had money to borrow if we needed for school fees, medical expenses, and transportation. Her Bakimbiri clan group ensured

Social work in Africa  7 my mother was never alone in her care for her orphans as her clan members were there for her in various ways. And many other groups. Without the support from my extended family and community, I would never have made it to the university, which was the stage the government came in to provide me with a scholarship. My story about support from family and community members is not uncommon, but the government sponsorship one is uncommon as very few children from rural areas like mine rarely make it to the university level and with good marks to afford them access to a scholarship. None of my other siblings managed to get government sponsorship and, as the firstborn of the family, I have taken on the responsibility to pay school fees and provide necessities for the family. Given the socialisation from my mother and the vivid benefits of being part of mutual helping groups, I have also joined groups, for example community-­ organised savings and credit groups in Uganda and in Australia. In summary, family and community provide the foundational support that children need in this context, implying the need for enhancing these support systems and their philosophies of helping in social work. African philosophy of life is that the young and old live an interdependent and interconnected life and therefore the care for children is intertwined with the care for older people. African care for older people: role reversal theory The care for older people in African ways of being is informed by the role reversal theory, which emphasises values of reciprocity, interdependence, intergenerational connectedness, and spirituality as foundational considerations in the decisions about care by family and even social workers. Children are seen to co-­ exist and live interdependently with older people in their families and society as they all play important roles in society and at different but equally important stages. It is spiritual to care for one’s parents in Africa. Individuals must care for these parents because they gave birth and cared for them when they were a child. The proverbs emphasise this socialisation that children get from a very young age. For example, it is a moral obligation to care for your parents because the old woman looks after the child to grow its teeth and the young one in turn looks after the old woman when she loses her teeth. Caring for one’s parents is believed to have spiritual significance as so is the neglect, abuse, and harm to one’s parents. Dishonour, harm, neglect, and suffering of one’s parents, especially the mother, at the hands of her children is believed to result in shame, unhappiness, and suffering for those children in question when she passes away. In Zimbabwe they call it Kutanda Botso (Chavasa, 2021). And the vengeful spirit can only be rectified through spiritual cleansing, although prevention of bad luck and curses is encouraged by ensuring that children and the whole community care for its older people in the best way

8  Social work in Africa they can. Role reversal theory extends outside one’s parents to include other people who have provided support as one ascended into adulthood. One should never forget those who have helped in any way and values of honour and being thankful through tangible actions are emphasised in society. This implies that the responsibility to care for parents goes beyond care for an individual's biological parents. The fact that someone has given birth to the child/community automatically qualifies them to be cared for by the children, family, and community. Even those without biological children are supposed to be given children of uncles or aunties or from other community members to live and care for them. In role reversal theory, care provided is a matter of honour and not a legal obligation or profit venture. In this case, it is expected that also social workers engaged in gerontological social work are doing so as a matter of honour to older people and grandparents in the community. As Kazeem (2011) highlights, older people prefer a caring system and approach that allows them “to enjoy the company of different age grades within the family systems (offered by a traditional setup)” (p. 5) and therefore intergenerational model of social work with older people must be centered when working with African older people. Older people are seen as knowledgeable and sources of wisdom, accumulated from many years of lived experiences. The role of older people becomes one of providing counsel, and advice, on various topics of life like marriage, environmental protection, community work, family conflicts etc, which are topics that social workers grapple with daily. Older people are thus a strengths that should be at the centre of African gerontological social work, not just as care receivers but knowledge and wisdom resources in the social work classroom, practice, policy and research.. African social work with families (mediation and domestic violence) A familial, as opposed to an individualistic approach, is often taken when handling issues in marriage including domestic and family violence. A familial or collective approach is taken because, culturally, marriage is a contract between the families of the couple and not just between individuals (Kazeem, 2011). For example, in Ankole tradition in Uganda, at the traditional give-­away ceremony called kuhingira, the family of the girl holds the hand of the bride which is given to the father/ family of the groom, amid the community witnessing. This act is a public demonstration that it’s the two families and communities coming together in the marriage, which makes it a collective responsibility. In case of any conflicts or disagreements, respected elders from both the man’s and the woman’s families constitute ‘a family court’ where the couple is listened to and counselled. Such family mediation takes place within one of the families, in the community. This approach is very different from, for example, the approach where an individual travels to report and seek mediation from a social worker, whose office is located miles away from where the couple lives and where the crimes are committed. Location in the community means that people know the truth regarding the issues being reported, be they domestic violence or neglect of caring responsibilities, and the victim/survivor has some witnesses and support in the community, compared to the probation office/ social worker approach where the client presents his or her case alone, in front of

Social work in Africa  9 a social worker. The goal in the Indigenous familial approach to resolving family matters is never to determine and then pit the winner against the loser, as so often turns out in the competitive, judgmental, and adversarial legal approach often used in courts of law and police, which social workers engage in, some cases. The aim is to listen to both sides of the story and hold the one in the wrong accountable for their actions but in a way that leaves the family and community intact. Individual accountability for actions as well as family and community harmony are key considerations by the Indigenous family court because conflicts in any marriage are not just about those individuals but their families and communities alike. Elders come up with actions to be taken and enforcement of these actions is witnessed by the whole community that often knows what is happening in each one’s marriage. The approach that relies on respected elders and family counsellors in the extended family is advantageous in the sense that these persons are easily accessible in the communities. They are well known, and they live within the communities where the issues are happening. They can be reached all the time. The disadvantage is that there have been cases where women are particularly not listened to or women are encouraged to remain in abusive marriages. However, it should be noted that there is no universally proven approach to dealing with issues of domestic violence and family instabilities since the adversarial family court system adopted in most countries has also been found to silence victims/survivors especially women given that it is ‘too confronting’; inaccessible due to costs and overly complex processes; open to abuse of process including ongoing coercion and control of victims (Common Wealth of Australia, 2017). In addressing domestic and family violence, it is most likely that all the methods adopted and preferred by the couples depend on their cultural philosophies and ideologies and available resources and systems. In most African countries where systems like the police or courts of law are located miles away from communities and are accessible a few hours in the day, community-­ led models that rely on friends, family, and community, are more accessible and their operations and structures are more understandable to the local community as they are informed by local practices and philosophies of helping. They are pragmatic and sustainable given the resource constraints that are crippling institutions like police in African contexts. The challenges that social workers in Africa confront including “weak public sectors unable to meet needs of the people; underdeveloped institutions including legal institutions unable to guarantee rule of law”, warrant community-­led alternatives like the one explored above (Mungai et al., 2014, p. 177). Religion and spirituality-sensitive social work Spirituality and religion are very important sources of hope, passion, and care for most people in Africa. Faith, religion, and spirituality help people make sense of the issues in their lives and they are also a coping mechanism (Twesigye, 2014; Tusasiirwe et al., 2022). When people experience issues like illnesses, grief, loss, natural disasters like droughts, earthquakes, they turn to their spirituality to cope, manage, overcome or even accept the suffering as their destiny. Spirituality becomes a source of resilience. When people confide in others in the community about their struggles, faith and spirituality are used to affirm them and assure them

10  Social work in Africa that they will overcome; that their problems will end at some point. African spiritually sensitive social work involves utilising spirituality as an asset and resource in working alongside people and communities in different areas. Spirituality provides a very important prevention mechanism or tool for mental health and suicide African mental health and suicide prevention mechanism Suicide is said to originate from many causes which include feelings of hopelessness about a situation; feelings of lack of capacity to solve the situation or feelings that the only way out or to end the pain is to take one’s life. Feeling worthless, lack of belongingness, isolation, and loneliness or loss of a loved one and a strong source of support could also trigger suicide. African Obuntu/Ubuntu theory and philosophies provide a preventative approach of ensuring that one does not reach such a level of having such thoughts and feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness, etc, particularly through the foundational values emphasised. Below I share some of the foundational values that offer a preventative approach to poor mental health and suicide, which should be at the core of African mental health social work. In general, 1 2 3 4

5 6 7

Valuing care for one another and not putting individual interests and needs first. This value of selfless care is intertwined with the value of service. Valuing being of service to others also ensuring that people feel worthy in the community. Valuing co-­existence with others and also showing empathy, and compassion for those around you. Valuing community to ensure that no one is left isolated and lonely. The community comprises the living and the living dead, visible and invisible, and spiritual and ancestors. Ensuring that there is communal support and responsibility for people who have lost their loved ones who were sources of support. Grieving alone can often trigger feelings and thoughts of hopelessness that may trigger suicidal thoughts. Valuing family and ensuring that families care for and protect each other in a community Valuing the strengths of each and every person in the community. Recognising and nurturing the thought that each one in existence has something they can contribute to life and a community. Valuing older people and ensuring that there are elders, easily accessible in the community so that anyone can confide in them when they experience situations that are overwhelming. Grandmothers are particularly an important source of counsel for people in need as they are approachable, caring, good listeners, naturally nurturing and uplifting. Based on this valuing of older people, evidence from Zimbabwe shows a successful friendship bench model where grandmothers are at the forefront of proving mental health care and psychological interventions to people experiencing common mental health disorders like anxiety, depression, etc (Chibanda et al., 2015). In most communities, gender matters and influences whom one approaches to ask for

Social work in Africa  11

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guidance. Men are believed to have a better understanding and experiential knowledge about what it means to be a man, and therefore are expected to be well positioned to offer guidance for fellow men, and also women are believed to better guide women also drawing from the power of lived experience. Valuing spirituality which teaches total surrender of things or circumstances to a higher power or supreme being that is believed to provide, and sustain, everyone and everything. Spirituality nurtures a belief that there is always a way out if we seek the intervention of a supreme being above us and such a belief keeps people hopeful and calm in hard times believing that things will change. The African perspective on life is that problems and even suffering are part and parcel of life and therefore one should expect that they will experience challenges at a given point in their lives. Eventually, death is also believed to be a fundamental part of life although it does not mean that life ends when one dies given the belief in ancestor hood and their influence on the living. Valuing ritualistic practices and actions. Rituals like cleansing are believed to bring healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, and even restoration of life. Rituals like omukaago among Batoro establish life-­friendships vital for mental health and community belonging. However, rituals must be performed if someone has committed suicide to prevent the others in the community from following suit and to cleanse them. The treatment of the body of someone who has committed suicide may also act as a deterrence to other people to do the same because such bodies are not prayed for and whoever touches the body must be cleansed and prayed for. Taking a life contrasts with the idea of leaving a life of legacy which the African worldview emphasises. Valuing the sacred nature of life. This value emphasises that life should never be taken away and it should be lived in a communal way. Life is interconnected to death and there is life after death, therefore, one is challenged from a young age to think about their life on earth and after one dies, especially about the need to leave a legacy for the family and community. Valuing philosophies of life as about failure and success and the importance of lived experience as a teaching tool and source of knowledge for self and community. Problems are seen to be part of life that ought not to be avoided. Valuing collectivism in solving problems rather than facing the issues as an individual. Valuing humility and willingness to learn from others, knowing that no one is all-­knowing. Valuing relationships, and harmony, as opposed to materialistic gains. In East Africa, the Obuntu maxim of When you have Obuntu or ubuntu, it gives you abantu (people), who give you ebintu (things), helps to reduce one’s pressure to amass material wealth, which can sometimes result in poor mental health and suicidal thoughts.

African cultural values, theories, philosophies, and approaches of responding to needs and social support systems, although remaining responsible for the collective survival of African communities, were undermined, displaced, and disorganised by colonisers who pronounced them ‘backward’, and as having no place in the

12  Social work in Africa modern society they were envisioning (Twikirize, 2014). However, this ‘modern’ state was only a vision or dream that was never achieved for most African communities, and community-­led models of helping and responding to human needs persisted. However, there is still hesitation to acknowledge these Indigenous and community-­led theories, and models of helping in professional social work amid calls that social workers especially in Africa go back to the drawing board to learn from and find ways to work alongside them in addressing issues impacting the communities (Chilwalo, 2020). The colonial white Western social work based on British, American-­centric cultural values and epistemologies was imposed on African communities as a superior model of doing social work. However, this model has had challenges around its fit-­for-­purpose in the African context and these will be discussed below as they provide barriers but also opportunities to create social work that centres the people and is culturally appropriate.

Social work education and practice challenges in Africa: empirical evidence In this section, I analyse what empirical studies tell us about social work in different regions of the African continent. The challenges that social work as profession faces are particularly given focus. There is some consensus established that the colonial roots of the professional model adopted in most of the African regions remain the foundation/basis for these challenges. From the North to the South, West to the East of Africa, the social work profession is struggling with issues of cultural or contextual appropriateness and local relevance. Appropriateness and relevance go hand in hand whereby appropriateness is about “the most suitable method (of intervention in a given situation) based on an understanding of the context of the needs in the particular situation … [and] relevance relates to theory and practice in social work” (Mupedziswa & Sinkamba, 2014, p. 145). That is a theory that informs better social work practice or is appropriate to the needs of the practice. There has been a sustained struggle for the social work profession to overcome the legacy of Western-­based models of intervention which lack a foundation in Indigenous African cultures and have also failed to respond effectively to the needs of people at the grassroots (Spitzer, 2014). Unlike in Western contexts where social work evolved to meet the needs of vulnerable populations suffering the impacts of industrialisation, modernisation, and urbanisation, the professional social work model in African countries evolved out of colonisation, whiteness, and imperialism, and it was never from the start established to serve the needs of or offer social support to the colonised citizens (Spitzer, 2014). Rather, through colonial planning, administrative structures, economic systems, education systems, and social welfare services were established to serve the colonial and missionary agenda of an undisrupted, unchallenged colonial rule and exploitation of resources of Africa. Taking the case of Uganda, colonial social work practice “aimed at dealing with the social problems of children living on the streets, ­delinquents and rehabilitation of drug addicts in order to minimise disruptions to the smooth running of the colonial government’s programme” (Twikirize, 2014, p. 138).

Social work in Africa  13 Remedial welfare services were to be provided only “if serious distress with possible grave political consequences was to be avoided” (Ministry of Social Development, 1959, p. 2). The same is true of Tanzania where the colonial-­imposed professional social work was a tool to ensure law enforcement (Mabeyo, 2014, p. 127). The inherent exclusive approach of the professional social work model was explicit from the start where social security was provided only to the white settler community and a few African elites serving in colonial administration (Barya, 2011). Health, environmental, and sanitation services were introduced, not to protect Indigenous Ugandans from disease but to ensure the good health of colonialists by preventing Africans from ‘spreading’ diseases to Europeans (Omolo-­ Okalebo et al., 2010). The introduction of these social services was informed by outright racism and reinforced through racist theories like mosquito and germ theory, developed by such theorists and agitators of segregation policies in Africa as Professor William Simpson and Ronald Ross. Services including running water, housing, and health care were provided in the segregated white settler Kampala residences like Kololo and Nakasero, while the Indigenous Africans continued to wallow in ill health and poverty, amid their resources’ exploitation and exhaustion (Omolo-­Okalebo et al., 2010).1 The British established hybrid systems of the Westminster model of governance to ease their colonial administration. As stipulated in the African Native Authority Ordinance of 1919, under decentralisation, chiefs were appointed at the village, sub-­county, and county levels, and given the responsibility of collecting taxes imposed by the British on peasants and their crops. They had to maintain law and order on behalf of the colonial government centered in Kampala capital city (Ojambo, 2012). When African governments attained independence, the racist and colonial systems were never abolished but maintained, and there remained continued influence of the West through international organisations like the United Nations. For example, Uganda, 16 days after its independence on 9 October 1962, joined United Nations, and given the modus operandi and the power dynamics in the organisation, it is safe to say that the African countries are still under the rule of the countries with Veto powers who were also former colonisers including the UK, USA, and France, among others. It is not surprising that current studies in the different parts of Africa still decry the colonial legacy of the imposed professional social work model and its lack of relevance to the needs of African people in the local communities. Below I provide findings from the empirical studies for the four different regions of Africa. Starting with West Africa, in a recent systemic mapping of social work education in West African countries of, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote Divore, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, Sierra Leone, Senegal), Canavera et al. (2019) found out that although there was a diverse range of training programmes, British and French models of social work still dominated, almost 60-­plus years after the independence of these countries. The curriculum “was too theoretical or too rooted in social work practice in Europe and North America” and there was a heavy reliance on social work principles, values, and models, originating from the global

14  Social work in Africa North (Canavera et al., 2019, p. 89). The need for locally developed training materials that address the unique nature of social work context in the region is now described as chronic as calls for social work that is rooted in community development and the strong social and familial ties existing in the communities in Africa were yet to be eventuated. There were vast external short training courses for social workers but with the aim of equipping them to perform specific tasks on behalf of international NGOs and the UN. The researchers concluded that social work in the region needed not to just be adapted to fit regional, national, and local realities but to be redefined and re-­imagined. The need for training that builds on local knowledge to handle issues like child custody in polygamous marriages, family mediation, mental health and counselling, social protection issues, and street children, among others, was highlighted. The need for locally identified social work values and goals and role clarity for social workers remain an urgent one. In North Africa, Ibrahim et al. (2020), studied students’ perspectives on social work education in ten countries of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. They found a disconnect between social work education and practice because mostly a Western, particularly, North American model and theoretical assumptions of social work are predominantly being taught in the region. The implementation of Western standards in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) brought about issues in ethics, sustainability, cultural efficacy, and appropriateness to address country-­specific problems. Furthermore, there was a lack of public recognition of social work as a profession and a lack of understanding of what it is. Students perceived their education to be insufficient to help them face the realities in the communities as social workers. The curriculum content lacked real-­world application in MENA region. A substantive reform of the content of social work education was recommended to address the disconnect between education and practice in the region. Curriculum issues in social work education were also reported in Eastern and Southern Africa amid efforts of striving for relevance by the social work institutions. In a study of 25 institutions of social work education in Southern and East Africa, Hochfeld et al. (2009) found that dependence on Western social work literature and the slow progress of generating Indigenous teaching materials was still a challenge for these institutions. There is an over-­reliance on textbooks and other materials authored in North America, UK, and Europe, an issue highlighted by other researchers like Twikirize (2014), and Mupedziswa and Sinkamba (2014). Therefore, students attain new information and knowledge but which lacks fit-­for-­purpose or relevance for the context they are to practice in. There continues to be a lack of concepts, methods, theories, models, and case examples, drawn from the bottom-­up in the local communities that social workers are or will be practising. “Students spend a lot of energy and time trying to interpret and adopt concepts and theories to their local contexts. In many cases, some of these concepts lack equivalents in the local languages, making adaptation a complex undertaking” (Twikirize, 2014, p. 83). Like in North and West Africa, in East and Southern Africa, there is a struggle for the profession’s recognition among local communities because concepts,

Social work in Africa  15 including social work or social worker (in their current Western formulation) lack equivalent translation into local and Indigenous languages. Knowledge is socially constructed and thus, Western concepts, theories, and models carry with them cultural and epistemological assumptions and interpretations of the west, which may not be applicable, or may even contradict those in other contexts. But what’s wrong with the white Western model of social work in Africa? 1 Western models are narrow, remedial, and curative in nature; that these models tend to ignore the issue of traditional forms of welfare and hence they come short as they are not rooted in local culture and they focus on individual pathologies (Mupedziswa & Sinkamba, 2014, p. 146). 2 The social welfare model remains entrenched in residual conceptions of social welfare that are “individually oriented and presume the existence of some social problem that should, once identified, be resolved, reduced or at least ameliorated” (Hölscher, 2008, p. 115), reinforcing the individualistic, curative, reactive, and pathological focus of social work services. 3 Western social work does not identify itself with African culture and lacks translation into local and Indigenous languages (Twikirize, 2014). 4 In African contexts, the adoption of the Western model of social work has meant ignoring and marginalising the local. Narrow definitions of social work still exist, and the focus is always on what is happening internationally and nationally, with local initiatives that are community-­led often neglected or ignored. Social work education and practice focus on alignment with international and national policies, standards, procedures, and conventions, than local norms and practices. Often you hear social workers talking about how their practice aligns with United Nations standards, conventions and procedures, even if it may not align with local values and standards in the community of operation. Researcher Chilwalo (2020) while referring to child protection in Africa and in particular Zambia found out that the focus was mainly placed at national level actors as well as focusing on international level standards without paying much focus on local level actors to address child protection problems. In instances where local-­level actors were integrated, it was mainly in a top-­down fashion (p. 11). 5 Western social work is a colonial product and tool, imposed on Africa to silence, devalue, disorganise, and marginalise African ways of doing, knowing, and being (Tusasiirwe, 2020; Gray et al., 2013). Western social work has an individual focus and reinforces the values of a capitalist, modern society. It is not a universal model of social work, but it is an Indigenous model to the West where it was established to deal with the problems of industrialisation, urbanisation, and modernisation the countries were experiencing at that time (Spitzer, 2014). It is not an Indigenous model to African countries and was closed to addressing issues of colonisation, dispossession and exploitation that African countries were exposed to. The biggest challenge of the Eurocentric ideology is that “it masquerades as a universal view in many fields” including social work (Mabvurira & Makhubele, 2018, p. 15).

16  Social work in Africa The critique of the Western social work model being remedial with a focus on case work or individual needs some further discussion. Social workers are unsatisfied with the remedial or curative model because it addresses symptoms and effects of social problems rather than the root causes of the problems. Such an approach is likened to the actions of a cleaner who mops the floor but leaves the tap that is causing the flooding of the floor open. In most African countries, communities are flooded with social-­cultural, economic, environmental, and political problems like poverty, unemployment, homelessness, domestic and family violence, corruption, droughts and famine, loss and bereavement, access to health care, education, among others (Gray & Ariong, 2017; Kurevakwesu, 2017; Bar-­on, 2003; Osei-­Hwedie & Boateng, 2018; Twikirize, 2014). These social problems are perpetuated through the historical colonial experience and the current neo-­colonialist, neo-­liberal agenda being promoted by donors and international agencies, including the World Bank and the IMF (Osei-­Hwedie, 1993; Sewpaul, 2014). Neoliberal Structural adjustment policies and programmes that promote privatisation and the pursuit of economic growth have dictated cutbacks in public spending on people’s services such as health and education while increasing profits for the colonisers and increasing the debt burden for African countries (Osei-­Hwedie, 1993; Sewpaul, 2014). The impact of structural adjustment policies has been borne squarely by the poor and disadvantaged population groups. Mass poverty in Africa is a consequence of poor policy choices and a lack of interventions that destabilise the system to address structural constraints and inequality (Sewpaul, 2014). The largely remedial, individualistic, and curative social work has proven to be mostly ineffective. This is because pressure is put on the individual to cope or change themselves when the structural obstacles causing the individual difficulties are left unchanged. Addressing structural oppression requires social workers to be engaged in intensive macro-­level practice, which involves influencing and formulating policy as well as advocacy for the appropriate allocation of resources for services that benefit the poor and reduce inequalities (Twikirize, 2014). This means going beyond “adopting status quo, system maintenance functions and practices” (Sewpaul, 2014, p. 39). It requires a shift in focus from “soft” services like casework to “hard” social work policies and practices. This is equally a shift in African social work practice necessary to address “the gap between theory, western theory and practice in response to local needs” (Osei-­Hwedie, 1993, p. 22). The resources available are insufficient to enable individualised, curative case-­ work interventions (Osei-­Hwedie & Boateng, 2018). Formal welfare institutions are weak, with “a limited number of people who seek and are assisted by formal social services” (Rankopo & Osei-­Hwedie, 2011). Formal social welfare systems have simply failed to penetrate local communities (Bar-­on, 2003; Osei-­Hwedie & Boateng, 2018), and there are limited NGO interventions to fill the gap left by the lack of government interventions (Bar-­on, 2003). Thus, the social work set-­up in Africa today is different from the one common in some Western countries where social workers are part of a service network where their roles of referral and broker can be used to guarantee client support (Bar-­on, 2003).

Social work in Africa  17 The irony is that social workers, despite the appreciation of the structural roots of the issue, still prefer therapeutic casework. On 27 May 2022 during Africa day Indaba/celebrations, social workers across Africa decried how students are more interested in counselling or providing therapy to individuals struggling collectively (Africa Social Work Network, 2022). Other approaches like community and social action remain unappreciated as the struggle to go beyond ‘counselling the hungry and poor’rages on. This band-­aid counselling has been described as “unhelpful or less helpful help” that social workers provide in scenarios where the appropriate support is to “move beyond first aid efforts and work to address issues of economic marginalisation and deprivation of their clients” (Anucha, 2008, p. 260). The critiques of the Western casework/therapeutic model are not only in Africa but also in the West where the model originated and remains prevalent. The critique of the Western social work model in the West is covered later in this chapter.

Other challenges social work is facing in Africa There are other issues that social work is grappling with at a macro level. Brain drain Social work scholars Mupedziswa and Sinkamba (2014) talk of the challenge of brain drain that continues to affect the African context where most of its trained and highly qualified social work graduates migrate to different Western countries instead of serving their own countries. The number of social workers that graduate each year is already negligible in most African countries and this is worsened when those African elites migrate leaving a resource gap of social work educators, qualified field placement supervisors or even curriculum experts to steer locally relevant curricula in the region. Western countries like the UK, Canada, Australia, and the USA, are some of the popular countries African social work graduates migrate to. The reasons motivating the search for greener pastures are partly because, in these countries, social work is widely recognised and well compensated compared to African countries (Kurevakwesu, 2017). Also, from the author’s experience, it is not surprising that African social work educators prefer to teach or work in Western countries given the Eurocentric curricula that prepare them for these contexts. The orientation and training in Africa emphasises Western models and theories, thus resulting in the accumulation of knowledge and skills better utilised in Western countries with the appropriate systems and policies. We are trained to do Western social work and therefore we look for opportunities in the west where our skills and knowledge fit. In most African countries, although social workers have a role to play in national development, they are often employed in non-­social work-­related positions like bank tellers. Most governments have not invested much in social work and thus there are no adequate opportunities for employment for social work graduates. In a country like Uganda, while there is a need for social workers in most government departments engaged in community development, the central government instead of increasing staff resources, has

18  Social work in Africa responded by putting a moratorium on recruitment and reducing funding to 65 per cent of established positions (Bukuluki et al., 2017). However, the issue of African social workers’ brain drain can in fact be viewed as brain gain for African social work since most of the social work educators in particular have been agents of knowledge mobility in the West and have produced the much-­needed literature on African social work which the continent badly needs. The author herself has authored a number of publications that contribute to challenging the universalisation of social work curriculum, which may not have been possible to produce in Uganda where she was teaching and marking classes of over 1200 students per semester, resulting in research and publication aspects stalling. In my publication journey, Kenyan-­born but Canadian-­ based social worker Njoki Nathani Wane has been a source of inspiration and challenge to me especially in giving me the confidence to value my Indigenous education and draw on it to resist further colonisation in the social work classroom and personal lives. Thus, having African role models resisting colonisation and creating systemic changes in the West, particularly the way social work is conceptualised and taught, can result in the creation of social work that values the diverse knowledge systems, beyond white Western colonial dominance. There are increasingly African and other global South or international students coming to the West for their advanced social work training and having African social work educators in the West is seen as a positive influence on these students who are challenged to contribute to the efforts of creating a culturally appropriate and contextually relevant profession in Africa and internationally. These African social workers have insider knowledge and experience to critique and inform social work in the African context as well as international and Western contexts. Absence/lack of a strong association or organisation to oversee social work education in Africa The lack of a strong and effective organisation of schools of social work impedes the transformation of social work education in Africa (Mwansa, 2010). Drawing inspiration from other continents like North America, Asia-­Pacific, there is some thinking that the challenges facing social work education could be addressed if a strong organisation existed to direct, regulate, and shape the education and training of social workers in Africa (Mwansa, 2010). Such an organisation would serve a number of functions including providing leadership in the development and strengthening of research, setting standards of excellence for schools of social work, providing space for networking, for staff and student exchanges in Africa as well as enhancing information flow across schools of social work. Such an organisation would provide a voice for social workers and would be a forum where social work academics can debate the challenges and opportunities of social work education in Africa. However, for such an organisation to transform social work education it needs to command legitimacy from social work educators and should not be a copy and paste of what happens in international or in Western contexts. An association of schools of social work exists in Africa (Association of African Schools of Social Work in Africa [ASSWA]). However, the challenges of

Social work in Africa  19 lack of financial support, lack of a strong membership base, lack of recognition from institutions of higher learning, and some schools not knowing that the association exists, impede ASSWA from providing the leadership and stewardship needed to transform social work education in Africa. The author as a member of the executive board of ASSWA, knows how the association is led by highly qualified (professors, minimum PhDs), experienced, committed volunteer social work academics who are interested in the transformation of social work. But these volunteer workers are also struggling with unmanageable workloads in their places of employment in universities. Also on the board are regional representatives who represent the four regions of Africa but who also face a diversity of issues, irrespective of being on the same continent. Some of the regions of the continent are cut off from other regions, where few social work schools, and faculty exist. The schools of social work that the association relies on to pay their membership are experiencing financial difficulties. Paying membership fees to ASSWA is the lowest priority of institutions or schools of social workers struggling to pay the salaries of their own staff. For the association to move forward, some level of financial boost is a must, particularly to finance the brilliant research projects the association would love to see implemented, organise forums to foster debate, and fund projects that will allow information exchange as well as writing and exchange of African grown and written texts and learning materials for social work education in Africa. Finances would also allow the employment of an administrator to complement the running of the association’s activities especially in establishing an office where a five-­day service could be offered to schools needing support from the association. However, associations can also be detrimental, especially where they become agents of control rather than support through imposing Western standards, and curricula to schools of social work instead of supporting them (Gray & Fook, 2004). Indeed in Africa, there is a continued push for professionalisation and regulation of social work, inspired by other countries around the world. Professionalising of social work is often viewed as a solution to the lack of legitimacy, status, community sanction, and grassroots public awareness about social work in general. The most recent country on this path has been Nigeria, which in 2022, after over two decades of advocacy, had the National Council for Social Work Bill 2022 signed into law. It is anticipated that the legalising of social work will result in strengthening and regulating “practice in Nigeria the way it is done in other countries of the world” (Adebayo, 2022, n.p.). Professionalisation of social work in Africa can break or make social work and its push should be after careful consideration of its benefits and costs. Professionalisation of social work involves seeking legitimacy and recognition of social work as a registered profession. This push for professionalism has historically been inspired by drawing from old professions like medicine, nursing, and law, and calls as well as discourses for a positivist scientific approach, progress, rationality by social work, among others. To be a registered profession means that a formal government body is established to oversee an approved list of practitioners to ensure that services are delivered safely and by accredited or qualified practitioners. The benefits of such regulation and protection of the title ‘social worker’ where there is control of who can call

20  Social work in Africa themselves and later alone practice as a social worker, is that it may likely exclude incompetent unqualified practitioners. However also, in reality, a false sense of security may be assumed since there are possibilities of scenarios of very dodgy but registered practitioners (Tangney & Mendes, 2022). There are also arguments that registration is likely to raise awareness and professional standing of social work, especially among other professionals, but it is also likely to widen the gap between social workers from the much larger group of non-­social work-­trained human service practitioners. Registration or licensing is also most likely to result in exclusion rather than inclusion of people with lived experience and Indigenous knowledges but which may not be prioritised where university qualifications are often the gate pass in most accrediting bodies. Particularly in the African context where education is paid for and therefore accessed by those who have, does not privileging of university qualifications perpetuate inequality and access for those already advantaged? In fact, it can be argued that professionalising of social work is most likely to widen elitism in social work as well as perpetuate harmful power imbalances between professionals and the clients they serve (Tangney & Mendes, 2022). For African countries already struggling with financial or cash poverty, does not registration worsen the financial burden, especially through the licence/accreditation fees that must be paid for one to be recognised as a professional? There are arguments that registration may improve the accountability of social workers and demand quality service, especially through mandatory professional development and supervision but it is also likely to reduce progress towards decolonised and culturally responsive practice given the potential risk of focus on control and standard as well as narrowed definitions of legitimate social work roles or scope. Therefore, the African context requires that associations of social workers re-­examine if there are sufficient numbers of qualified social workers to address the vast geographical and issue-­based scopes in the continent. The focus on registration would highlight the skill limitations of individual social workers at the expense of addressing systemic problems around service access and resourcing as well as restraining political activism and advocacy for fear of being stripped of their ‘licence/registration’ (Tangney & Mendes, 2022). The pursuit of professionalism and status can also result in intensified bureaucratic and or defensive practice on the side of social workers as already witnessed in most countries that have taken this route, especially in the West (Sewpaul & Henrickson, 2019).

Critique and limitations of Western social work in the West The Western models of social work which focus primarily on the individual have also had significant limitations in the West where currently alternatives are being sought. Without a doubt social workers in the West are making a difference and playing significant roles in the health, community-­based, multicultural, correctional, social action, and child protection settings, among others. Amidst limitations. The residual social welfare state model that emphasises neo-­liberal worldviews that individuals must take responsibility for meeting their own basic needs, has resulted in bureaucratic interventions that blame the victims, neglecting the structural causes of personal problems like homelessness, crime, mental health issues, etc (Morley et al., 2019). Social work clients are subjected to punitive

Social work in Africa  21 bureaucratic processes of assessments, and eligibility to determine the deserving from non-­deserving or unworthy of help. This judgemental assessment is combined with the stigma associated with welfare benefits that label people as ‘dole bludgers’ and ‘lazy’ (Rivett, 2020). The clients that meet the ‘mutual obligations’ criteria are provided with ‘first aid’ or meagre welfare benefits to avoid the promotion of welfare dependence while issues of class, race, disability, and gender-­related inequalities remain unchanged (Morley et al., 2019). In summary, individualised ‘direct practice’ dominates as social work remains an activity of “individuals helping individuals, with individual needs, rights, and aspirations” (Ife, 2020, p. 32). ‘Collective care for collective issues’ is still a work in progress despite the need given the existence of collective and Indigenous communities in the West (Baltra-­Ulloa, 2013, p. 88). Beyond the individual is a focus on family which is mostly the nuclear family comprised of blood relatives. The more extended and kinship-­based and collective connections tend to be ignored in white Western social work (Tascon & Ife, 2020). Social workers often talk about how their profession is focused on helping vulnerable groups. The term ‘vulnerable’ means that social workers are coming in at a time when things have fallen apart, and they come in to pick the pieces. For some, being in need and later alone acknowledging it in front of a professional worker, and going ahead to seek professional help, can be difficult, particularly in these societies that emphasise individual responsibility for everything including achievement, problem-­solving, success, happiness etc. The decision to ask for help becomes never comfortably made or normalised. The victim-­blaming attitude makes it even more difficult to admit that things are falling apart and that someone cannot help themselves. The focus on ‘the vulnerable’ means that professional social workers deal with those outside the norm. Those unable to help themselves. Therefore, seeking professional help becomes associated with failure, and loss of dignity or worth for some people. Would social work be felt differently if a non-­deficit universal approach was used where services would be available for everyone in the community, without being based on need/vulnerability? That means everyone would be welcome to an NGO or community centre-­whether vulnerable or not, young and old, rich or poor etc; where there is no expectation of judgment, and a strong sense of community is provided and felt for all. The concept vulnerable is problematic as it does not acknowledge the nuance of life. Someone vulnerable in one area might be stronger in another area although strengths are often overshadowed by the predominant focus on deficits. Resilience and vulnerability may be happening at the same time but a focus on vulnerability most times overshadows resilience as well. This is worsened by professional social workers asking some of the clients to prove their vulnerability or need during assessments to be able to determine if they are eligible or deserving for the help provided. Then clients are taken off that ‘help’ if things go back to normal, and when they break down again, they go through another process of telling their story to prove their need. This process is exhausting if not a hindrance to seeking help for some people. This power-­laden assessment approach is exacerbated by the emphasis on a distant or boundary-­ rigid and disembodied professional social work helper (Tascon & Ife, 2020). Also, the white Western social work, embedded in the modern enlightenment view that centres on an anthropocentric, worldly or living individual, has been

22  Social work in Africa described as unsustainable and headed for multiple economic, social, political, cultural, and ecological crises if not catastrophes (Tascon & Ife, 2020; Park, 2017). The anthropocentric worldview where the individual is seen as superior to nature or the environment has resulted in ecological and climate crisis that has resulted in suffering for many of our social work clients yet there are limited government commitments to address these issues at a macro-­level (Ife, 2020). The white Western model has also been limited in that its predominant focus is on the living clients yet death and dying and remembrance of the dead or ancestors is key to the ways of life of most people of Indigenous and migrant background even in the West (Park, 2017). In summary, the privileging of the individual, living human, in social work over the collective, living and dead, human and nature, central to Indigenous and migrant communities in the West, has been resisted by a growing movement of social workers seeking for solutions beyond white Western colonial dominance (Tascon & Ife, 2020). There is growing resistance to social work in the West to draw from lived realities and epistemologies from collective, non-­anthropocentric communities and their worldviews, as a matter of social justice. The search for creative alternatives has gone back to epistemologies left in the margins like the non-­Western knowledges embedded in Indigenous cultures. This means that the calls for indigenisation and decolonisation are global and local around the world. We turn to these calls in the African context in the next chapter.

Note 1 The author has decided to use Indigenous with capitalisation to refer to those African Peoples and their knowledges, ways of knowing and being that predate colonialism. Hence, all people in Africa who originated on the continent before colonisation are Indigenous Peoples and this excludes other people who trace their ancestry to continents other than Africa (Wamara et al., 2022). Indigenous Africans, like other Indigenous Peoples around the world, have “shared experiences of dispossession, discrimination, exploitation and marginalisation precipitated through colonial projects perpetrated against indigenous communities by colonial and neocolonial state administrations” (Gray et al., 2013).

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Social work in Africa  23 Blasingame, S. (2020). Decolonising Climate Change Conversation. https://blog.ecosia.org/ decolonizing-­climate-­change/ Bukuluki, P., Mukuye, R., Mubiru, J., & Namuddu, J. (2017). Social protection and social work in Uganda. In M. Gray (Ed.), The handbook of social work and social development in Africa. Routledge. Canavera, M., Akesson, B., Landis, D., Armstrong, M., & Meyer, E. (2019). Mapping social work education in the West Africa region: Movements toward indigenization in 12 countries’ training programs. International Journal of Social Welfare, 29(1), 83–95. Chavasa, N. (2021). The kutanda botso ritual as a means of pr utanda botso ritual as a means of preventing femicide targeting biological mothers in shona communities of Zimbabwe. The Journal of International Women’s Studies, 22(1), 473–485. https:// vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol22/iss1/28 Chepkwony, A. K. A. (2007). African traditional medicine: Healing and spirituality. Science, Religion, and Society, 2, 642–648. Chibanda, D., Bowers, T., Verhey, R., Rusakaniko, S., Abas, M., Weiss, H. A., & Araya, R. (2015, 05/23). The Friendship Bench programme: A cluster randomised controlled trial of a brief psychological intervention for common mental disorders delivered by lay health workers in Zimbabwe. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 9(1), 21. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13033-­015-­0013-­y Chilisa, B. (2014). Indigenous research is a journey: An interview with Bagele Chilisa. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 2, 41–44. Chilwalo, M. (2020). Community-­based, endogenous and Ubuntu inspired child protection mechanisms: Case of the girl power program in addressing school-­related gender-­ based violence in Chibombo District of Zambia. African Journal of Social Work, 10(1), 10–15. https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajsw/article/view/194095 Common Wealth of Australia. (2017). A better family law system to support and protect those affected by family violence: Recommendations for an accessible, equitable and responsive family law system which better prioritises safety of those affected by family violence. www.aph. gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Social_Policy_and_Legal_Affairs/ FVlawreform/Report/section?id=committees%2Freportrep%2F024109%2F25161 Gray, M., Coates, J., Yellow Bird, M., & Hetherington, T. (Eds.) (2013). Decolonising social work. Routledge. Gray, M., & Ariong, B. S. (2017). Discourses shaping development, foreign aid, and poverty reduction policies in Africa: Implications for social work. In M. Gray (Ed.), The handbook of social work and social development in Africa. Routledge. Gray, M., & Fook, J. (2004). The quest for a universal social work: some issues and implications. Social Work Education, 23(5), 625–644. https://doi. org/10.1080/0261547042000252334 Hochfeld, T., Selipsky, L., Mupedziswa, R., & Chitereka, C. (2009). Developmental social work education in Southern and East Africa. Centre for Social Development in Africa, University of Johannesburg. Hölscher, D. (2008). The Emperor’s new clothes: South Africa’s attempted transition to developmental social welfare and social work. International Journal of Social Welfare, 17(2), 114–123. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-­2397.2008.00547.x Ibrahim, A., Hreish, K., Gonzalez, O., Galalh, A., Al-­ Halalat, K., Aladayleh, L., Emadeldeen, J., Shalaby, A., Matter, H., Al-­Kandari, Y., Hashim, S., Eltaef, M., Sofy, S., Meguid, M., Daqaq, N., Elardi, M., Madhani, H., Braz, T., & Sorur, M. (2020, 01/20). Social work education in the Middle East and North Africa: Students’ perspectives at 13 universities in 10 countries. Egyptian Journal of Social Work, 9, 189–204. https://doi. org/10.21608/ejsw.2020.68765

24  Social work in Africa Ife, J. (2020). Whiteness from within. In S. Tascon & J. Ife (Eds), Disrupting whiteness in social work. Routledge. Jones, B. (2007). The teso insurgency remembered: Churches, burials and propriety. The Journal of the International African Institute, 77(4), 500–516. Kazeem, K. (2011). An integrated approach to social work practice in Nigeria. College Student Journal, 45(1), 122–133. Kurevakwesu, W. (2017, 08/01). The social work profession in Zimbabwe: A critical approach on the position of social work on Zimbabwe’s development. Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences, VIII(1), 1–19. Mabeyo, Z. (2014). The development of social work education and practice in Tanzania. In H. Spitzer, M. J. Twikirize, & G. G. Wairire (Eds), Professional social work in East Africa: Towards social development, poverty reduction and gender equality. Fountain Publishers. Mabvurira, V., & Makhubele, J. (2018). Afrocentric methodology: A missing pillar in African social work research, education and training. In A. L. Shokane, J. C. Makhubele, & L. V. Blitz (Eds), Issues around aligning theory, research and practice in social work education. AOSIS. https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2018.BK76.01 Makgopa, M. (2019, 2019/07/03). Totemism: A symbolic representation of a clan with specific reference to the Basotho ba Leboa – An ethnographical approach. South African Journal of African Languages, 39(2), 159–164. https://doi.org/10.1080/025721 17.2019.1618013 Ministry of Social Development. (1959). Sessional paper No. 4 of 1958/59: Social welfare (With Special Reference to Urban Social Welfare). Kampala, Uganda: Ministry of Social Development. Morley, C., Ablett, P., & Macfarlane, S. (2019). Engaging with social work: A critical introduction. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108681094 Morseu-­Diop, N. (2013). Indigenous Yarning modalities: An insider’s perspective on respectful engagement with Torres Strait Islander clients. In B. Bennett, S. Green, S. Gilbert, & D. Bessarab (Eds), Our voices: Aboriginal and torres strait islander social work. Palgrave Macmillan. Mungai, N., Wairire, G., & Rush, E. (2014, 04/22). The challenges of maintaining social work ethics in Kenya. Ethics and Social Welfare, 8(2), 170–186. https://doi.org/10.1080 /17496535.2014.895401 Mupedziswa, R., & Sinkamba, R. (2014). Social work education and training in Southern and East Africa: Yesterday, today and tomorrow. In C. C. Noble, H. Strauss, & B. Littlechild (Eds), Global social work: Crossing borders, blurring boundaries. Sydney University Press. Mwansa, L. (2010). Challenges facing social work education in Africa. International Social Work, 53(1), 129–136. Ojambo, H. (2012). Decentralisation in Africa: A critical review of Uganda’s experience. PER: Potchefstroomse Elektroniese Regsblad, 15(2), 01–21. www.scielo.org.za/scielo. php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1727-­37812012000200005&nrm=iso Omolo-­Okalebo, F., Haas, T., Werner, I. B., & Sengendo, H. (2010). Planning of Kampala City 1903–1962: The planning ideas, values, and their physical expression. Journal of Planning History, 9(3), 151–169. https://doi.org/10.1177/1538513210373815 Osei-­Hwedie, K. (1993). The challenge of social work in Africa: Starting the indigenisation process. Journal of Social Development in Africa, 8(1), 19–30. Osei-­Hwedie, K., & Boateng, D. (2018, 11/13). ‘Do not worry your head’: The impossibility of indigenising social work education and practice in Africa. Southern African Journal of Social Work and Social Development, 30(3), 1–12. https://doi. org/10.25159/2415-­5829/3978

Social work in Africa  25 Park, H.-J. (2017, 05/01). Lessons from filial piety: Do we need ‘memorial social work’ for the dead and their families? Qualitative Social Work, 16(3), 367–375. https://doi. org/10.1177/1473325015616289 Rankopo, M. J., & Osei-­Hwedie, K. (2011, 01/01). Globalization and culturally relevant social work: African perspectives on indigenization. International Social Work, 54(1), 137–147. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872810372367 Rivett, J. (2020). Welfare in Australia: Dole bludgers or hard done by? The Sydney Morning Herald. www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/welfare-­in-­australia-­dole-­bludgers-­or-­ hard-­done-­by-­20200707-­p559u7.html Rukariro, K. (2022). African totems, kinship and conservation. Wilderness. www. wildernessdestinations.com/journal/cultures-­a nd-­c ommunities/african-­t otems­kinship-­and-­conservation Sewpaul, V. (2014). Social work and poverty reduction in Africa: The indelible reality. In H. Spitzer, M. J. Twikirize, & G. G. Wairire (Eds), Professional social work in East Africa: Towards social development, poverty reduction and gender equality. Fountain Publishers. Sewpaul, V., & Henrickson, M. (2019). The (r)evolution and decolonization of social work ethics: The Global Social Work Statement of Ethical Principles. International Social Work, 62(6), 1469–1481. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872819846238 Spitzer, H. (2014). Social work in African contexts: A cross-­cultural reflection on theory and practice. In H. Spitzer, M. J. Twikirize, & G. G. Wairire (Eds), Professional social work in East Africa: Towards social development, poverty reduction and gender equality. Fountain Publishers. Tangney, M., & Mendes, P. (2022). Should social work become a registered profession? An examination of the views of 15 Australian social workers. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 00(00), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.222 Tascon, S., & Ife, J. (2020). Disrupting whiteness in social work. Routledge. Tusasiirwe, S. (2020). Decolonising social work through learning from experiences of older women and social policy makers in Uganda. In S. Tascon & J. Ife (Eds), Disrupting whiteness in social work. Routledge. Tusasiirwe, S., Nabbumba, D., & Kansiime, P. (2022). Religion and spirituality in social work in Uganda: Lessons for social work education. Social Work Education, 1–18. https:// doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2022.2104243 Twesigye, J. (2014). Explanatory models for the care of outpatients with mood disorders in Uganda: an exploratory study [StellenBosch University]. www.semanticscholar.org/ paper/Explanatory-­models-­for-­the-­care-­of-­outpatients-­with-­Twesigye/bc1a61181eb04 4bd0036a97da8e88330477873b9#citing-­papers Twesigye, J., Twikirize, M. J., Luwangula, R., & Kitimbo, S. (2019). Building resilience through indigenous mechanisms: The case of Bataka groups in Western Uganda. In M. J. Twikirize & H. Spitzer (Eds), Social work practice in Africa: Indigenous and innovative approaches. Fountain Publishers. Twikirize, M. J. (2014). Indigenisation of social work in Africa: Debates, prospects and challenges. In H. Spitzer, M. J. Twikirize, & G. G. Wairire (Eds), Professional social work in East Africa: Towards social development, poverty reduction and gender equality. Fountain Publishers. Wamara, C. K., Twikirize, J., Bennich, M., & Strandberg, T. (2022). Reimagining indigenised social work in Uganda: Voices of practitioners. International Social Work, 00208728221081823. https://doi.org/10.1177/00208728221081823

2 Examining approaches proposed to free social work from Western colonial dominance Indigenisation and decolonisation

In this chapter, I will focus on two major approaches that have been proposed to address the challenges facing social work in the African context: Indigenisation and decolonisation. Indigenisation and decolonisation are often used interchangeably but, although interrelated, they are different processes conveying different ideas. The chapter will explore indigenisation and the issues that it cannot address in social work in Africa. A Decolonising-First theory-practice will be explored and an example of decolonising curriculum provided as well as students’ reflections on their experiences. The process of decolonising self and mind will also be explored.

Indigenisation Indigenisation “essentially connotes a process of trying to fit imported knowledge and models into the local context, implying maintenance of strong links with the original material” (Twikirize, 2014, p. 79). Indigenisation, besides fitting imported models into local context, also involves generating, respecting, and integrating Indigenous helping processes, models into mainstream social work (Gray et al., 2008; Twikirize, 2014). Mainstream social work in Africa is still Western social work, grounded in white Western epistemologies, worldviews, languages, policies, standardisations, etc. In indigenisation, local helping interventions are integrated into mainstream social work as some elements of mainstream social work are also adjusted to fit local contexts. Some examples of generation and integration of Indigenous helping models have started to be documented in Africa (see, for example, Twikirize & Spitzer, 2019). However, there are also growing concerns that the indigenisation approach alone will not deliver Africa the sort of contextually relevant and culturally appropriate social work because of inherent limitations in the approach. The first reason is that the uncritical imitation of and the imposition of knowledges, agenda, models, systems from the West, and the consequent shunning or marginalisation of Indigenous models and knowledges, persists in Africa. This very serious reason has caused the proponents of indigenisation approach to call it elusive since many Africans continue to believe that Western theories and models of social work are ‘fashionable’, even when they lack appropriateness for their context (Osei-­ Hwedie & Boateng, 2018). A social worker must ask themselves why such a DOI: 10.4324/9781003407157-2

Examining approaches to free social work  27 thinking persists in Africa. Indigenisation has been referred to as a failed project because “international frameworks have proved remarkably resilient and impervious to cultural transformation and continue to dominate across diverse cultural contexts” (Ugiagbe, 2017, p. 272). The major weakness of the indigenisation approach is that it has an inherent limitation of nurturing a culture of consuming what others, especially the West, have produced. Below I elaborate on other issues facing social work in Africa that an indigenisation approach cannot address alone without decolonising first. Decolonisation theory champions the questioning and dismantling of colonial thinking, attitudes and systems, and then, bringing to the centre knowledges that have formerly been marginalised, devalued, ignored, especially knowledges of the colonised. Decolonisation involves two sides: (1) questioning, challenging, and decentring the current privileging and hegemony of white Western worldviews and ways of knowing and conceptualisation of social work which is often racist and inapplicable to African contexts and (2) articulation and centring of alternative knowledge systems and constructions of social work that are more important and relatable to the lived experiences of the people we work with. Decolonisation is not about total rejection of Western knowledges but problematising and recognising their limitations especially in Africa and therefore, re-­centring African epistemic traditions, African languages, African people, and voices, before extending outwards to learn about European and other knowledge traditions, ways of being and doing, which are needed only if they are relevant for Africans to understand themselves and to move forward. In decolonisation, African knowledges are centred not for the sake of just being African but because these are knowledge systems that have worked for thousands of years but have been devalued and left in the margins because of colonial thinking, colonial structures, and paternalistic attitudes. Non-­African knowledges are needed to internationalise and make a contribution at a global scale. However, internationalising is about Africa moving outwards, which is different from the current practice where the international or global is put first and the local/African is ignored or marginalised. To internationalise here means to start from Africa, sharing its knowledges, agenda, models, and methods of working with other countries to learn from it. At the moment there is inexcusable inequality in knowledge production and sharing where Africa has mostly been relegated to knowledge consumption (Hlatshwayo & Alexander, 2021). Then Africa struggles to align and prioritises international context/standards, languages, culture, while the local languages and knowledges are sidelined, yet the local remains critical in the collective survival of its people.

Issues that cannot be fixed by indigenising only This sub-­section explores three main issues that cannot be fixed by indigenisation only in Africa. These are: 1) the alienating Eurocentric curriculum and narrow conceptualisation of social work 2) undisrupted colonial thinking in knowledge production and consumption; 3) The colonial agenda and approach to education.

28  Examining approaches to free social work

An alienating Eurocentric curriculum and narrow conceptualisation of social work Education in general and social work education in particular in Africa has been experienced as alienating especially because of its Eurocentric curriculum. Indigenous Africans must disconnect or separate themselves from who they are and their knowledge systems, values, ways of being, languages, which are not valued in the Eurocentric curriculum that centres languages of the colonisers like English, welfare state-­led models of addressing social problems, the white Western conceptualisation of what is ethical, among others. This is persistent epistemic racism and colonisation where knowledges and ways of being and knowing of Indigenous African people are marginalised and invalidated, while knowledges of the coloniser are positioned as legitimate and superior. With such a Eurocentric curriculum, Africans cease to be themselves and are set to fail as they lack the literacy, connection, and belongingness to a worldview, context, and knowledge system they are being inducted into. In Eurocentric curricula, there is a social disconnection between the Indigenous knowledge systems one is taught and socialised in at home and the curricula that reject it in the classroom (Hlatshwayo & Alexander, 2021; Chilisa, 2014). This results in “graduates who hardly fit into African communities [,] under-­utilization of local resources and unemployment of graduates” (Muwanga-­Zake, 2017, p. 1). Through an alienating Eurocentric curriculum, we see colonisation persisting through a culture and knowledge subjugating another culture and continually defining it as inferior or marginal. A narrow view and conceptualisation of what social work is further alienates and disconnects African social workers as they fail to see their local and Indigenous ways of ‘doing social work’ recognised. There remains a narrow view that legitimate social work is what is done in the realms of government and NGOs which are institutions of Western modernity (Tascon & Ife, 2020). A diversity of social work approaches exists outside the ‘Western’ (welfare state) social work but their recognition as social work remains contested in mainstream Western or professional approaches where they are othered as ethnic, for example Indigenous social work. Some of the social work that happens outside institutions of Western modernity is regarded as ‘not social work proper’. Paternalistic attitudes persist when what is regarded as ‘social work proper’ (Western social work) is exported to contexts like Africa as Ranta-­Tyrkkö, 2011) exemplifies this attitude in her remarks about Western child protection social work: “I have heard of a heroic social worker who ‘brought child protection’ to a certain African country, as if there were no practices of protecting children before his arrival” (p. 36). What this means is that when Western social work is exported to Africa and other contexts, the exporters devalue, and marginalise local ways of doing social work, and claim that social work is new in those regions. However, we know that helping is done differently through different support systems. While in some countries the governments and NGOs are at the centre of helping, in other communities, there are strong family and community systems, for example, and social workers need to explore which systems are applicable in which countries and work collaboratively to ensure social issues are addressed in the most culturally and contextually relevant way. For contexts like Africa, social workers need to put at the

Examining approaches to free social work  29 centre those systems and local philosophies that are responsible for the survival of communities despite the challenges they are experiencing. Decolonising requires that theoretical narrowness in social work and social policy is confronted. Theoretical narrowness manifests “a restricted and restrictive understanding of how to think about wellbeing [and] resistance to think beyond welfare states … Social Policy uses a universalizing, ahistorical, theoretical lens [and] this lacks engagement with colonialism, coloniality” (Seckinelgin, 2022, p. 7). Consequently, decolonising social work requires questioning the status quo where culturally appropriate ways of conceptualising and doing social work are undervalued as not social work proper, resulting in missed opportunities of harnessing such ways to respond to the issues impacting those contexts. Simply indigenising the curriculum by adding on or squeezing in Indigenous ways of doing social work does not confront the fact that they remain in the periphery or margins, labelled as not social work proper. To decolonise means to dismantle the narrow conceptualisation of what social work is that ‘others’ non-­Western ways of social work that have existed for generations in the communities. Decolonisation theory means restoring the dignity and worth of Indigenous ways of doing social work, which must occupy a central position in social work education, practice, research, especially in contexts like Africa. In decolonising theory, social work students must be represented, they must belong, they must connect to what is being taught in the social work curricula. They must be liberated and empowered to think, beyond being taught; to re-­imagine possibilities within their context, building on what is available. It is the social work educators’ role to ensure this connection to enable insightful learning and re-­imagination to build on local ways of helping for the benefit of the communities. For example when I was introduced to social work in my first-­year class in Uganda, I was taught social work and its history mostly influenced by European and North American events, experiences, and models of helping. I struggled to connect the welfare state model championed by English poor laws and Charity Organisation society, because for me, my experience was of the community-­led initiatives being at the centre of helping those who experienced poverty and vulnerability, not government or charity. Throughout the course, social work was largely conceptualised in terms of what states or governments do, and this was emphasised when I went to Sweden for my master’s degree in social work where it made sense and was relevant that students there learn about the welfare state since it was at the centre of addressing social issues. In my learning about social work models in Sweden, I only wished that I was given a chance or validation to talk about and explore non-­welfare state-­oriented ways of doing social work that were meaningful to the African context I was being asked to reference. Without such enablement, learning in Sweden became just about comparing the welfare state of Sweden with the ‘welfare state’ of Uganda, sidelining community-­led ‘welfare’ model that Sweden could have learnt from. Given the continuing erosion of and the exclusive effects of the welfare state (e.g. exclusion of undocumented migrants, and people on temporary visas), and the growing economic uncertainty, it is likely that in future, to meet human needs will rely on local community-­led initiatives and services. The implication is that social work’s community-­led development skills, embedded in local philosophies that explain why and how helping is done, have

30  Examining approaches to free social work a vital contribution to this regard. But would such non-­Western, community-­led knowledge and experience I embodied count as legitimate social work knowledge?

Undisrupted colonial thinking about knowledge production and consumption Adding on Indigenous knowledge without disrupting the Eurocentric and colonial thought that knowledge production is a reservation of the West is simply tokenistic. There is a very disturbing Eurocentric thought and socialisation in Africa where “we’ve been taught to understand that we don’t have anything to contribute towards knowledge”. The West is seen or presented to us as the “epicentre of all epistemic thought”, with its knowledge produced regarded as universal or applicable everywhere (Hlatshwayo & Alexander, 2021, p. 44). This Eurocentric thought is prevalent in social work theories and models and their production. There are problematic unbusted myths that legitimate theories and knowledge for social work are those produced or developed in the West (Tascon & Ife, 2020). Surprisingly the whiteness of social work knowledge remains largely unexamined and taken-­for-­granted worldwide as social work educators continue to predominantly prescribe Western authors on their reading lists for social work students and even research. The muzungu (white person) is positioned as the knower, with advanced knowledge in solving all the world’s problems. The devaluation of African Indigenous knowledges and other non-­ Western knowledges persists in academia and practice (Muwanga-­Zake, 2017). The privileging of Western knowledges become self-­fulfilling as most journals, publishers, conferences, etc remain more receptive to these Western knowledges theories and authors. As universities and other institutions demand publications in the so-­called high-­impact/quality journals for promotions or funding to be obtained, the potential for non-­Western theories and knowledges to be explored, harnessed and grown becomes unexploited by both Africans and other scholars (Gebru & Wako, 2022). Empirical evidence from Ethiopia and other contexts shows that there are fewer chances for non-­Western knowledges to be used in the curricula and students’ research given students’ fears that their dissertations will not be approved if they do not use Western theoretical frameworks as their guiding tool (Gebru & Wako, 2022; Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010). There is continued thinking that Western knowledges are best, fashionable and that African epistemologies limit global competitiveness and international marketability of social work graduates and their academics (Osei-­Hwedie & Boateng, 2018). Thus, most African social workers remain trapped in using Western theories and knowledges because they “want to be accepted” by the West (Gebru & Wako, 2022, p. 189). Decolonisation requires that such a kind of Eurocentric and colonial attitude and thinking must be dismantled first, and minds liberated. Minds of the colonisers and colonised alike need to be liberated from internalised denigration, rejection, unjust, and belittlement of the colonised's knowledges and from the valorisation of the coloniser's knowledge. Decolonisation theory espouses re-­centring and revaluing of African epistemic traditions, especially in Africa, restoring the worth and dignity of African knowledges, models, which

Examining approaches to free social work  31 have remained important to the lives of African people despite the onslaught of colonisation. It requires acknowledging that all knowledge is socially constructed; all knowledge carries cultural and epistemological assumptions of the context from which it is produced. By applying only white western social work knowledge, social work forces their non-­white ‘clients’ and their non-­white colleagues to assimilate into the white world, and deny the alternative knowledge systems that may be more significant for the lived experiences of the people with whom they work. (Tascon & Ife, 2020, p. 2) With decolonisation theory, alternative knowledge systems, especially of the colonised must be taken seriously, reclaimed, revalued, and recentred. Such a shift requires confronting the colonial agenda of education and re-­imagining the purpose of social work education. Colonial agenda and approach to education Colonial education in Africa had(has) an agenda. Scholars have argued that colonial education was (is) purposed at turning Africans white on the inside even though they are black on the outside (Twikirize, 2014; Fanon, 1961; Wa Thiong’o, 1986) The intention was(is) to dominate, rule and control Africans including their thinking. Education in Africa is the strategy of erasing African Indigenous languages through teaching European languages of the colonisers, for example English for the British colonised countries like Uganda, French for those colonised by France, etc (Wa Thiong’o, 1986). The erasure of African languages can also be seen in the harsh punishments that children in schools (were) are enduring when they speak their mother tongues inside the schools (Wane, 2008). In my education, especially at primary level, I experienced serious beatings, scolding, and shaming through being made to stand in the scorching sun, wearing a collar bone on a string around the neck like a dog, etc for speaking my mother tongue inside the school. The trauma from the punishments still lives on. While in school, I should have learned how to write my mother tongue; this never happened as the focus was on mastering English as a language of communication, instruction, and way of life. While I can speak my mother tongue as a result of learning and exposure from my mother and local community outside the schools, I am unable to write it accurately as this would have been the focus of my formal education had it had a non-­colonial agenda. The erasure of and consequent extinction of Indigenous languages is a common experience for most people that have experienced colonisation around the world (Pohjola, 2016). Erasure or marginalising of mother tongues, means erasure of the knowledge systems and therefore culture since language is more than a tool of communication but also a carrier of culture and identity and thinking. Apart from erasing languages, and therefore knowledge systems, Western knowledge that dominated the Eurocentric curricula required an approach to teaching and assessments that did not require or nurture thinking and

32  Examining approaches to free social work imagination but a regurgitation of knowledge given by the lecturer/teacher through: 1 The assessments that encourage cram work and reproduction of what was taught. For example, predominantly the written exam approach is used to test knowledge retention by students in most universities in Africa. Students are thus treated as consumers of knowledge whom lecturers provide with finished products that they are supposed to reproduce during the three-­hour written exams, for example. 2 Teaching approach – Imparting a colonial Eurocentric curriculum to people in a totally different context/culture/knowledge system requires a banking approach to teaching. The banking model to education was and is still predominantly adopted from primary to university level where the teacher/lecturer is seen as the knower who deposits Eurocentric knowledge in the heads of students, like someone who deposits coins in the bank. The teacher is seen as all-­knowing, they are not allowed to make any mistake or show ignorance about something. From my experience, this method puts pressure on teachers because, in reality, no one is all-­knowing and there is always something new you can learn from the students or others in any space. The banking model is also problematic because students are positioned as blank slates or empty tins that must be filled with knowledge from the lecturer, without objection, they accept everything that the teacher teaches them. This form of teaching stifles collaborative learning and teaching between the students and teachers. 3 Perpetuation of a deficit view of communities as requiring fixing. With a colonial agenda to social work education, communities are mostly presented or viewed in terms of social problems that the social workers are trained and positioned as experts in fixing. With such a view, communities become passive victims of the problems they are experiencing and therefore passive recipients of help from social work experts. Consequently, there is ignoring or marginalising of the ideas, initiatives, and strengths, the knowledge that these communities have, overlooking their Indigenous models of addressing social problems that social workers could build on in their work with the communities. This has been common in top-­down models of working with individuals and communities which are unfortunately still predominant in social work and social development. In decolonising theory, the agenda of social work education must be re-­ imagined. It is not about making white or black or perpetuation of knowledge hierarchy and racial prejudice, it is about our communities and context. The agenda of education is about thinking and finding alternatives that can respond to the social, economic, cultural, ecological crises tormenting our people and the environment, in culturally appropriate and sustainable ways. Topics like colonisation and decolonisation become central in teaching to help students understand why some communities especially the colonised are in the situations they are in which are characterised by dispossession, loss of Indigenous languages and identity, culture, economic deprivation, racism, etc. Colonisation and colonialism and how they influence the conceptualisation of social work is also unpacked. Topics of colonisation and decolonisation, both historical and

Examining approaches to free social work  33 ongoing, remain taboo topics for most social work educators and students, making the social work profession remain complicit in colonisation projects and tokenistic in its claims about values of social justice and human rights (Gatwiri, 2020; Seckinelgin, 2022; Tascon & Ife, 2020; Tusasiirwe, 2020). The agenda of decolonising social work education is not about forcing one ideological perspective and worldview about social work on our students, for privileging one worldview serves hegemony rather than liberation. The agenda of decolonised education is about freeing students to imagine, create, constructions of social work grounded in epistemological diversity appropriate for their context. The decolonising mode of assessment is also centred on encouraging a variety of assessments to challenge a student to think, create, and imagine, in social work. The privileging of written assignments is dismantled. Some assessment modes may include the use of oral individual and or group presentations, photo/ visual assessments, in addition to written work. Teachers design assessments and teaching that nurture creativity, liberation, reimagination, culturally appropriate practice/solutions to issues in the community. The learning and teaching approach that positions students as co-­creators of knowledge and solutions, recognising the value of their lived experiences, is also encouraged in a decolonising approach to social work education. To raise above the legacy of colonial mentality and impacts of colonial education, there has to be a lot of encouragement for students so that they are supported to confront their fears, boost their self-­ confidence and worth that they can contribute something (e.g. knowledge) in academia and also in practice. Students need to be reassured that yes they can think and what they think and the knowledge they produce is valuable especially if it contributes to addressing the issues impacting their communities. In social work education, the starting point should not be about whose knowledge is superior but about the fact that we all come from communities that are burdened with social issues and social problems and what we need are solutions and therefore the students and the social workers come to the classroom to collaboratively craft creative, imaginative ways of responding and preventing the worsening of social issues. A social work educator must see their role as one where they engage each student from a non-­condescending and non-­patronising approach, to discover ways they can use self/collective, their experience and passion, to make a difference whether be it at local or global level. The educator values the knowledges and experiences of the students, and the classroom is a space where this knowledge and capacity to draw on it and use it in practice will be nurtured to thrive and grow.

Decolonising approach to learning and teaching in action: an example There are many people interested in ‘doing’ decolonisation but some lack examples of how, what to do, and even where to start from. In this section, I will share an example of decolonising curriculum, teaching method, assessment, etc approaches I have adopted in my teaching of one of the subjects at a university in Australia. I must flag from the start that there is a need for institutional support to decolonising the curriculum by allocating workload for those academics

34  Examining approaches to free social work interested in developing a decolonised curriculum or even changing or transforming the curriculum for already existing subjects. However, lack of workload cannot also be an excuse where it is not provided, and educators are encouraged to start small but intentional in their search, reflection, re-­imagination, and creation of a decolonised curriculum and teaching in action. Decolonising requires going beyond reflection to real action; we must do things differently from the status quo. In 2021, I developed an introductory subject to students who have completed a bachelor’s level of education in other fields other than social work and yet would like to start a career in social work by studying for a master’s in social work (qualifying) in Australia. The subject has students from diverse cultures and countries, both domestic and international, and therefore it is critical to use a teaching approach that will help students explore who they are/positionality, and the contribution they want to make in social work, wherever they will practice from. It is important to also tap into the diverse knowledge and experiences the students bring to the social work classroom to deepen learning, teaching, thinking, representation, connection, and re-­imagination of social work for the best interests of the communities they will work with. Valuing the knowledge of students goes beyond a comparative analysis of what is in the West and how it is translated into other contexts. It involves positive valuing and exploration of what non-­Western countries and communities do and the systems and philosophies they draw on in their helping, because as Gray and Fook (2004) argue, “there is room for many types of social work across widely divergent contexts” (p. 626). In introducing students to what social work is, I adopt a decolonised approach where there is acknowledgment that social work is constructed differently according to the different contexts and cultures. Students get introduced to some of the different context-­constructions of social work like pacific social work, Indigenous social work, white Western social work, Afrocentric social work, and Indian social work, etc. We also explore the inconclusive debates in social work before delving into different fields of practice and policy. The main focus of my education is to support students to imagine and contribute ideas of how to make social work and society a better profession/place for all than it is now. I draw on my Ubuntu/Obuntu values and philosophies to adopt a caring, nurturing, kind, and respectful approach, full of passion, personal commitment to teaching, that draw on my interconnected personal, professional and communal lived experiences. Although I am a social work educator to my students, I do not see myself as separate from most of the clients these students will end up working with. Historically and also today, social workers like the friendly visitors or almoners in the charity model had the privilege of assessing clients living in poverty and vulnerable situations, which the social workers themselves did not experience given their middle-­class positionality. However, for social workers like me, the struggles of our clients are also my struggles, making the separation of the personal and professional an artificial construction. Struggles against racism, discrimination, colonialism, and dispossession are both a personal, professional and communal fight for me, all intertwined. I am daring to call it privilege, but most Indigenous social workers have the privilege but also the vulnerability of teaching and practising from a lived and living experience and statistics related

Examining approaches to free social work  35 to key issues in this profession (like asylum seekers, refugees, lost at sea, blacks in custody, poverty, human trafficking, etc) are not just numbers to us, these are people we know. This is why teaching social work students to me, is personal, more than it is professional. It is political in many aspects. It is personal and political for most of our students too, and thus an approach that recognises that complexity rather than distancing and silencing it becomes important in today’s era. I also use a wide range of modes of assessments to allow students to develop different skills in presenting, writing, visual communication, group work, reflective work etc. I communicate in the subject’s documents as well as in my classes the decolonised approach to teaching and learning that I adopt, which some students are definitely not used to, especially the expectation that students can also be teachers. However, there is an imperative that during teaching and learning, we privilege diverse knowledge traditions derived from diverse backgrounds the students come from. In the decolonising approach, students are positioned as both learners and teachers: students come from diverse cultural backgrounds, have diverse experiences (professional and personal), and therefore each one is expected to teach and also learn from others. But the teachers, particularly those that may not have lived experiences cannot rely on students to teach or claim ignorance as an excuse for not teaching decolonisation of social work. Students’ reflections for the two years the subject has been offered have shown students welcoming, and being challenged by the teaching approach but appreciative of the learning experience at the end, as shared below (pseudonyms used). Centring community beyond individualistic/selfish-pursuits and theoretical learnings In a decolonising approach to teaching and practice, the focus or starting point is the community and the need to engage in practices or create ideas that benefit or make a positive difference and are fit for the community. Studying and doing social work should go beyond meeting just the personal career interests of students/ social workers, acquiring intellectual or theoretical knowledge that is not applicable in the community where they are (common in colonised contexts where students study and graduate with theories not helpful for their communities). With the insight of the unit, it has shown a different vision such as making a change in the society where strategies are used. Social work subject is just not about working in a project but it is about how it brings a difference, changes in one’s life. In Nepal the study is more related to theory which are not practised in day-­to-­day life as there is no system of social worker involvement whereas from this subject a new line of social work is seen and understood. (Lenny) Students as teachers Giving an opportunity and platform for students to take the centre stage and share their knowledge results in insightful learning for both the students and

36  Examining approaches to free social work teachers. Students gain a diversity of knowledge about different contexts and models of social work, which the one teacher may not be able to give them, as this student explained: Learning about other students’ cultures through our individual presentations in Weeks 5 and 6, and how methods of forming connections can vary so drastically across cultures was also very eye-­opening. Though I had familiarity with concepts such as ‘saving face’ in Asian culture and how food can be a vessel for connection in many other cultures, I was not familiar with others. In particular, I found learning about the role of mothers in Zimbabwe (Bondezi, 2022) and how the cultural disapproval of food waste in Hong Kong (Chui, 2022) could be linked to environmental social work truly intriguing. (Dina) Students realise that “there is no size fits all Social Work when we work with people coming from different countries, cultures, and backgrounds” (Wally). The strengths also come from the educator sourcing guest lecturers who are able to draw from their own experiences and expertise, challenging students to look from within what they have to contribute to social work. Students describe the connection to themselves and the shared understandings that they get from the classroom space where everyone becomes present, visible, and represented. I also thought Dr Norritta Morseu-­ Diop’s perspective on Indigenous social work (MorseuDiop, 2022) was very informative. Her insight into how social workers are viewed by Indigenous communities, as well as the proper ways to behave when working with Indigenous clients, especially elders, was uniquely insightful. She spoke about the importance of language and how significant the variances in nuance and meaning can be across languages. The metaphorical way in which Dr Norritta spoke about the land as being perceived as a physical entity by Indigenous peoples was deeply meaningful and reminded me of how metaphors are used in my own (Turkish) language and culture as well. This commonality made me reflect on how valuable, effective communication really depends on cultural awareness and an open-­minded approach towards building shared understandings. (Eric) Teaching the indelible need to decolonise Social workers wherever they are will most likely meet and work with people that are recovering from the impacts of colonisation. It is a myth that colonisation is a thing of the past, yet it is unacceptable that students even in settler societies like Australia are hearing about or even connecting with decolonisation at university level. Thus, it is critical that our students have knowledge of decolonising

Examining approaches to free social work  37 so that they are not helpless or not engaging in practice that remains complicit to colonisation, as Kate shared: One of the themes of this course, which impacted my learning the most, was the topic of decolonisation. I had never heard of this term before, only the opposite, ‘colonisation’. Even the term ‘colonisation’, did not have a true and deep meaning to me. Upon reflection, I discovered that I could not remember any of the lessons from high school history class that touched on colonisation. I was born in Australia, attended school here, and yet it was only during this course that I came to a full realisation of the injustice, violence, and human rights violations resulting from Australia’s colonisation … the course really provided me with an opportunity to reflect upon my own culture and consider the type of social worker I wished to become. (Kate) Disrupting ‘othering’ of non-Western knowledges and constructions of social work The issues that social workers are confronting in different parts of the world require social workers to think of, create, and welcome more ideas, imaginative models, theories, knowledges. This is not the time to other and look down up on constructions of social work embedded in non-­Western ways of knowing and being. The disruption of othering attitudes must start right away when social workers are being educated, as this student reflected: Prior to this, I was not so naïve and ignorant as to be entirely unaware of the cultures and experiences of the non-­Western world, however, it was the normalisation of it that was new to me and what would stick with me throughout the semester. Learning about non-­Western approaches to social work and having them taught with equal value to Western approaches, is what made me realise how small my world had been by ignoring so many rich and incredible alternatives. As I continued to learn about the decolonisation and indigenising of social work, I recognised my own attitudes and behaviour when hearing about the dominance of western practices and the tendency to refer to non-­western methods as ethnic or ‘other’. (Jenny) As Jenny reflects, adopting a decolonised approach to teaching and learning requires decolonising self and mind.

Decolonising self and mind: processes Below I share some of the processes that may be necessary to achieve decolonisation which is acknowledged to be a journey and a marathon rather than a sprint. These processes may apply mostly to people that have experienced colonisation and are trying to recover and find their way to decolonising themselves.

38  Examining approaches to free social work These processes are not linear and may all be ongoing at the same time. Decolonisation is hard work and a process full of emotions; it is embodied and requires the use of body, mind, and soul altogether.

Questioning The process of decolonising starts with questioning. Questioning requires us to not just follow blindly what is happening or do things because others are doing them. Questioning involves looking inside and outward to explore and understand why and how the status quo came about, whom it benefits and who is left out. It involves critiquing the taken-­for-­granted assumptions of, for example, education in general and social work education in particular, the agenda it serves and how that is of relevance to self and own community. One must ask questions and seek answers on why they are being taught the current content of their curriculum. One examines in-­depth: what they are being taught; why they are being taught that; the relevance and applicability of the methods, models, theories, being taught. Are there alternative models, methods, theories, knowledges that exist? How do I influence the content being taught if there are identifiable gaps of exclusion, misrepresentation, erasure, etc. One must listen to their feelings and thoughts during their learning and teaching. If there are any unanswered questions and feelings of discomfort, confusion, they must listen to such feelings. If things are not adding up, they must explore why and what is not adding up. If they are struggling to relate or connect to what is being taught or espoused in social work, one must go in deeper and explore what is not connecting and why it is so, and share their experiences with the stakeholders involved like educators, students, supervisors, community elders, etc. It does not help much to question and you do not speak up, so speaking up is a very crucial step after examining content and relevance. Speaking up and demanding to be listened to require assertiveness and it could even include protesting, be it by students, educators or other social workers. But speaking up also means creating your own spaces and platforms to allow collective deeper analysis and examination of the questions left unanswered. This deeper analysis may require remembering and rediscovering.

Remembering and or rediscovery For people who have experienced colonisation, questioning can result into the need for remembering and or rediscovery. Remembering who we are, our values, ethics, remembering the past, and present. Remembering what it is that has helped us to survive the onslaught of colonialism and the current social problems or social issues becomes crucial. It involves finding answers to: How have communities managed to survive and thrive, despite all their vulnerabilities? What practices, values, methods, and knowledge, have helped them survive, and how do we build on them in social work? How do we theorise, develop models, and practice frameworks for social work? Rediscovery is also very critical step in decolonisation because some of the Africans who do not know very well who

Examining approaches to free social work  39 they are may need to engage in self-­discovery. Self-­discovery may involve discovery to know their ancestors, their roots, and their values. Rediscovery also means going back to find out the way of life, of your own family, kinship, community, clan and tribe, the shared cultural values, practices, knowledge and wisdom, and language. We must look beyond colonisation to thrive. In social work, we must look beyond colonisers’ language, government, and NGOs to survive and thrive. We must look back and rediscover what it is that has helped communities/us to survive; discover those assets, practices, customs; discover our people and our story. For ‘until the lion learns how to write or tell his/her side of the story, every tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter’. The theories that can help us to look back and inward include Sancofa. Sancofa is about “going back to claim something that is left behind”. Sankofa is an Akan word that means that, we must go back and reclaim our past so we can move forward; so we understand why and how we came to be who we are today. In other words, it is a symbol of pride in one’s past and culture (Agbo, 2011), knowing that the past, present, and future are interconnected. In our social work, we must teach ‘Sankofa classes’ or subjects where we encourage students to go back to remember and rediscover who they are, where they come from in their communities, the shared values and knowledges, shared problems and solutions, and establish way forward to address the issues in the communities. Social workers and social work students appreciate that they are in the social work class not as individuals but as representatives of their own communities. They are in class to benefit their communities and not just themselves. Rediscovery helps in exploring and appreciating the assets, strengths of their people, and how to work together as a collective to achieve the goals of eradicating disadvantage and social problems, achieve harmony and wellbeing for all. In Sankofa classes, students identify, describe, apply, value, innovate from their cultural values, customs, knowledges, languages, sharing how they can be beneficial in their social work.

Unlearning and re-learning to revalue As we question, remember and or re-­discover, we must also un-­learn deficit colonial views and re-­learn to re-­value what we know, believe, and value as Africans. We unlearn the historical trivialisation of African culture, philosophies, systems, and the promotion of Western ways of thinking as superior and universal. Africans unlearn the doubt in worth of their own identity, actions, philosophies, and even culture in general. Africans were and are still made to believe that they have no knowledge systems, philosophies of their own, and are taught that their ways are inferior, ‘primitive’, and ‘backward’ to use the words of the colonisers (Chilisa, 2012). However, African communities have always had their own ways of helping embedded in their own cultural philosophies and systems. Decolonising social work aims to ensure that the activities of Indigenous social workers, described within their own knowledge bases and communities, is recognised and valued as ‘social work proper’. In social work, we unlearn and re-­learn to revalue

40  Examining approaches to free social work knowledges that may not necessarily be the ones acquired in a formal classroom or knowledges accumulated by those people with formal qualifications from formal schools or university institutions. Knowledge, stories, and experiences of community elders and sages, are valued and listened to and sought after to guide and heal the community and academia.

Re-imagination, sharing, and action When we have questioned, remembered, rediscovered, unlearnt and re-­learnt to revalue, our minds are free to re-­imagine possibilities, inspired by our knowledges, experiences, stories, values, and the need to make positive difference in our communities. Re-­imagination results in finding ways to restore, reclaim Indigenous ways of knowing, helping, languages and cultures in general. Re-­ imagining revitalises thinking that has been neglected because of the Eurocentric curriculum with a colonial agenda that nurtures cram work and regurgitation of white Western knowledge and content. The re-­imaginations developed are then shared, critiqued, strengthened, and acted on as a collective. Re-­imagining, sharing and action come with being assertive about the stories, ideas, models, solutions. Being assertive in board rooms, in universities, in meetings with supervisors, saying no to those assertions that African knowledge, theories are not valid, rigorous, or not scholarly, etc. And then taking action to implement the creative ideas, reimagined solutions, teaching them, writing/ theorising them in books and journals, speaking about them in conferences etc. Re-­imagination, sharing and action comes with a lot of emotions that must be confronted. When I asked students in one of the classes I teach at a university to explore their culture and re-­imagine how it can inform social work, students showed a lot of emotions that had to be delt with to enable the re-­imagination to occur. Students were anxious saying they do not know their culture, others said that they have no culture. Others had simply never been asked to think and imagine or contribute knowledge. Others critiqued their culture as responsible for all the problems in society today and therefore did not want anything to do with who they are. But some could see the possibilities of re-­imagining ideas, models in social work, inspired by own culture. Some had to take the courage to ask their parents about their own history and ancestors, also asking and talking through what their cultural values are with their parents and grandparents. There is space for all these emotions and students are encouraged to value and learn from those emotions as a way to move forward, appreciating the past, and its interconnectedness with present and future. Decolonising in general involves confronting a lot of emotions, both positive and negative, explaining why it is hard work. There is the disbelief and discomfort that comes from knowing the colonial agenda of education and how it has impacted one’s life and community in general. Facing the time wasted, cramming things that do not have relevance can be confronting. There is remembering the trauma especially the punishments in formal schools as a result of practising one’s culture or speaking one’s language for example. There are those feelings of helplessness when asked to re-­imagine from a culture you have been taught

Examining approaches to free social work  41 is primitive and demonic, or being asked to think, when for all your life, you have never been taught to think for yourself. There is confronting the lack of confidence in self and community. One must confront the feelings of inferiority and worthlessness of your own language; own body, own colour, own names, own hair, etc the general body, mind, spirit, and soul. But there are also feelings of liberation that come from unlearning and re-­learning steps of decolonising self. The hope that comes from re-­imagined ideas and the liberation they are likely to bring if actioned. All these feelings can be overwhelming, but the action is not to silence them but to listen to them with the goal of drawing on them to re-­imagine and action solutions, ideas, for collective survival.

Summary: a Decolonising-First theory-practice This chapter has established a need for a Decolonising-­First-­approach and theory for social work in the African context. Decolonising-­First theory-­practice espouses that decolonisation must precede indigenisation because decolonisation is the critical process that creates space and opportunity for local and Indigenous ways of being and doing to take their rightful central space in social work. Decolonisation-­First theory-­practice recognises the limitations of indigenising without decolonising first in Africa which has resulted into generated local, African and Indigenous knowledges, models, worldviews, voices, persistently remaining in the periphery/margins of social work education and practice, research, and policy. Indigenous knowledges are being just squeezed in or ‘added on’ when the status quo has remained unchanged, that is, the dominance of white Western social work theories, models, methods, etc has persisted yet they do not adequately address the local needs and are not culturally appropriate. The colonial thinking that the west is best, superior, fashionable, global, universal, has persisted, demonstrating that indigenising without decolonising is just tokenistic. There is a need to question, dismantle colonialism and re-­imagine alternatives as well as think and act differently in our social work education, practice, and research. Decolonisation-­First theory-­practice seeks to dismantle colonial thinking, structures, systems, models, first, and then seeks to put at the centre local and Indigenous voices, worldviews, models of helping, knowledges, and languages of the people we work with. A Decolonisation-­First theory-­practice is not simply about the de-­Westernisation of knowledge or total closure of the door to Western or other traditions for Africa’s social work, but only relevant Western knowledges, theories, models, become added-­on, integrated, to mainstream local and Indigenous social work embedded in local culture and epistemologies. Western models are sought and adopted only after the exhaustion of Indigenous models and only what is necessary for the African context is included. Epistemological diversity is embraced to enrich learning and teaching and practice. In social work education Decolonising-­First theory-­practice debunks the colonial banking model of teaching for a co-­learning and co-­teaching model where different kinds of knowledge

42  Examining approaches to free social work are exchanged between lecturers and students. When it comes to students’ assessments, alternatives to written assessments like visual format assessments, for example photo essays and presentations, oral presentations, are considered. Teaching and assessments that encourage re-­imagination of alternative social work models, grounded in culture and epistemologies of the people we work with, are encouraged. The agenda of social work education is to come up with graduates who can contribute to re-­imagining solutions to current crises and even preventing future crises; graduates who can fulfil their dreams of ‘making a difference’ in their communities. The agenda is also to create graduates who can fit in their communities and have the capability to value, build on and grow local resources for the collective benefit. The role of education in a decolonised curriculum goes beyond teaching for private, individual graduate’s market value but more about getting graduates who can be valuable and can make a contribution to improving the overall wellbeing of their communities. Decolonising-­First theory-­practice requires that social work education values and centres knowledges that have been historically marginalised, for example valuing Indigenous knowledges and orature in theorising, and practice. To adopt a decolonising approach to teaching and learning requires social work educators to be willing and confident to let their students explore, research, and re-­imagine beyond any dictated or laid out procedures and restricted environments. This means that the lecturer must be vulnerable and not all knowing as they are led by students on the journey of exploring students’ own experiences, cultures, and communities, that the lecturer may not be familiar with. This may be a lot to ask from a Eurocentric-­lecturer that centres restricted procedures but it must be done. In social work practice and research In a Decolonising-­First theory-­practice, local and Indigenous African models, knowledges, voices, and experiences, are at the centre/are the mainstream, in influencing social work practice, policy, and research. Some of the models at the centre in Africa include mutuality, self-­help models, extended family-­oriented models of caring for children and older people, etc. Some of these models especially in community work are covered in details in Chapter 6. African languages and cultures determine the concepts used in social work practice and education, for example use of Obuntu/Ubuntu as a local frame of reference. Community is at the centre whereby accountability to the community is emphasised rather than is currently given. A Decolonising-­First approach to research in social work is examined next where community and its languages, ethics, etc are at the centre

References Agbo, H. A. (2011). Values of adinkra symbols. Delta Designs and Publications. Bessarab, D., & Ng’andu, B. (2010). Yarning about yarning as a legitimate method in indigenous research. International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, 3(1), 37–50. Chilisa, B. (2012). Indigenous research methodologies. SAGE Publications. https://books. google.com.au/books?id=kFHUWcIGaMcC

Examining approaches to free social work  43 Chilisa, B. (2014). Indigenous research is a journey: An interview with Bagele Chilisa. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 2, 41–44. Fanon, F. (1961). The wretched of the earth. Penguin. Gatwiri, K. (2020). Afrocentric ways of ‘doing’ social work. In S. Tascon & J. Ife (Eds), Disrupting whiteness in social work. Routledge. Gebru, A., & Wako, W. (2022). Walking the theories we talk: Utilizing African social work theories in African research. African Journal of Social Work, 12(4), 189–198. Gray, M., & Fook, J. (2004). The quest for a universal social work: some issues and implications. Social Work Education, 23(5), 625–644. https://doi.org/10.1080/0261547042000252334 Gray, M., Coates, J., & Yellow Bird, M. (2008). Introduction. In M. Gray, J. Coates, & M. Yellow Bird (Eds), Indigenous social work around the world: Towards culturally relevant education and practice. Ashgate Publishing Limited. Hlatshwayo, M., & Alexander, I. (2021). ‘We’ve been taught to understand that we don’t have anything to contribute towards knowledge’: Exploring academics’ understanding of decolonising curricula in higher education. Journal of Education, 1(82), 44–58. https://doi.org/10.17159/2520-­9868/i82a03 Muwanga-­Zake, J. W. F. (2017). Whose education is it? The exclusion of African values from higher education. www.academia.edu/28735044/WHOSE_EDUCATION_IS_IT_THE_ EXCLUSION_OF_AFRICAN_VALUES_FROM_HIGHER_EDUCATION Osei-­ Hwedie, K., & Boateng, D. (2018, 11/13). ‘Do not worry your head’: The Impossibility of Indigenising Social Work Education and Practice in Africa. Southern African Journal of Social Work and Social Development, 30(3), 1–12. https://doi. org/10.25159/2415-­5829/3978 Pohjola, A. (2016). Language as a cultural mediator in social work: Supporting Sámi culture with services in Sámi. International Social Work, 59(5), 640–652. https://doi. org/10.1177/0020872816646818 Ranta-­Tyrkkö, S. (2011). High time for postcolonial analysis in social work. Nordic Social Work Research, 1(1), 25–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/2156857X.2011.562032 Seckinelgin, H. (2022). Teaching social policy as if students matter: Decolonizing the curriculum and perpetuating epistemic injustice. Critical Social Policy, 02610183221103745. https://doi.org/10.1177/02610183221103745 Tascon, S., & Ife, J. (2020). Disrupting whiteness in social work. Routledge. Tusasiirwe, S. (2020). Decolonising social work through learning from experiences of older women and social policy makers in Uganda. In S. Tascon & J. Ife (Eds), Disrupting whiteness in social work. Routledge. Twikirize, M. J. (2014). Indigenisation of social work in Africa: Debates, prospects and challenges. In H. Spitzer, M. J. Twikirize, & G. G. Wairire (Eds), Professional social work in East Africa: Towards social development, poverty reduction and gender equality. Fountain Publishers. Twikirize, M. J., & Spitzer, H. (2019). Indigenous and innovative social work practice: Evidence from East Africa. In M. J. Twikirize & H. Spitzer (Eds), Social work practice in Africa: Indigenous and innovative approaches. Fountain Publishers. Ugiagbe, O. E. (2017). Decolonising social work in Nigeria. In M. Gray (Ed.), The handbook of social work and social development in Africa. Routledge. Wa Thiongʼo, N. (1986). Decolonising the mind : the politics of language in African literature. James Currey. https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999573905602121 Wane, N. N. (2008). Mapping the field of Indigenous knowledges in anti-­colonial discourse: a transformative journey in education. Race Ethnicity and Education, 11(2), 183–197. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613320600807667

3 African cultural traditions and decolonising research

Decolonising research in African contexts means that African world views and epistemologies guide and are at the centre of the whole research process. This means that Indigenous African knowledges, languages, people’s culture, taboos, and practices are recognised and given their rightful central place in research and in ethics. Below I present principles of an Indigenous African framework that can facilitate the research process of knowing through the perspectives and worldviews of African people. I also present alternative ethics that should be adhered to in order to ensure research that does not further colonisation and disempowerment of the researched.

Need for decolonising research This chapter articulates the need for decolonising research in Africa and then provides principles and methods for an Indigenous African research framework and decolonised ethics. The need for decolonising research in Africa is not unfounded. Colonisation in research continues to manifest in a number of ways highlighted below, drawing on work by different African scholars including Chilisa (2017), Mbembe (2016), and Mugumbate and Mtetwa (2019). These scholars lament that due to colonial legacy, most research in Africa, which remains largely Western driven and framed in Western thought, still lacks relevance to Indigenous African situations. Such research is yet to provide solutions to local problems. Most research and research education in Africa remains largely dominated by Euro-­Western philosophy, culture, and ethics, which are but Indigenous and most appropriate to Western societies than African ones. Predominantly, researchers and students in higher education institutions valorise Western methods and methodologies, which are regarded as ‘the’ legitimate or superior ways of doing research. Researchers are afraid of using Indigenous research methods and thought. Students fear that their work will be marked down, especially those students pursuing their studies in Western institutions. Like First Nations scholars have argued, it is hard for students to conduct research from their perspective, and even when supported by their supervisors, students who have used Indigenous methodologies have been criticised for not using the so-­called “bona fide” research methodologies (Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010). Indigenous methods and methodologies still lack acceptance among Western researchers and scholars (Smith, 2012). DOI: 10.4324/9781003407157-3

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  45 There is also still limited literature and texts in the libraries about Indigenous African research methods and methodologies. Students easily reference available Western texts and literature, even when on the ground/reality, their Indigenous African methods, ethics, cultural protocols, cultural beliefs, and ways of knowing are being utilised to guide the research process. Although there is an increasing attempt to write down African ways of knowing and doing and how they can inform research methods and methodologies, most knowledge and ways of knowing are oral and passed on from generation to generation in a non-­written format, yet students in academic institutions are expected to reference written forms of literature, marginalising oral scholars and orature. When it comes to languages, Africans continue to lack the opportunity to use their Indigenous languages in conceptualising, designing, conducting their research and in disseminating results from their studies locally and globally. Instead, Western languages like English and French, predominate, denying Africans an opportunity to conceptualise and share with the world concepts and knowledges, methods, and methodologies that can be derived from their languages. Research ethics remain deep-­rooted in Western thought and moral expectations. Researchers and students are forced to endure painful processes of seeking ethical approvals from predominantly western-­oriented ethical committees or institutional review boards. Scholars Mugumbate and Mtetwa (2019), highlight that “in most cases, [the] so-­called institutional or government ethics committees are consulted but their ways of work are framed in western methodologies and ethics. Institutional committees often lack the capacity to deal with intricacies of indigenous research ethics” (p. 54). In the words of Chilisa (2017), ethical review boards in Africa and internationally are yet to go beyond ‘cosmetic indigeneity’ “displayed in the use of local languages to conduct research, translating research instruments to local languages and observing cultural taboos without necessarily translating them into research procedures that contribute to the research process” (p. 330).

Words of caution on empiricism Decolonising research recognises and seeks to disrupt the colonial legacy of research in Africa where research was and is still used to dismiss and belittle Indigenous African knowledges and ways of knowing (Mucina, 2011). There is a need to interrogate the current claims that position empiricism or scientific inquiry as the only legitimate way of knowing and knowledge creation. There is a problematic view that Indigenous African knowledges, models of working and helping, must go through scientific thinking and method to gain their authenticity or validity in the community and the world. Decolonising research takes the stand that empirical evidence or measurement is not everything, it is just one of the ways of knowing and it is not the prerequisite to recognise Indigenous African knowledges and ways of being as legitimate and valuable. Indeed, knowledge that has existed for generations cannot be validated by a researcher who comes into a community, observes or interviews a few people, in an hour, and on that basis claims to have expertise/evidence that is superior to Indigenous knowledges.

46  African cultural traditions and decolonising research In African contexts, not everything that matters is measurable. Indeed “African beliefs, motifs, and values are very critical in [Africans’] everyday lives but may not be quantified in western science” (Mabvurira & Makhubele, 2018, p. 17). Empiricism, thus, needs to be used critically and with extreme caution, especially given its ideologies of superiority over other ways of acquiring knowledge. It is just one of the many ways of acquiring knowledge. In colonised contexts, it could be the least important, as it strips away knowing from the perspectives of the researched, particularly where a non-­decolonising framework is not adopted. Culturally appropriate ways of knowing and acquiring knowledge must be created to facilitate decolonised research that centres the perspectives of the researched.

Principles of Indigenous African research framework and design An Indigenous African research framework is embedded in Indigenous African knowledge systems, worldviews, and lived experiences, among others. It posits that African or research in African contexts should be based on and embedded in African cultures, languages, ways, and philosophies of knowledge and how it is created. The following principles are central to ensuring the centring of African ways of knowing, seeking and sharing knowledge embedded in African worldviews.

Research for the benefit of the community Research must benefit the people being researched in the communities. From my lived experiences of over 14 years of research as an assistant and also principal investigator, I have observed that most of the research in African contexts is carried out and reports are written and shared with the funders of the research who are usually Western donors or international development partners, international Non-­Government and private organisations. For students, research is conducted in communities and a thesis is written and presented to academic institutions. Rarely are research findings written in local languages and translated or presented to the communities that were the sources of data. Dissemination of findings takes place in posh hotels to the donors or elite or policymakers than it often happens at the community level. Mwambari (2019) while interviewing the community in war-­stricken Northern Uganda was told by the community that they felt “used” by researchers and organisations that collected data from them, but they never realised any change or appreciative results. Mwambari (2019) describes the experiences of a child soldier in Northern Uganda who had participated in in-­depth interviews for over ten projects, where he was asked intrusive questions about his rape experiences, HIV/AIDS status, etc. But from telling his story so many times, none of the projects asked him about the support he needed to recover his life or practically support his desire to go back to school to rebuild his life. Such research was fruitless, and it fatigued him to the extent that he never wanted to participate in any more research. Research retraumatises and can do more harm than good. Victims/survivors of rape and abuse may have to tell their story so many times to different researchers, each time reliving the trauma. Research with such groups must be beneficial, beyond the transport refund or

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  47 member facilitation encouraged by ethical committees. Research should also go beyond individualised building of track-­record and grant profiles or publications, citations, for academics in institutions of higher learning, but rather researchers must feel the obligation to do something to bring equally practical change and transformation at the personal and communal levels of participants. While it can be said that some research results in interventions or policies that can benefit the researched communities, there is an ultimate need for researchers to go back to the communities that were sources of data to share with them the findings and knowledge taken from them. In fact, active or non-­tokenistic community participation in the whole research process including data collection, analysis, and theme identification, is preferred in a decolonising approach to research. There must also be an effort by researchers to share the findings with the local and central governments in the areas where the research was conducted to ensure maximum use of the knowledge gathered through research. Ultimately all research should result in interventions that meet the needs of the communities being researched. These could be policies and programmes aimed to address the needs raised during the research. Research should not leave the communities the same or worse off especially where social problems, injustices, and inequalities have been explored. Researchers should, however, refrain from promising what they cannot fulfil as this can equally do harm to the communities being researched. Mwambari (2019) warns of such research resulting in resentment by the communities especially when they are promised change to come from the research and it is never realised. Some researchers may promise change in policies, programmes, when research findings are presented to authorities but when this is not realised, it may result in mistrust and a lack of appreciation of the benefits of participating in future research.

Recognising the importance of Indigenous or local languages of the communities Centring communities or the researched means recognising the importance of Indigenous or local languages of those communities. Researchers need to understand or, at the very least, have on their core research team, researchers who are fluent and understand the Indigenous African and local languages of the people being researched, dedicated to the interests of the community. This is because languages are very important in the understanding and interpretation of concepts and questions being asked and also in the representation of findings. Indigenous African languages can also help us in coming up with Indigenous methods, theories, and concepts appropriate for African contexts. Researchers that know the language are crucial because most Indigenous African languages are full of proverbs, metaphors, and stories, which are weaved through conversations with the research participants. These proverbs most of the time do not have a direct translation in English, and their meanings may be lost or missed or sometimes often ignored in transcripts being analysed by someone unfamiliar with the African way of knowing and expression. In my experience in analysing my PhD data (2019) from older women, using NVIVO software, I found out I had missed the proverbs that the older women had used yet these had powerful messages they added to the major

48  African cultural traditions and decolonising research themes identified. I had to go back to listen to and re-­read the transcripts and try to re-­write the proverbs from the local language the older women had used. I made sure that I drew on these proverbs when analysing and writing up my findings. Also, language was very crucial during my PhD as it helped me discern the African research method I was using. It was through my attempt to explain to the older women in our local language the research method I was using that I realised how, all along, I had been drawing on my African oral storytelling and conversation method but without recognising and even acknowledging it. This process is described in the publication (Tusasiirwe, 2022). To explain briefly, the word ‘interviewing’ in Runyankore/Rukiiga language of Western Uganda, is interpreted as a method of gaining data or information from someone through a strict question-­and-­answer approach. Institutions such as the police often use such a method as well as employment agencies when interviewing job applicants. In this interviewing method, the power relations between the interviewer and interviewee are unequal and there is no meaningful relationship established in the process. With this understanding of the contextual meaning of interviewing, it became clear to me that I was not proposing to ‘interview’ the older women but to have a conversation with them, in a relationship that is non-­hierarchical. Therefore, I realised that the appropriate name for the research method I was using was a one-­on-­one conversation method with older women that is embedded in African oral storytelling. This conversation method or okuganiira in Runyankore language, involves telling stories of one’s life with the intention of drawing lessons from the lived experiences. This African research method will be elaborated on later in this chapter. Thus, recognising and using Indigenous African languages in research in Africa can be an important tool to confront the silencing and lack of acknowledgment of the use of African methods, practices, protocols, and ethics in research. Often, what guides research processes and protocols on the ground/in communities are the Indigenous African worldviews and ways of knowing but these do not get written about or acknowledged anywhere in ethics clearance proposals, PhD thesis, or project reports that often centre the already written-­about and predominantly Western research methods, ethical standards, and languages.

Recognising the importance of local and community structures The importance of local and community structures in giving ‘permission/clearance’ to the research being done in their community is important in research in the African context. It is now a given that researchers seek ethical clearance from their institutional and or national ethical review boards to clear them to conduct research in communities. After getting this clearance, however, researchers often ignore seeking permission to do the research in the communities from the local community structures like the local council one or even community elders and respected leaders. In some cases, some researchers are only seeking clearance from ethical review boards in Western Institutions to conduct research in Africa, ignoring seeking ethical approval from those boards based in Africa where the research is to be conducted or the local community structures. From

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  49 my experience doing my PhD at an Australian university, I first sought clearance from my university’s ethical committee. My impression of their comments and questions was that these ethical committees may lack adequate understanding of the context especially given the difference in ways of being and doing in African contexts from Western contexts. For example, the ethics committee was proposing that I conduct my conversations in public cafes instead of going into older women’s homes. The concept of cafes is non-­existent in a rural Ugandan context and, besides, our cultural values of hospitality allow people to welcome visitors including researchers to their homes as long as cultural protocols and practices are respected. A local ethical review board would be able to analyse in depth an ethics research proposal, including what kind of impact or benefit the proposed research will bring to the community being studied. The local community leaders would also be able to hold researchers accountable to fulfil the responsibilities of doing impactful research beyond academic or donor-­centred benefits. Also, valuing local or community structures’ approval will task researchers to break down their research into simple ways that can be understood by the local community or persons, which may result in research that respects local cultural values, philosophies, protocols, and languages. Consulting community or local structures here means going beyond seeking ethics approval from national and institution-­based review boards to getting approval from the local community structures in the area being targeted for the research.

Respect processes of ethics of Indigenous Africans rooted in African philosophies The processes of ethics of Indigenous Africans should be at the centre in guiding the whole research process. As Khupe and Keane (2017) have argued, while in Western science, knowledge is assembled through, for instance, building instruments and standardisation techniques as demanded by research ethics committees, in predominantly oral societies like in Africa, ethical expectations are passed down orally through cultural values and philosophies which should define principles for social work research ethical practice. These alternative ethical values and principles are discussed later in the chapter. Below I now will share how African ways of being and knowing can inform research methods that can be used by researchers, with case examples of how the methods were applied in my PhD research. I also share how orature can be utilised in data analysis and writing out of findings. Later I explore ethics that are embedded in African ways of doing and knowing.

Indigenous African oral storytelling methodology In simple terms, methodology denotes the reasoning behind why a researcher adopts certain research methods in their work. Indigenous African oral storytelling is a methodology in which stories are collected and shared in Africa. The data collection methods I will share below are embedded in this storytelling framework. The storytelling tradition in Africa is as old as humanity

50  African cultural traditions and decolonising research itself. Mucina (2011) describes African storytelling as a long-­held tradition with no end: As an Ubuntu person writing to our diverse global Black community, let me say that the story of using storytelling was here before me. I was born into the story, I have gained from the story, I have added to the story, I am sharing this story with you and giving you this story which was given to me, because although I will leave the story, the story will go on. This is our story, we co-­ author it. It has no beginning and no end. (p. 12) Oral storytelling was the common method used to produce and pass on Indigenous knowledge to generations. Through storytelling, the power of lived experience as a source of legitimate knowledge and teaching tool was extolled (Mucina, 2011). Stories were told not only to entertain but also to teach morals and cultural ways of being (Mucina, 2011; Wa Thiongʼo, 1986). Stories allow a culture to regenerate itself. Storytelling took a specific pattern. Every Indigenous African society has its way of telling and sharing stories, the words that invite a story and engage the audience. I have lived experience with the oral storytelling method. Growing up, I have been told stories by my mother, grandmother, and other people in my community. I have heard stories at a fireplace, in the evenings as we waited for the food to be ready, as we warmed ourselves in the evening, and after a hard day’s work. The structure of storytelling often starts with a storyteller calling the audience with words, for example in Runyankole/Rukiiga language, “Mbaganiire mbaganiire” [“Can I tell you a story?”] to invite the audience to listen. Upon hearing such words, the audience knows that a story is coming and reply, “Tebere” [“Yes, tell us the story”]. African stories were and are about everything, representing the African thinking and nature of knowledge which can be found everywhere and from everything. As Okri (1997) argues: Africa breathes stories. In Africa everything is a story, everything is a repository of stories. Spiders, the wind, a leaf, a tree, the moon, silence, a glance, a mysterious old man … a single yellow bird of omen, an inexplicable death … are all impregnated with stories. (as cited in Mucina, 2011, p. 6) One of the rituals of African storytelling is that a storyteller does not give an analysis of the story he or she is telling; rather multiple interpretations of the story are welcomed, which enables every listener to learn something from the story according to their level and situation. When using storytelling in research and academia, we extend oral storytelling into the written oral-­ narrative approach where we share meanings that we attach to specific stories collected. For PhD students in academia, a thesis becomes like a fireplace where stories are told with the purpose of making, sharing, and passing on knowledge to listeners

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  51 and readers. There can be multiple interpretations of the stories told, but there must be lessons to be learned, and they must be applicable in real-­life situations. African storytelling is a powerful pedagogical tool for communicating knowledge and wisdom (Chinyowa, 2001). It is through stories that acceptable behaviours, morals, expectations, cultural values, societal norms, and worldviews are transmitted across generations (Chilisa, 2012; Chinyowa, 2001; Wa Thiongʼo, 1986). Stories inform, instruct, and convey doctrines of culture. In this tradition, older people are highly regarded as the custodians of knowledge and age-­old wisdom based on their accumulated lived experiences and those of our ancestors. Older women, in particular, are important storytellers, custodians, and teachers of Indigenous languages and values. They are the bearers of culture, the mediators, and the transmitters of knowledge (Chinyowa, 2001) and they continue to pass on Indigenous knowledge (Wane, 2008). African storytelling is a relational and shared event with the storyteller and the audience interacting and each having rights and obligations (Chinyowa, 2001; Wa Thiongʼo, 1986). The storyteller tells the story to an audience who are actively involved in the presentation and consumption of the stories by asking questions, respecting and affirming the storyteller through verbal and non-­verbal emotional reactions, echoing or repeating the words or phrases of a storyteller (Chinyowa, 2001; Wa Thiongʼo, 1986). African storytelling is a conversational one-­on-­one and or a communal participatory experience. Through conversation around a fireplace, in the evening after a day’s work, stories are told and knowledge co-­created through complex use of language, proverbs and memory, among others (Chilisa, 2012; Wa Thiongʼo, 1986). At a communal fireplace, people congregate, listen to each other, and share ideas. The conversations are non-­hierarchical and dialogical or even multilogical. Stories and conversations are also shared through active observations of the actions or inactions of the elders or respected people in the community (Njoki et al., 2015; Wane, 2008). How stories can be collected are the research methods I now turn to.

Indigenous African research methods In this section, I explore the African one-­ on-­ one and group conversation method and learning-­by-­observation method, informed by the oral storytelling methodology above. As Kovach (2010, p. 43) argues, although some of these methods can also be found in Western qualitative research, when utilised in an Indigenous framework, unique characteristics are invoked: That is: a) it is linked to a particular tribal epistemology (or knowledge) and situated within an indigenous paradigm; b) it is relational; c) it is purposeful (most often involving a decolonising aim); d) it involves particular protocol as determined by the epistemology and/or place; e) it involves an informality and flexibility; f) it is collaborative and dialogic, and g) it is reflexive. The task for scholars and researchers in decolonising research is to name and use research methods rooted in African people’s histories, cultures, languages, and

52  African cultural traditions and decolonising research lived experiences. Some of the methods have been in existence in the communities and just need to be written about in a way that can be used for the relevant communities. Conversation method (Okuganira) This method involves two or more people having a conversation about a certain topic(s) in a more relaxed and respectful manner. The conversation can involve sharing of different stories in relation to the topic(s) being discussed. The major characteristic of this method is that the relationship between the researcher and the participants is a non-­hierarchical one. The stories are shared, often based on lived experiences or experiences of close people in the family or local community. The stories are shared from the perspective of African oral storytelling where one shares their lived experiences with the intention that lessons are learned from those experiences; mistakes are not repeated. Through a conversation method, data on a certain topic can be collected and analysed concurrently. Analysis happens when the researcher confirms back from the participant the meaning they have made from the story(ies) shared. The researcher can confirm from the participant what moral lesson(s) they wanted the listeners or readers to learn from their story or the many stories being shared. That way, knowledge and lessons are co-­created in the research process. In using this method, the researcher can come up with a list of questions they would like to ask the participant or the storyteller, but these questions are only a guide and the researcher should allow a story to flow as naturally as possible without unnecessary interruptions, and with out rigidities of the research topic. When having a conversation to obtain data, the environment or surroundings should be got right. Where one sits also matters. The researcher should sit in a position where they can easily observe the participant, their verbal and non-­verbal actions or inactions, which all enrich the stories being shared. These include actions of comfort or discomfort, the use of arms, facial expressions, the tone of the voice used to say some of the words and stories, etc. The researcher should also be conversant with the use of proverbs and metaphors which are often woven into the story. Sometimes during the conversations, especially in a village or rural context where the family and communities are close, it is not uncommon for family members or even community members to join the conversation and add to the story. From my experience when I was having conversations with older women in a rural village in Western Uganda, despite my explanations that I needed the voices of older women, their husbands or friends kept on chipping in to contribute to what the older woman was sharing with me. Some of the husbands’ views also helped me to understand issues surrounding what it is like to age in the community they lived in. Hence, even if the conversations are said to be one-­on-­one, the researcher can expect scenarios where the whole family can contribute to the conversation, even if this started with one individual in the family or community. Hence the African collectivist way also extends to knowledge or data creation. Someone’s story may trigger other stories, especially where the ‘my story is also another person’s or even a community’s story’ scenario arises.

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  53 Such a one-­on-­one conversation approach that fosters the ‘My story-­our story’ way of knowing fosters unity and consensus which are important values, means, and ends of Indigenous African learning and knowledge creation and sharing. In villages, conversations often happen in people’s homes and therefore the researcher will have no control over which spaces they occupy to have their conversations. Sometimes if a sensitive topic is being discussed, the researcher may need to skilfully try to provide an environment where the participant can privately and comfortably share their information/experiences, if confidentiality is what the participant wants. I found that sometimes when the older women would be escorting me after the recorded conversation, they would share with me more stories about their experiences. This implies that when using this Indigenous African conversation method, data collection does not stop when you switch off the recorder, rather stories will continue to be shared as the participant says their goodbyes, usually by walking you off. The researcher can take notes in their head and write down the stories shared during goodbyes when they have reached their homes or whenever they have some space. To get a meaningful conversation, that is not rushed, both the participant and the researcher need to plan for a time that is convenient for all. For example, if research is focusing on women, it may not be a good time to have a conversation during lunchtime when children or the whole family will be needing to be served food. The researcher may end up getting bits and bits of the story as the woman strives to give time to both the researcher and the family. However, waiting and observing the participant as they do their other chores, could also be a source of data, in the research method of learning by observation, which I discuss in the later sections of the chapter. Conversations as a method of data collection can be one-­on-­one or group. Group conversation method Data can be collected through a conversation between a group of participants, facilitated by the researcher. This Indigenous African group conversation resembles a community fireplace setting, where stories are shared in a group and knowledge is co-­created and shared with the audience. Ideas and stories can be scrutinised in a group conversation and participants can discuss, agree, or disagree on certain topics being raised by the participants. The group conversation can be serious to the extent that the researcher can get to know which issues/data are more important, implying that data analysis and theme identification can happen during the Indigenous African group conversation. Part of the facilitation role of the researcher is to confirm from the participants what they have collected to be included in the report or thesis. The researcher can prepare a list of questions to ask in the group conversation, but these may not be followed to the dot and hence the researcher needs to know inside out what information it is they want from the participants so that they are able to ask follow-­up questions, requesting participants to elaborate on some of the issues being raised in the group. The strength of this group conversation method is that it can facilitate getting a collective voice and recommendations from participants of the research. Below I share an example of how I used this Indigenous African group conversation method.

54  African cultural traditions and decolonising research I used the group conversation method in my PhD research to gather a collective voice on some of the issues the older women had highlighted in the individual conversations I had conducted with them. For me, a group conversation was a follow-­up to one-­on-­one conversations with the participants, to discuss in-­depth and collectively some of the themes that were arising from one-­on-­one conversations. I also used group conversations to do what in Western literature is called member checking where the researcher goes back to the participants to share or check with them the accuracy, credibility, and validity of the data collected and analysis done. The process I took was that after conducting one-­on-­one conversations, I invited the same older women that had participated in these conversations to come to participate in a group conversation. I made a preliminary analysis of the key themes coming from the one-­on-­one conversations. I presented these key preliminary themes to the older women and asked them to comment on, discuss, add to, or subtract the themes I had gathered from the individual conversations. The older women discussed further the themes; they shared more stories that enriched the themes. They also agreed that some of the issues/themes I had included should be removed because, to them, there was not much action that could be done about the issue. For example, one of the issues the older women asked me to remove was the issue of toilets/latrines where the older women struggled to squat at the latrines because of the pain in the bones and arthritis that some were experiencing. Some of the women had even avoided eating because they always thought about the stressful time of going to the toilet. Although the women could talk about it individually, some did not feel comfortable discussing it in public because they felt that nothing can be done about it. The older women discussed and agreed on other issues they thought were more pressing to them and required urgent attention like access to age-­appropriate health care, education for their grandchildren they were caring for, and access to clean water, among others. These were some of the issues raised in the one-­on-­one conversations but in the group, a collective voice was reached with the older women agreeing on what the major issues were that I as a researcher should include or prioritise in my report and thesis. I have also used this method of group conversation building on the one-­ on-­one conversation in project-­funded research I conducted in 2022 focusing on exploring experiences of international students who are parents and how they juggle migration, parenthood, and study in a new country. The funders of the project gave me a requirement to come up with ten recommendations on institutional changes and interventions that should be put in place to support better international students who

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  55 are parents. Instead of sitting down as a researcher and singlehandedly come up with these ten recommendations, I used this group conversation method with international student parents to discuss and come up with a collective voice on what the ten recommendations to be presented to the funders should be. The group conversation provided us with a united voice on the issues that are pertinent to the group and their suggested ideas to resolve them.

Beyond data collection purposes, African group or communal conversations can be a source of information/knowledge exchange to the participants and researchers during the research process. Communal conversations or meetings go beyond the limitations of Western-­oriented focus group discussions that typically limit numbers to around 5–10 or 12 participants. Communal meetings can comprise all or most of the community members who come together to deliberate on certain issues and in the end produce data to be used in research. When people come together in a conversation, knowledge is created and shared, and it is the responsibility of the participants and researchers to avoid misinformation and deceit, and each must be accountable to the other. In oral societies like Africa, visitors, who include researchers, are also seen as sources of information and knowledge they may not have. In fact, Indigenous Africans are expected to be hospitable to visitors or even strangers because it is believed that these might gift or bless them with new information. Therefore, when engaging in Indigenous African group or communal conversations, researchers are cautioned to ensure that they are not spreading misinformation as they will be held accountable for it. When researchers have new information that is of benefit to the community, this can also be shared. That way researchers are seen/experienced as a ‘blessing’ to the community, contributing something to the community being researched. The uniqueness of Indigenous African group or communal conversations is also that they can be a source of healing and support for the participants involved. As Indigenous African scholars Chilisa and Ntseane (2010, p. 629) remind us, there is a need “to move to healing research methods that allow research participants to name and share pain and to collectively envision strategies for resistance, resilience and survival”. Below, I will share an example of how the group conversations with the older women were a source of healing and support for the older women involved. At the beginning of the group conversation, as we set rules to guide the conversation, I came with the rules and conditions I had committed to in my ethics application. I told older women that they should keep all the information discussed in the group confidential and that they should share their personal experiences in a passive voice or third-­person voice to avoid

56  African cultural traditions and decolonising research social harm. The older women agreed with this initially. However, as the conversations went on, it was evident that the older women, although coming from different parts of the village, knew each other’s experiences and stories and it was impossible for women to follow my rules that required them to share their stories in a passive voice. During the group conversations, the women comforted one who had no grandchildren. While at the beginning of the okuganiira, this older woman introduced herself as childless, the other older women knew that she was not a barren woman. They gave her reassurance, and empathised with her, while demonstrating a deep understanding that she could have been feeling the stigma that is often experienced by older women with no children and grandchildren, in a community where children are a vital source of status and identity, particularly to women (Fennell & Arnot, 2008). Also, the older women supported each other and together brainstormed possible strategies to use to live in harmony with family members, particularly some stubborn daughters-­in-­law. The group provided space where older women talked about their lives and where they affirmed and supported each other. These were healing experiences that could have been missed had the women heeded my requests that they use the passive third-­person voice to talk about their personal experiences.

Learning-by-observation research method The observation method of data collection is founded on the Indigenous African way of knowing where “all learning and teachings are intertwined within the context of everyday interactions” (Wane, 2008, p. 191). Indigenous African knowledge has often been passed on through “personal communication and demonstrations from the teacher to the apprentice, from parents to children, from neighbour to neighbour” (Sithole, 2007, p. 118). Indigenous Africans have always learned through participatory education including observing elders’ actions or inactions, and by doing, imitating and practising, all embedded in experiential learning and education for living. This learning-­by-­observation method in research involves the researcher following the participants and actively interacting, participating, and observing their everyday actions and inactions. The researcher and the participants talk through their everyday actions as they happen, exploring the feelings, frustrations, barriers, and enablers, in relation to the topic. The observations and conversations take place everywhere, anytime, making learning and knowledge creation boundaryless and timeless. Through this method of following participants, the researcher gets an opportunity to tell the story through lived experience and real encounters with the participants and their communities. Most research tends to focus on data collection through talking or telling a story gathered from a one-­off conversation. However, in this learning-­by-­observation method, the researcher gets to accumulate data, by

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  57 collecting stories as they happen at different times and settings and with different clients. The observation method can complement one-­on-­one or group conversations or it can also be adopted as a method on its own. Sometimes participants might tell researchers one thing but when in action, something else happens. This method, therefore, helps researchers to collect data about what is talked about and what is done by the participants. The researcher can keep notes of what happens as well as the interpretations of these events by the participants involved. Where possible discussing the interpretations of the action or inaction as it is observed helps to collect more in-­depth data including what is verbally and non-­verbally communicated. The researcher has to rely so much on their ability to remember and keep notes in their head as sometimes time may not be available to write there and then. Below is a case study of why and how I used this learning-­by-­observation method in my PhD research My PhD research focused on three groups of participants to inform the researcher on ways we could decolonise social work in Uganda based on lived experiences of social workers and older women in the local communities. I had conducted one-­on-­one conversations with social policymakers working in the Central government in Uganda who told me that policies are made at the ministry level while implementation of these policies occurred at the local government level. The policymakers described the great policies of the government but upon reading from the literature, scholars talked about how Uganda has an impressive policy framework that exists on paper given the implementation gaps. I decided that instead of asking social workers at the local government level about their work, in a one-­off one-­hour conversation, I would collect more data by following or shadowing the social workers, for a given number of days, to see what it is they did or did not do in their community development work that is meant to operationalise the central government policies. I thus decided to follow three social workers working in the local government. One was engaged in social casework at the district level while two were responsible for both casework and community development work at a sub-­county level. The first step was to negotiate which days they would be available for me to sit and follow them in what they are doing. Following these social workers involved me observing what they did or did not do when clients came to their offices to seek help. I followed the community development workers when they went for fieldwork in their communities and when they stayed in offices to attend to clients who found them at the sub-­county offices. I attended their meetings, and they had the obligation to introduce me as a researcher. Sometimes I was involved or asked what my opinion was on issues being discussed during the meetings or casework, especially given my background as a social worker and also given the research I had done with

58  African cultural traditions and decolonising research older women on the ground in the local communities. I took notes sometimes in my head as things happened and then I would write them down when the meetings ended. Writing would happen during fieldwork or after fieldwork when I have returned home and have space to write. I followed the social workers for a minimum of ten days when I felt that I had got information to support my writing. The cases and experiences were different each day but there were also similarities for example when it came to observing the challenges that the social workers experienced in their community development work. For example, the social workers had no budget allocated to them to provide material support to the people that came to their offices to seek support and it was clear that when this need was presented, it was not met. There was no transport budget and so we used our own transport and bought our own lunch when we had to go to community outreaches in the villages. When we had run out of money, we stayed home and postponed our fieldwork. This method was a source of rich data, beyond what can be collected in an hour’s conversation with a participant. As a researcher I got to tell a story I had lived through the days I had shadowed these social workers.

Obtaining ethics can be complex and challenging with this method as the ethical review boards usually require that the researcher shows at what stage they will seek or gain consent from the participants, and how consent will be obtained from the clients or people that come to seek help from the person being researched. The researcher is expected to state clearly who will introduce the researcher and the research to the clients that come to see the professional/person being researched, and when participants’ information sheets will be exchanged and signed by whom. While a tentative approach of seeking and gaining consent can be proposed, the actual fieldwork is the best determinant of how this process will turn out.

Decolonising research ethics: ethics and values of working with Indigenous Africans in research Ethics is about researchers discerning and making moral judgments about what is good or bad, wrong or right, appropriate or inappropriate during the research process. In decolonising ethics, a combination of perspectives, worldviews, beliefs, and values, lived experiences, and cultural protocols of the researched should be the basis to guide researchers on what is right or wrong in the communities being researched. Obtaining ethics clearance from ethics review boards or committees does not mean or guarantee that researchers will conduct research ethically. Hence, researchers must constantly evaluate and reflect on the impact of their actions and decisions in the interests of ethical and respectful engagement

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  59 with the people they are researching. It is important that researchers ensure that they design and conduct culturally appropriate, ethical research when researching Indigenous Africans, because the actions they take will have consequences beyond the project. This is because of the relational values of African cultures, where consequences go beyond the researcher as a person/individual to affect their families, the organisation for which they are working, and the clan and tribe to which they belong, among others. The experiences and treatment of participants in the communities will influence their future decisions to participate in research. When researchers are conducting research in their own communities, culturally unethical actions will tarnish their public image and that of their extended family. From my experiences doing research in Africa with Indigenous African people, I have found several limitations and sometimes competing understanding provided by Western-­oriented ethics review boards and committees and their ethical expectations that cause tension with local cultural values and perspectives. Below I share the contradictions and unfulfilled promises that I experienced as I tried to adhere to the guidelines and promises I gave to the three ethics review boards that provided ethics clearance for my PhD research. I include a case and how I resolved these tensions and the lessons I learnt that might inform decolonised and culturally appropriate research ethics procedures, grounded in participants’ cultural perspectives. Informed consent and ethics review boards I experienced problems with the ethical requirement to ensure informed consent with participants who could not read and write. In the ethics clearance process, I was required to demonstrate how I would obtain informed consent from my research participants. For the most part, written consent is assumed to be the legitimate way of demonstrating informed consent. Thus, the researcher is required by review boards to draft the information statement and informed consent form ready for the research participant’s signature during the research clearance process. From my experience, ethical review boards and researchers need to decolonise this thinking and find appropriate ways of showing consent determined by research participants’ abilities and preferences. I will demonstrate this through a case resolution below. I was admitted to a university in Australia though the research I was proposing to do involved fieldwork in Uganda. I had to meet PhD requirements to obtain ethics approval from my University’s Human Research Ethics Committee, as well as approval from an institutional and national ethics board in Uganda. These research ethics review boards and committees proved to be formidable gatekeepers in their attempts to protect research participants from harm. However, I found the labelling I encountered ­during the research ethics application process offensive, especially

60  African cultural traditions and decolonising research the committee’s use of the derogatory term illiterate. Without naming names, one of the ethics committee members asked: What if the potential participant is illiterate and unable to provide informed consent? Initially, I took this question as an insult to people unable to read and write, taking it as an assumption that they were unable to provide informed consent. My response to this question was: Being illiterate does not mean that a participant cannot provide informed consent, my intention being to call out the unfounded and disrespectful assumption. It turned out that the other two ethics committees also made similar assumptions that informed consent must be given in writing They insisted that that I should include a provision for a thumbprint, witness line and signature in the formed consent form. A thumbprint from an ‘illiterate’ person was not sufficient to demonstrate their informed consent; rather this would need to be ratified by a ‘literate’ person, again implying that an ‘illiterate’ participant could not make an independent decision. I believed this requirement for a witness undermined the self-­determination of people unable to read and write. While I accept the principle of informed consent, I believed that verbal consent was just as good as written consent. For me, thumb printing a form the person could not read begged the question of whether they were informed about what they were signing. The ‘illiterate’ participant had to trust and hope that what the researcher had explained was the same as what was written on the form. This puts the participant at the mercy of the people who can read and write, which could be disempowering and stigmatising for participants concerned, making them vulnerable to exploitation in the case of dubious research. Case resolution To get final ethics approval to commence fieldwork on time, I committed that I would obtain written informed consent by participants signing the consent forms I had developed, after I had read and explained what was written on the forms to them. I would also give them participant information sheets translated into their local language for their records. However, after long exchanges with the committee, we agreed that there was no need for a witness line or third party, as this undermined self-­determination and was also impractical in some areas, especially in rural environments, where it was possible most people could not read and write. These commitments were challenged when I reached the ground to do fieldwork with older women in a rural area. During individual conversations, some of the older women agreed to thumbprint the consent forms while others did not. They questioned why I was insisting that they thumbprint the forms after they had verbally agreed to participate in my research. For them, verbal consent was sufficient. When it came to group conversations with the

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  61 older women, some women provided a thumb print, while others asked their friends who could write to help them sign against their names on the forms. Others stuck to their recorded verbal consent, which I accepted. Thumbprinting is associated with stigma as it signalled an inability to read and write. Some of the participants were also afraid to sign, given the uncertainty that their signature could be used in dubious activities, for example, they could be scammed to sell or transfer their land to the researchers or other people that might gain access to their signature or thumbprint. Lessons learnt Reflecting on my experiences and the requests of the participants, informed consent could be demonstrated through different methods and ethics review boards should not pressure researchers to conform to written informed consent as the legitimate way for showing consent from participants. The efforts of the committees seem to be more focused on the end product of a signed consent form and not the process of obtaining that consent, which, to me, is the most important and is based on alternative ethics that require Obuntu/Ubuntu values of trust, mutual respect, and relationship building, among others. Looking at the written consent forms which I obtained, I wonder about their use after the research, other than risk management. The forms are piled up in my cabinet gathering dust but the impact of my research, the relationships established in the local communities, are long-­lasting. Ethics committees and ethical researchers should advise that informed consent is obtained based on the participants’ abilities and preferences. Those who can write, or sign or thumbprint can give written consent but those who prefer verbal consent can also record verbal consent. What matters most is that there is trust, choice, and respect when the research is being explained to the participants. When researchers are explaining what the participation involves and the consequences, they need to be honest and not hide under the protection of consent forms in case they are held accountable after the research. These values point to the need for alternative ethics embedded in the cultural values and protocols of the research participants, which I will elaborate on later in the chapter. Confidentiality and use of pseudonyms I faced similar challenges when it came to the confidentiality and anonymity of the participants and the lesson learnt is that, again, participants should be given the option to waive or choose confidentiality. Participants should decide whether their names are included in the story. They should opt to use pseudonyms for their stories or transcripts. When pseudonyms are selected, participants should choose their own pseudonyms that can help them still identify themselves and the story told by the researcher. During my fieldwork, when I collected one older woman’s story and I was busy re-­assuring her that I would use a pseudonym to protect her privacy and confidentiality, she surprised me with her response: “whether you use my name or not, it is and will remain my true story”. She had

62  African cultural traditions and decolonising research interpreted my suggestion not to use her real name as meaning that I doubted her story. I realised that I did not actually give her a chance to decide whether she wanted me to use her real name in recounting her story. I was imposing confidentiality, which I had committed to during my ethics approval, processes to which participants were not party to. Also, there are circumstances where confidentiality cannot be ensured. For example, for other older women, I failed to respect confidentiality because their stories were so unique that everyone in the community knew who they were. One example is one older woman who had mysteriously lost all her 11 children and now had no children and grandchildren in her old age, which, for her, explained why she was struggling in her ageing life. To be true to the story that she shared with me, not having children and grandchildren formed a big theme of her life story, which I could not leave out; yet, its peculiarity easily identified who she was in the community. Thus, although I used pseudonyms, this was an issue that I should have discussed further with the participant, to ask her whether I should use her real name or a false name. Participants need to be given a choice to decide instead of researchers imposing their own ways of thinking about what is ethical. Decolonising ethics and methodologies require negotiating and listening to participants and resisting imposing our own ways of thinking about what is ethical research. It requires flexibility on the part of the researcher to make and discern what is culturally ethical at the point of interacting with the participants. This means that the commitments made during ethics approval could change depending on the circumstances or stories presented to the researcher in the field. These are changes that may occur without approval from the ethics research committees. African research requires that researchers listen to participants, demonstrate humility and willingness to learn from them, which might require them bracketing or abandoning their own definitions of what is ethical embedded in their professional elitism. Learning involves respecting ethics embedded in Indigenous ways of being and knowing, as outlined in Ubuntu/ Obuntu ethics of humility, mutual respect, authenticity, honesty, hospitality, gift sharing, and relationship development, elaborated below Alternative Ubuntu/Obuntu ethics Ubuntu/Obuntu ethical principles and values provide guidance for researchers researching Indigenous Africans. Research ethics committees and review boards committed to indigenisation and decolonisation need to ensure that these ethical values and principles are respected to prevent research that perpetuates colonialism and further marginalisation of Indigenous African people and their worldviews and cultural values. Humility and mutual respect Research with Indigenous Africans requires humility and respect for the participants as legitimate sources of knowledge; researchers are there to learn from.

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  63 It requires researchers to acknowledge the privileges that colonialism has given them as elite professionals, and step out to respectfully listen, observe, and learn. From my Ugandan experience, researchers must decolonise the colonial narrative that positions people in the rural areas as inferior or as people who need to always learn from the urban, town, or city people. Researchers must be humble and acknowledge the participants as their teachers. When I went to the rural area for my conversations with older women, one older woman welcomed me saying Twakushemererwa okwija kutushomesa, which translates as ‘we are happy that you have come to teach us’. In the villages, researchers are regarded as teachers (abashomesa), but, in fact, researchers are the ones learning from the ‘village’ people. Being humble requires explicit acknowledgement – to the people in the villages – that they are teachers and engaging in a respectful, non-­patronising, hierarchical, conversation with them. My first conversation with the older women was that I had come to learn from them, their stories, and their lived experiences but most of them would reply and say that they have nothing to teach me or that their stories as older women living in a rural area did not matter. This internalised negative narrative about non-­elite rural people had to be directly confronted to ensure mutual respect and honour for them. Valuing and building of genuine long-lasting relationships In Indigenous African research, long-­ term relationships are valued and regarded as ethical and should be a means and end of any research: “From an indigenous research perspective, the relational is viewed as an aspect of methodology whereas within western constructs, the relational is viewed as bias, and thus outside methodology” (Kovach, 2010, p. 42). In empirical research approaches, objectivity is valued while relationships are to be avoided. In African research, especially research in local, rural communities, relationships are valued and researchers can draw upon their relational connections when they need help with introductions to a community or person. It is permissible to involve people known to researchers or with whom they have a relationship. The obligation is on the researcher not to exploit the relationship for their selfish interests but to be respectful, honest, and truthful. It is also expected that long-­term relationships will form from any research in the communities. The participants’ willingness to participate triggers a long-­term obligation on the part of researchers. Likewise, there are long-­term consequences of misconduct that can have impact beyond individual researchers. The logic goes that researchers, who know that they will never be seen again in the community, may be more likely not to care or be accountable to communities compared to those researchers who know that or would like to be part of the community forever. Valuing relationships long-­term – beyond the research – works against abuse and exploitation. Researchers know they and their participants have a name, public reputation, families, and organisations to protect and, therefore, ensure that they are respectful and honest and accountable for all their actions and inactions in the research process.

64  African cultural traditions and decolonising research Relationships are cultural value. The more people one knows, the higher the public regard for the person as an authentic human being with Obuntu. Relationships signify humanness. Relationships can be turned into material things that someone needs as the Obuntu maxim states: A person with obuntu will have abantu (people/human relationships), who will, in turn, give ebintu (material things). Thus, the research process should facilitate the formation of relationships beyond the life of the project. In Afrocentric research, participants and researchers introduce themselves by name, state where they come from, declare their marital status, and share information about their clans, totems, and lineage. Such information helps to establish any connections and build a foundation for new relationships … It is not uncommon to find that participants of your research project might be regarded as part of your extended family after the research. You can expect to be invited to personal ceremonies and events. There are instances where participants are involved in future projects so exchanging phone numbers or email addresses is common to facilitate ongoing communication beyond the project cycle. Researchers have a responsibility to uphold respectful non-­exploitative relationships given the trust that communities give and often expect from strangers whom they welcome into their communities for research. Keane et al. (2016) and Seehawer (2018) talk about long-­term relationships that have resulted from contacts made during research projects in local communities in South Africa. Similar relationships have developed from my PhD research. When I visit my home district, I feel committed to visit, and am constantly remembering, the older women that participated in my research project. They are part of my network and family and, if I hear any information about projects that may benefit them, I do not hesitate to contact them to give them this information. Cultural value of hospitality and gift sharing Indigenous African culture of hospitality posits that one should never say no to a visitor requesting for help. Researchers can be seen as visitors in the communities they are researching, and the local people will feel obligated to help them in respect of hospitality value. However, researchers have the responsibility to exercise mutual care to ensure that hospitality is not selfishly exploited by the researcher at the expense of the participants’ time and wellbeing. During my PhD research, I made it a position that I would conduct two or more visits to the participant, the first one was to explain the research, establish rapport, and give the participant a chance to decide if they were to participate and when it would be convenient for them. The second visit would be for me to conduct the one-­on-­one conversation at the time agreed on with the participants. Participants should not be rushed nor fatigued and when they explain why they cannot participate, they should be respected and not made to feel guilty, like what Mwambari (2019) is describing below. Following the culture of hospitality, victims and survivors of abuse in Northern Uganda found themselves overwhelmed and in very vulnerable positions after they had to participate and speak

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  65 to various researchers, national and international, who were interested in hearing their stories of abuse and violence from the 20-­year-­old conflict. They were fatigued from the frequent visits from different researchers and some resorted to just telling researchers what they wanted to hear as they did not want to decline to help visitors/researchers in a bid to respect that cultural obligation and value of hospitality (Mwambari, 2019). Researchers must make sure that they do not abuse the fact that Indigenous Africans feel culturally obliged to care and help visitors and strangers in their communities. The researchers must make sure that they give time to participants to make decisions on what or when it is appropriate to engage in the activities of the research. Researchers should avoid rush-­in and-­out research studies that leave participants with no choice. It is unethical on the part of the researchers to make participants feel pressured to give an interview or live with the guilt of not helping a visitor. From my experiences as a research assistant in some of the big studies that cover a whole country or countries, the organisation often claims that they do not enough time to spend in each district, hence they bring a car with research assistants and, like bees, they tell them to swamp the community and interview or collect data from participants, who are willing to participate at the time. The research assistants are under pressure, as they are paid according to the number of people they interview. In turn, the research assistants pressure the participants to participate because they need to complete their surveys to get paid. Sometimes team leaders will tell research assistants that they have one day to collect data in each of the districts in the country. This puts pressure on research assistants or data collectors and on their potential participants. Research that pressures the participants and data collectors is unethical and has backfired when some participants do not complete the surveys or questionnaires, which forces research assistants to fill in the rest. Sometimes research assistants become their own respondents and fill in the questionnaires to meet the number of surveys that need to be conducted that day. I have been part of teams where we have told team leaders and their funding organisations that their timeframes are unrealistic and we were being forced to do unethical research, but more often than not, our concerns as research assistants were ignored by organisations trying to save costs of doing fieldwork. Ethical research requires organisations to respect and listen to research assistants, who are on the ground doing research activities on their behalf, and to allocate enough time to avoid rushing the communities. The culture of hospitality also comes with gift-­giving and sharing. Indigenous Africans have a proverb that muture niyo murongore, which means that you should never go to someone’s house empty handed; when you come with something, the host, in turn, will give you something when you leave. Giving gifts is culturally appropriate and do not be surprised as a researcher when your participants offer you food and drinks, and then material products like a hen or handcrafts, like hand-­made baskets, mats, or agricultural products, thereafter. Whatever the community has, it will try to share as a sign of hospitality and care for the researcher that has come to their community.

66  African cultural traditions and decolonising research

Conclusion In conclusion, decolonising research requires recognition and acknowledgement of the rightful central place and role of Indigenous epistemologies, methodologies, and peoples’ cultures and voices in research. In terms of ethics, social work research that is embedded in Ubuntu/Obuntu principles goes beyond the administrative or bureaucratic requirements emphasised by research ethics committees and review boards. Emphasis must be put on establishing trust, long-­ term relationships, and genuine participation as a sign of respect for research participants as experts from whom the researcher is learning. Even when the researcher addresses administrative questions required by research ethics committees, the number one priority should not be about compliance but should be concern about the participants, listening to them and respecting their right to self-­determination in the research process. Alternative ethics of respect for humility and mutual caring, genuine relationships, and hospitality should be at the centre of research with Indigenous Africans.

References Bessarab, D., & Ng’andu, B. (2010). Yarning about yarning as a legitimate method in indigenous research. International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, 3(1), 37–50. Chilisa, B. (2012). Indigenous research methodologies. SAGE Publications. https://books. google.com.au/books?id=kFHUWcIGaMcC Chilisa, B. (2017). A Conversation with Professor Bagele Chilisa, an Expert on Indigenous Research Methodology [Interview]. https://vimeo.com/245216628 Chilisa, B., & Ntseane, G. (2010). Resisting dominant discourses: implications of indigenous, African feminist theory and methods for gender and education research. Gender and Education, 22(6), 617–632. Chinyowa, K. (2001). The sarungano and shona storytelling: An African theatrical paradigm. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 21(1), 18–30. https://doi.org/10.1386/ stap.21.1.18 Fennell, S., & Arnot, M. (2008). Decentring hegemonic gender theory: the implications for educational research. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 38(5), 525–538. doi:10.1080/03057920802351283 Keane, M., Khupe, C., & Muza, B. (2016). It matters who you are: Indigenous knowledge research and researchers. Education as Change, 20(2), 163–183. www.scielo.org.za/ scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1947-­94172016000200002&nrm=iso Khupe, C., & Keane, M. (2017). Towards an African education research methodology: decolonising new knowledge. Educational Research for Social Change (ERSC), 6(1), 25–37. https://doi.org/10.17159/2221-­4070/2017/v6i1a3j Kovach, M. (2010). Conversational method in indigenous research. First Peoples Child & Family Review, 5(1), 40–48. Mabvurira, V., & Makhubele, J. (2018). Afrocentric methodology: A missing pillar in African social work research, education and training. In A. L. Shokane, J. C. Makhubele, & L. V. Blitz (Eds), Issues around aligning theory, research and practice in social work education. AOSIS. https://doi.org/10.4102/aosis.2018.BK76.01 Mbembe, A. (2016). Decolonizing the university: New directions. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 15(1), 29–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022215618513

African cultural traditions and decolonising research  67 Mucina, D. D. (2011). Story as research methodology. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 7(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/117718011100700101 Mugumbate, J., & Mtetwa, E. (2019). Reframing social work research for Africa’s consumers of research products: A guiding tool. African Journal of Social Work, 9(2), 52–58. Mwambari, D. (2019). Local positionality in the production of knowledge in Northern Uganda. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 18, 1609406919864845. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1609406919864845 Njoki, A. M., Kinyua, P. L., Muli, L. N., & (2015). The practice of African Indigenous Education and its relevance to theory and practice of modern education in Africa. International Journal of Innovative Research and Studies, 4(12), 132–149. Seehawer, M. K. (2018). Decolonising research in a Sub-­Saharan African context: exploring Ubuntu as a foundation for research methodology, ethics and agenda. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 21(4), 453–466. https://doi.org/10.1080/136455 79.2018.1432404 Sithole, J. (2007). The Challenges Faced by African Libraries and Information Centres in Documenting and Preserving Indigenous Knowledge. IFLA Journal, 33(2), 117–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/0340035207080304 Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. Zed Books. Tusasiirwe, S. (2022). Stories of decolonising research education and practice: experiences from my Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) research. African Journal of Social Work, 12(4), 1–11. Wa Thiongʼo, N. (1986). Decolonising the mind: the politics of language in African literature. James Currey. https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999573905602121 Wane, N. N. (2008, 07/01). Mapping the field of Indigenous knowledges in anti-­colonial discourse: a transformative journey in education. Race Ethnicity and Education, 11(2), 183–197. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613320600807667

4 Decolonising social work practice Indigenous community models, their principles, and applicability

This chapter draws on local experiences of older women and community workers in Uganda to explore Indigenous African models of helping that should be rediscovered and revalued in social work education, policy and practice. Two models will be explored: the mutual helping model and the Burungi Bwansi model of doing community social work. Examples/case studies of the application of these models in the communities in Uganda and in diaspora will be discussed. The principles followed when applying these models will also be explored. These models which are embedded in African Indigenous perspectives and philosophies need to be centred in social work in Africa and other communities where they exist. Social workers at some point in their lives will have to work with communities. When working with communities, the simple but complex questions to answer include: how do I help and work with the community? What models of helping can I use to work in appropriate and sustainable ways with the assigned community? Most communities often have their own Indigenous models of helping they have relied on for generations and therefore it is respectful and sustaining that social workers seek to know, and draw on these already existing ways of helping to inform the steps they take in working with these communities. Decolonising social work requires valuing, validating, and building on what is already in existence in the local contexts instead of prioritising knowledges or models pronounced as ‘best practice’ from elsewhere. This chapter will focus on those models that communities have relied on for generations but which have remained in the margins of social work as a result of invisibilisation and erasure of non-­Western knowledge and ways of helping. This chapter draws on the local experiences of ten older women and three community workers in Uganda to explore local models of helping that can be rediscovered and revalued in social work education, policy and practice in Africa. Two models will be explored: the mutual helping model and the Burungi Bwansi model of doing community social work. Examples/case studies of the utilisation and application of these models in the communities in Uganda and in the diaspora will be discussed. The principles followed when applying these models will also be explored. These models which are embedded in African Indigenous perspectives and philosophies need to be centred in social work in Uganda and other communities where they exist DOI: 10.4324/9781003407157-4

Decolonising social work practice  69

Mutual helping model Mutual helping is part of the way of life of many communities in Africa. It represents a traditional and historical way of being and helping, and living interdependently in a community for most African societies (Jones, 2007; Little, 1962; Twesigye et al., 2019, Musinguzi, 2015; Wamara et al., 2022). Mutual aid groups or mutual helping does not happen occasionally or in a random way; it is a form of helping embedded in African cultural philosophies like Ubuntu/Obuntu which emphasise interconnectedness and the need to care for and support one another in both good and bad times. The mutual helping model is characterised by a community taking collective responsibility for the social problems in its locality. Community members take responsibility to provide collective care rather than leaving individuals to face the problems singlehandedly. In mutual helping, people come together and pool resources and ideas towards addressing an issue they have agreed on by consensus. This could be helping each other when a member has lost a loved one or it could be pooling resources to help older people or children in need or other vulnerable groups in their society. Mutual helping is not just a response to problems in the community, it is evolving into communities engaging in developmental and income-­generating projects for all the community members. Mutual helping groups can be organised based on the village/place, clans or tribes, common interests like farming, age, e.g. groups for older people or for children and young people, among others. Below I share some of the mutual helping groups that older women in southwestern Uganda, Rukungiri district, had self-­organised and the functions or benefits the women experienced from the networks. The voices of the women were collected during a PhD research between 2016-­2019. The reader needs to note that these groups described below share some similar characteristics: They were self-­organised groups by older women working with other community members and had been established without assistance from outsiders like professional social workers. Most of the decisions were arrived at through consensus; most groups operated on trust and while there was very limited writing of any rules of engagement, the members obeyed and followed at heart the rules agreed on orally. These groups were not registered or established by the government. They are simply for the community and led by the community which makes them community-­led rather than community-­based. These self-­organised mutual helping initiatives represent how community members are becoming their own social workers, guided by their Indigenous ways of being, doing, and helping. The last characteristic is that community members join more than one group as a strategy to pull together with others to meet the different needs they have. For example, Prisca explains below this group strategy that most community members adopt as a way of life: You see, what most people do here is to form groups, they are in different groups, like me, I am in the one of Abataka [burial aid], then also in another one, of Abanyama – which is mainly for ensuring that we eat meat in festive days like Easter, Christmas. Then I am also in Ekyabamukadde [grandmothers’ group] where we save 1000 shillings [0.4 AUD] per month, and at the end of

70  Decolonising social work practice the year we buy plates, saucepans etc. We mobilise each other as older women to come to the group and bring that monthly savings so that it can help us. (Prisca) Below, I will describe some of these mutual helping groups and their functions. Mutual helping during grief and loss Community members adopted the mutual helping model to support community members in those difficult times of loss and grief. The ten older women I talked to in Southwestern Uganda had joined more than one mutual helping group and in times of loss, other members of these groups are obligated to come and support their own. One of the mutual helping groups that encompasses most of the community members from a given village/place is usually called community burial aid groups or Bataka groups, which are found throughout the whole of Uganda and most parts of Africa (Jones, 2007; Little, 1962; Twikirize & Spitzer, 2019). Bataka means village/community members and the groups were originally established to provide burial assistance, although they are now evolving to respond to other emerging needs in the community. The older women were all members of Bataka group in their village, which comprised over 40 men and women and their families. When a member loses a significant other, emotional, material, and financial support is provided by the group members. The community members are the first to arrive at the residence of their member when they have lost someone. They come to cry with and comfort their member and their extended family. The community members must forego all their individual activities, for some days to mourn the loss. The days vary but the older women are supposed to support their members for the first three days following the loss, after which they continue to come in voluntarily. During these first days, Bataka members mobilise themselves and bring everything that is needed to feed the mourners and comfort the family. They bring food, firewood, and cooking utensils and provide the labour needed to cook and serve the mourners, dig the grave and organise the burial ceremony. Providing a decent burial has spiritual importance in the African worldview, and the groups are there to ensure that a decent send-­off is afforded to their member. A decent burial is attended by many people who must be fed well as a sign of African hospitality. A decent cultural burial becomes a responsibility of a community and not just the grieving family. When death happens, it happens to a whole community and not just the individual, which explains why the community members must turn up to support the grieving family in various ways. Olive explained that: It [the Bataka group] helps in such a way that you lose a person, they will help you with the burial arrangements, people come and bury, they buy food and prepare it, and the mourners eat. (Olive) Bataka burial aid groups are evolving to engage in activities that support people beyond just times of death. There is realisation that members need to support

Decolonising social work practice  71 each other to live a life of dignity and not just come in when someone has died only. Living a life of dignity or living as opposed to death includes when the community member can meet her/his basics of life. Thus, the groups are now engaged in income-­generating activities that can support their members to access funds to go to hospital, pay school fees or respond to any emergencies that hit. Examples of communal income-­generating activities include the construction of rental houses and hiring out communal utensils like saucepans and plates. As Rhonah explained: Right now, we are constructing a building with four rooms and we would like to complete them and rent them out to get a communal income, and in one room we are going to put in our group things like saucepans, and other things. So, if you do not collect money the group will not grow, it will not develop. Because we even bought these big saucepans so that sometimes we can hire them to generate some money. That is the group we are in. (Rhonah) The income-­generating activities are supplemented by the groups revamping the Indigenous practice of having a granary. They are establishing community stores or granaries or food banks to ensure that the community has enough food. In precolonial times, traditional elders inspected granaries to ensure that each family was well prepared for future times (Cross-­cultural Foundation Uganda-­CCFU, 2009). With the practice almost fading away, today, Bataka groups have tried their own means to revive it by establishing community stores in addition to individual stores, to guarantee some form of food security With the groups going beyond burial aid (okweziika) to developmental activities (okwetungura), the groups’ names have also changed to reflect this transition for example a change from Bataka kweziika to Bataka twetungure (let us develop our selves) Bataka twimukye (let’s rise up), Bataka tukwatanise (Let us unite), etc. Mutual helping through clans Older women were also part of clan-­based groups that provided different benefits. These groups not only provide a sense of belonging and space for connections with other clan members but there is also an obligation on the part of clan members to support other members who are experiencing problems. Treasure talked of how Bungura clan group members were able to support her when she lost her mother. They came and buried and contributed condolences in terms of financial support. The group is good because even when I lost my mother, they helped us with the burial, it helps a lot. When you lose your loved one, the group contributes for you UGX 300,000 [AUD 120]. So, if you do not have what to feed the mourners on, you go there, they give you the money, you use it in the burial preparations. (Treasure)

72  Decolonising social work practice The older women were from different clans, which all had groups that met, ate together, and celebrated their belongingness. Each person in Uganda is born in a clan, which then forms a tribe. But while traditionally one qualified automatically to join a clan-­based group by the fact that they were born in that clan, for these groups, members must pay membership fees to access extra benefits. So, it is common to find clan members who are not part of the organised clan-­based groups which have become subscription fee-­based groups and hence exclusionary. Indigenous social workers need to work with traditional and community elders to ensure that clans can be supported to include rather than exclude their members. Clans are structures with which people are familiar and would therefore be an extensive reach that can include all Ugandans. Clans (ekika) in the Buganda region, central Uganda, play important roles in harnessing a sense of identity, pride, belongingness, and support to clan members (CCFU, 2009). Mutual helping based on common interest or age The older women were also part of mutual helping groups established based on shared interests. Some of these groups included rotational farming groups. The older women had their own groups, and their young children or youth also formed their own farming groups, although they would work together in family gardens. Given that subsistence agriculture is the major source of livelihood for rural older women, digging is a critical part of their lives. As such, the older women have mobilised each other and formed rotational farming groups where they support each other to prepare gardens in time. The women in these groups dig, weed, and harvest their crops together. They do this on a rotational basis. They support each other with their physical labour, their accumulated informal knowledge, and their skills and wisdom in cultivation. These older women have been in such rotational farming groups from when they were young, and they still find them even more helpful, as explained by one of the women: Our group is for older women, those who can manage. We come together and dig for each other and there are also [farming groups for] young women like my daughter-­in-­law who was here a few minutes ago. I have greatly benefited from this group because you see where those beans are, it is over two and half acres, with my little energy would I weed that whole garden and finish it? No, it would not be possible. But when I invited them [group members] in just two days we had finished the weeding. Now on Saturday we will be starting on another garden. (Prisca) The older women have also set up grandmothers’ savings and credit groups. As the name suggests, these are groups of older women who have mobilised themselves to save money in a pool which is then borrowed by the members at no or low interest (10 per cent), secured by the member’s accumulated savings in the group. This group is age-­based, meaning that only older women and/or grandmothers are eligible to join. An older woman in this community is defined

Decolonising social work practice  73 as one who has grandchildren or has reached the age of having grandchildren. All the ten older women belonged to different savings and credit groups, and they saved whatever an individual older woman could afford to contribute. This money is shared after a six-­or 12-­month cycle. Sometimes, instead of sharing the money, the older women may decide to use it to buy each member household items like mattresses, saucepans, plates, or chairs among others. Treasure described how helpful their grandmothers’ group of over 30 members was. Treasure was the chairperson of the group and they have managed to buy household items and at other times have shared money. This group for older women has also helped us so much. We meet and save money, but we save little; every month we save 1000 UGX [0.4 AUD]. So, after a certain time we share that money and sometimes some people may suggest that we buy things that help us in our homes. Now, in the first year, the 80,000 UGX [32 AUD] that we were supposed to get we did not. Instead, we bought mattresses and each member got a mattress. Then the second year, we bought chairs, then the third one, we shared the money, and even now [fourth year] we shared the money. The group has benefited me because like those chairs I would not have been able to buy them and yet I had to take that child to school. (Treasure) Hellen talked of how the saving group helped her to access credit to buy medicine: It has helped me in that I am able to borrow money and buy medicine, and when I get I take it back, when I fail they deduct from my savings. (Hellen) Treasure told a similar story, although in her case, she borrowed the money to pay school fees for the grandchildren in her care. The group continues to help you, especially for some of us who have children still going to school, you can’t fail to take a child to school when you are in such groups. They [groups] have helped me most. I would put there money, then get some from there to educate the child, then pay it back with interest. (Treasure) Some older women like Rhonah were borrowing money to invest in animals like goats I would get money from there, buy a goat, it produces, then it helps me, when I need money, I sell a goat. (Rhonah) Animals are easily turned into cash in cases of any problems that older women encounter. While they may borrow from the groups to invest in goats at an

74  Decolonising social work practice individual level, this is also done at a group level. Older women believe that owning animals like goats is a form of asset accumulation that can act as insurance or security when the need comes, as explained in the women’s group discussion: A goat might give birth to more goats and you are able to have a sustainable way of taking care of yourself. When you fall sick you can sell whatever you had kept, be it a goat or even a hen. (Older women’s group conversation) Animals like goats are assets that can be used as security to access credit in times of need. Older women because of their age and lack of security are at risk of being excluded from accessing external loans from banking institutions. Thus, by setting up their own groups where they save and borrow at low-­interest rates, they have been able to access the money they would struggle to get elsewhere. There are similar community-­led initiatives observed in the diaspora. Mutual helping model in diaspora Mutual helping can also be observed in diasporic contexts. Mutual helping groups are established, often starting with the sharing of the country of origin for most Africans. Some of the groups are engaged in businesses, pooling capital and resources to start those businesses as a collective. For example the Somali Americans in Minneapolis have established what they describe as culturally appropriate and non-­predatory models of collectively investing to collectively create wealth. They have established Star Finance where “around 200 Somalis are recruited to each pool $2500 to buy four homes in the city, then allowing prospective buyers to rent those houses to own” (Mwanza, 2019, n.p). Mutual and collective helping model is assisting them to bypass the unaffordability and some predatory US lenders to buy homes without needing to go to the bank. Another example are the Community-­led savings groups known as Chamas which have been reported as an inspiring model that boosts collective saving and investment by Kenyans in Kenya and the diaspora. Sometimes called ‘merry-­go-­rounds’ or committees, some chamas start as savings groups to pool money to use when an emergency hits. However, some groups have saved and invested the money in collective developmental projects For example the Murang’a Women’s Savings group started with women saving 10 Kenyan shillings and this money was pooled and invested and now they own a building worth 100 million Kenyan shillings in Kenya (Handasfield, 2021). Chamas in the diaspora also involves people working together to save and invest in different ventures including real estate, stocks, hotels, etc. The clubs help to pool resources that are invested for the benefit of all the members, acknowledging the power in the African cultural value of working together (Kimani, 2022). In Australia, the author is part of a saving group of ten Ugandans where we are also pooling resources monthly to invest in stocks and social enterprise projects in Uganda. The goal of the group is to mobilise resources that will help the members during old age and retirement,

Decolonising social work practice  75 as well as investing in projects that will help the community for instance health care for older people and education in Uganda. In the diaspora, the composition of mutual helping groups may be different from those for example established by older women in a rural village in Uganda where some form of homogeneity exists for example of people speaking the same language or coming from the same village or district or tribe/clan. The mutual helping groups in diaspora may comprise people from the same country but who come from different parts of the country and hence speak very different languages. The groups may also be formed by people from different African countries, as long as there is shared interest and understanding about helping, caring, and supporting each other in consensually agreed ways. These are mutual helping groups formed by alliance. Little as early as 1962 described such groups as not unique as they are “comprising individuals brought up in a homogeneous culture with a common interest in their place of origin, hold[ing] out considerable opportunities of friendship, sympathy, and solace and help[ing] the migrant in very practical ways” (p. 197). Community-led vs NGO-led or government mutual helping groups The mutual helping model presents an underutilised opportunity for social workers to work with communities from a point of strength rather than from a deficit perspective which is predominant in most traditional community development work funded mostly by external donors. NGOs in community development often re-­invent the wheel whereby when they come to the community, they establish their own new mutual aid groups, resulting in competing demands for community members who want to remain paying allegiance to their traditional mutual helping groups but at the same time do not want to miss out on what the external donors or NGOs might offer their villages. The ten older women had joined an NGO-­led savings and credit group established by NGO Literacy Action and Development Agency (LADA) with funding from USAID. LADA in 2011 came to Bwambara, Kikarara village, and introduced to the whole community the ‘new’ idea of forming a savings and credit group. They led the community to form the group called ‘Akabox savings and credit group’. As Prisca explained: In this group, we save money in a “box” and we want to go and register it [group] at the sub-­county. It [group] is for everyone; it was founded on the basis of an organisation [LADA], we sent them [LADA] money, they bought us the “box” and savings books, and whenever you save money, they write in a book and put a stamp. (Prisca) The group got this local name ‘Akabox’ from the unique way of saving money kept in a ‘box’ with each member having his/her own saving book for keeping records. This idea of intense savings and credit records, indeed, distinguishes this group from the older women’s self-­organised savings groups, which sometimes

76  Decolonising social work practice have no records at all but rather operate based on the trust that members have for each other. Members save as much money as they can (between 500–5000 UGX [0.2–2 AUD]). We have a savings box, when I get 1000 [0.4 AUD] I take it there, when I don’t have it, I sit and don’t go there because I don’t have where to get money from. (Janice) The idea of pooling resources and saving as a group is not new but the older women were curious to join because they thought the organisation could provide something new or give them funds to run their owned projects. Older women were, thus, under pressure to run their self-­organised groups but also remain members of this LADA/externally-­driven group. This practice where NGOs and government bypass self-­organised groups in the communities in favour of establishing their own new and externally led groups is very common in Uganda (see Musinguzi [2015] who discusses externally-­led village savings and credit groups in Uganda). My own mother who has been a member of a Bataka savings and credit group for over 37 years also joined an NGO-­led group recently in 2019. The NGO came to our village and mobilised women claiming that it is going to teach them how to save money and help each other. My mother joined this NGO’s saving group because she anticipated that they might teach them something new. Two years later after several meetings with the NGO, my mother told me how the NGO is just teaching them what they have been doing all their lives. Community members like my mother have extensive and age-­old wisdom to teach about saving in a community-­led approach. The most pressing challenge is that the older women I talked with in Bwambara were in constant debt and on pressure, always borrowing money from one group to pay their contributions to other groups. Thus, to actually empower rather than pressure the women, NGOs, instead of reinventing the wheel, should be building on the work that the community is already doing, asking to be guided by and listening to the community on what kind of support they need.

The role of a social worker in applying a community-led mutual helping model In the mutuality model of helping, there is a possibility that the mutual aid groups are formed without the help of any professional social or community development worker. In such a case, the social worker who is working with groups that have already been established has to be led by those groups, working alongside and at the pace of the community members. The social worker is part of the mutual aid group and contributes ideas that are equally discussed and assessed by all group members. The social worker must work together with the community members to come to a consensus on what ideas or initiatives and ways of working they want to adopt to run the mutual aid groups.

Decolonising social work practice  77 In other cases, the social worker may need to propose the use of a mutual helping model to address an agreed-­on issue. If the mutual aid groups are non-­ existent, the social worker will play the role of facilitating the formation of the mutual aid groups together with the community members, setting the purpose and objectives of the mutual aid group and mode of operation, through group consensus. In adopting the mutuality model, the social worker must acknowledge that they are not the expert but rather, working in solidarity with the community, they contribute ideas and knowledges they have to come to a consensus with the community on how to address the issues identified or set an agenda as a community. The social worker does not take over, or dominate or privilege their ideas, agenda, or initiatives over those of the community members, etc. The social worker does not rush the mutual aid group but rather walks alongside the group and at its pace. Such an approach may result in long-­lasting initiatives and relationships, but it is also a challenge and may not fit in within the project-­ based approaches adopted by most funding organisations that give funding for short time frames. It is, therefore, the role of social workers to advocate strongly and assertively for models of helping communities like the mutuality model and ask donors to fund their work, with respect to what works and is led by the community even if it means challenging the timed-­project approaches. Community development work that privileges donors’ approaches, models of helping, agendas, and initiatives is only a perpetuation of colonial social work practice and should be advocated against by social workers adopting a decolonial lens that requires them to stand with and alongside their communities. In applying the mutuality model, the role of a social worker is to listen to the community regarding what kind of support they may want from the social worker and even a donor or NGO or government, or whoever is coming in to help. The social worker and the community work together and assign each other roles and responsibilities according to each other’s strengths and capabilities. The assigned tasks and roles are viewed as equal parts that are required for the successful running of initiatives or whatever agenda is agreed on. Each one’s role is valued equally in a non-­hierarchical or binary way. There is no superior or inferior role but rather the roles complement each other toward achieving the overall community agenda. This non-­hierarchical way of working is at loggerheads with the traditional social work model where social workers are trained to be experts, whose knowledge and ideas are seen as more important or even more powerful than those of the communities they work with. Such a traditional professional model of social work has often resulted in colonial practice where ideas of the ‘expert’ are adopted top-­bottom, with a social worker telling the community what to do. In Indigenous models of social work, the social worker works together with the community to agree on what each one should do.

Burungi Bwansi model of Indigenous community development Burungi in Runyankore/Rukiga means good while Bwansi means for the earth. Thus, Burungi Bwansi literally means community work or working for the good

78  Decolonising social work practice of mother earth or simply the common good. It is an Indigenous practice where everyone in the community was (is) expected to contribute to the collective activities for the good of the whole community and the environment. Some of the collective activities include constructing and maintaining social goods and services like community water sources, wells and springs, roads, schools, and hospitals, among others. Burungi Bwansi community work also involved the community coming together to clear rivers and lakes, dig trenches along the village roads, fill potholes, and clean common places like markets. The community could also decide to mobilise to help its most vulnerable for example constructing a house for an older person, or providing roofing help for a widow or orphan in the community. The community work as a collective to respond to the needs of its people and care for mother earth. The community, mobilised and led by its leader or elder, comes to a consensus on a specific day for doing Burungi Bwansi for their community. On that day, everyone is supposed to forego their individual projects and to go and join with community members to work on an identified project that benefits the whole community. If the community decides to construct an access road or construct a school toilet, everyone in the community will come with the tools they have, and they work the whole day on this selected project. Every community member is expected to contribute whatever is within their means for the greater good of all. There can be penalties, as decided by community members, for those people that do not show up, without any significant reasons given. In doing Burungi Bwansi, the community members do not expect any pay, and neither is it a legal obligation, but the often-­unwritten rules of living in a community which includes participating and contributing to community projects are what must be obeyed and followed. The African Indigenous philosophies of life in which the Burungi Bwansi model is embedded include: 1 Collective care and responsibility: Everyone is responsible for their own individual well-­being and that of the community as a whole. A person is made a person as opposed to an animal through fulfilling the self and collective care and concern about others and mother earth. In Burungi Bwansi, everyone in the community knows what to do and is willing or obedient to do it for the common good. 2 Burungi Bwansi epitomises community involvement: everyone is involved in each other’s welfare and well-­being and environmental protection. Everyone must be involved in the protection of services in the community and identifying and establishing those that are needed. Each community member is also involved in the care of the most vulnerable, knowing that they can also be vulnerable at a certain stage in life. The principle of reciprocity is very much followed here where one is expected to provide help and support when they are able so that when they need help themselves, the other community members will be able to provide it to them. As the older generation model the Burungi Bwansi way of helping each other, the younger generation is learning by observation and sometimes by active participation, which ensures that there is always sustained intergenerational help. Sometimes the

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3

young people are also engaged in their own age-­related community helping projects, for example, children can be mobilised to go and dig a garden for an older person or clean their house and compound or help with domestic chores like fetching water from a well/borehole. Fostering community cohesion: through the community coming together to discuss its problems and find solutions and going ahead to implement them, cohesiveness is enhanced. There is socialisation at the end of a hard day’s community work where people talk to each other, share any harvests from their gardens, and share any information and news. People also got a chance to talk to other people and some also received individual counselling from the elders present. A community spirit for addressing community problems is fostered by everyone pulling together.

Burungi Bwansi, in more recent times, is being weakened by Western capitalism and governance (Ssonko, 2014). With colonialism and the adoption of the Westminster model of governance in Uganda for example, the social goods and services came under the ownership of government that planned where, when, and how they are constructed and maintained by who. Hence, communities wait for governments to come and send or pay someone to do work-­which would be done under Burungi Bwansi for example clearing bushes around a community health centre or constructing a school toilet, or repairing a village road. Partly also, the erosion of Burungi Bwansi is also coming from the devaluation of Indigenous education through which the values and philosophies of Burungi Bwansi were passed on. Now communities wait to be told what to do, yet, following the Burungi Bwansi model, communities should know what to do and be obedient to do it (Ssonko, 2014). Community members in some places in Uganda are being forced to engage in Burungi Bwansi activities while some are choosing to pay their way out/prefer the penalty instead of coming together as a community. Thus, there is a need to reclaim and restore Burungi Bwansi and its values and philosophies of working for the common good. The reclamation of such indigenous models should be spearheaded by social workers working with communities. In Central Uganda, Buganda Kingdom is attempting to show value to this model of community development by establishing a Bulungi Bwansi day (8 October) as well as establishing a ministry of Bulungi Bwansi in the kingdom’s government (Fr. Carmine, 2022). The community celebrations on Bulungi Bwansi day include doing community work like planting trees to restore forests destroyed by man, cleaning the trenches, and markets, and helping the vulnerable in society. In social work, there are community development workers who are also revamping this Burungi Bwansi model, with success, as shown below. A case study utilising the Burungi Bwansi model in social work and community development In Western Uganda, a community development worker (Harriet has a bachelor's degree in social sciences from Makerere University) has been working in local government in the sub county of Bwambara, Rukungiri District. During my

80  Decolonising social work practice PhD fieldwork conducted in 2017, Harriet had been frustrated by the insufficient funding from the government, which meant that she was finding it incredibly difficult to respond to the needs of the community. Harriet had grown up in Bwambara and understood very well the needs including the struggle to access clean water, the lack of primary schools, and the poor state of community healthcare centres, among others. In a community meeting, there was consensus that there was a need to pull together as a community to ensure that these needs are met. Harriet described below how she worked collaboratively with the community to brainstorm ideas to address the struggles We started together with the community, a community-­based organisation. We just called them [the community] and we asked them, “What do you think we can do?” Just dialogue. And the community members were like, “We have so many children, so even when we go to dig, where we are supposed to dig up to mid-­day, we dig up to 10 am because we have to come back and take care of the children, we sometimes leave them at home crying, they do not have enough to eat.” So, they [the community] were like, “We can start a community nursery school. We give the children a teacher and they stay there.” (Harriet, Research conversations 2017) Through the community meetings, the need for a community school where children would go, freeing their parents to also engage in farm work, was established as a priority need. The next challenge was to mobilise resources to construct that nursery school and recruit teachers to teach and care for the children. As with the Burungi Bwansi model where each community member is meant to contribute whatever they have, resources were mobilised to construct the school as Harriet describes below: So, we were like, “What do we do?” So, one of the community members said. “For me, I have given you a place/land where to put the nursery school.” Another one gave us timber for building, another one said, “For me, I have contributed nails.” That’s how we started! And we said, “What do we do for the children, they will need food to eat.” Then ideas came. We said that since it was the season for maize, every parent contribute 5 kilograms and they did! (Harriet) The community members pooled together what they had, and a nursery school was constructed. At the time of fieldwork in 2017, a permanent structure of a primary school was also being established from the community pooling together resources. Some community members who did not contribute at the start of the project were asked to pay a little school fee to facilitate the running of the school and pay teachers. The teachers and children are fed through the community members bringing maize they harvest from their gardens. Children and parents have benefited from the community school with children attaining education as parents get time to engage in their farming activities

Decolonising social work practice  81 uninterruptedly. Harriet is also very satisfied that she has been able to fulfil her Obuntu obligations of helping her community: “Children are now taking porridge in school so the parent also has time to dig, they know that the child is being taken care of in the community!” (Harriet).To address the need of a chronic shortage of clean water, Harriet, using her grant writing skills acquired from university, successfully wrote and won a 5 million UGX grant ($2000) to construct a community water tank. This money, however, was not sufficient to construct the 45,000-­litre underground reservoir the community needed. Using her knowledge of the Burungi Bwansi helping model, Harriet mobilised the community and in one of the many meetings held, they came to a consensus that each one needs to bring what they have to support the successful construction of the tank. They agreed on specific days for the Burungi Bwansi project of water tank construction. In these days, all community members would come with their tools including hoes, jerrycans, and motorcycles, and work together to construct the water tank. There was a community consensus that the 5 million be used to buy those materials needed for construction but which are not locally available like cement, water pipes, etc. We met with the community and we made [a] plan. They were going to provide Burungi Bw’ansi where they would do the digging that is required using the tools they have, generally provide the labour and whatever they have, like we did in the community school. We used the money to buy what we don’t have in the community, like cement, water pipes and also pay the plumbers. Now people drink water from a tap! (Harriet) Such work that Harriet is doing together with a community is needed in other communities around the whole country. For example, the community water tank constructed can only serve 149 households in one village in Bwambara sub-­county, and so there is still an indelible chronic shortage of water in other villages. However, the success of the community project demonstrates the applicability of Indigenous models of helping where social and community workers work in solidarity with community members to address some of the needs in their communities.

Application of Indigenous models of helping in social work: guiding principles From the case studies shared above, it can be deduced that communities themselves are not passive victims of the social problems being experienced. They are engaging in models of indigenous collective helping to respond to their needs. These models can be adopted by social workers who should approach communities from their point of resilience and community strengths rather than a deficit perspective. The following are some of the guiding principles that social workers can follow, to avoid engaging in colonial community development where they impose their own agendas and ways of helping the community.

82  Decolonising social work practice Social workers working alongside and in collaboration with the community In applying Indigenous models of helping, professional social workers must work alongside community members to define the issues or problems and come up with possible solutions and resources to implement them. Each one’s ideas, strengths and contributions are equally valued and viewed as complementary. It is acknowledged that the community needs a social worker much as the social worker also needs the community. This means that a social worker cannot claim to be the ‘expert’ who tells the community what to do but there is an appreciation that none is all-­knowing or all-­sufficient. There is value in what can be done together and in solidarity. Community platforms or meetings are safe spaces where each one’s voice and ideas are sought and respected, as contributing to the common good. Following this guiding principle requires outstanding facilitation skills and validation of the community members and their ideas. For rural communities that have internalised the marginalisation due to their lack of formal education, cash poverty, etc, these thoughts and feelings may hinder them from contributing their ideas. Therefore, the social worker must encourage them to speak and share their ideas. The roles of a social worker in applying Indigenous models of community development include the workers being a catalyst for action; community facilitator and mobiliser, among others. Validating and valuing local resources, wisdom, and knowledge Utilising Indigenous models of helping in social work requires approaching communities not from a perspective of what they are lacking but rather what resources and ideas they have available in their localities to address their needs. In other words, the social worker must adopt an asset and strengths-­based model. The social worker has to tap into the local wisdom and experience accumulated over time, such as group formation and management, community needs and resources, Indigenous knowledge in agriculture and animal rearing, environmental protection, and caring, among others. Valuing, validating, and utilising local knowledge, wisdom, and other resources can boost the community’s self-­ reliance and sustainability of the community-­led initiatives. In colonial social work practice, this local expertise and wisdom are often not tapped into or built on by organisations or even by social workers that seek to establish and impose their own ways of helping (Ife, 2016). This guiding principle of recognising community’s resources and strengths challenges the individualised, professionalised and pathologising traditional social work approach to community development. It requires the social worker to appreciate the full story of the community which requires ‘seeing’ both the vulnerabilities and ways of survival or resilience the communities are putting in place to respond to the needs they have. These community-­led initiatives could be successful or not, but they represent community efforts beyond being seen as passive, helpless or powerless victims. The community saviour mentality is also challenged when social workers adopt a lens that values and builds on what communities have and are already doing.

Decolonising social work practice  83 Adopting Indigenous philosophies and concepts and names Indigenous helping models are local ways of life developed through accumulated years of lived experiences, and they are in languages the community can understand. It is crucial that social and community workers endeavour to use languages, concepts, and models of helping that the community can identify with, using their local philosophies as their frames of reference. Social workers who are working outside of their own communities may need to learn the languages of the communities they are working with. It is often that it’s the communities that need to adapt to the languages of donors or NGOs that are coming into their communities. However, in decolonising practice, social workers need to insist on using the languages, concepts and models of helping the community to facilitate ownership, connection, understanding and accountability. When the local concepts and models are adopted by the social workers, they create mental images and re-­imaginations about social work compared to when foreign or English models and concepts are used. With just a name, the community can identify the philosophies and re-­imagine the future/prospects or commitment or goals of the community work and organisation, as already modelled by Bataka or Burungi Bwansi models. Using local names and philosophies can also enhance community’s capacity to hold each other and social workers accountable to align with the promises/declarations encompassed in the local concepts used.

Conclusion The models and initiatives discussed in this chapter represent Indigenous social work that professional social workers may need to sit and learn from the communities. The older women are engaged in community development projects and spearheading income-­generating projects for the community; they are engaged in providing emotional, physical, psychological, support for their community members in times of loss; the mutual aid groups are significant in the grief and loss recovery for the community. The groups are keeping the community cohesive, caring and showing concern about each other’s wellbeing. Their initiatives are ensuring that their rights to access healthcare, education for their children, access to clean water, clean environment, are realised. The older women talked of the need for any external organisations to support them in their initiatives to ensure everyone’s access to necessities of life. it can be deduced that what is happening in the communities, led by the communities, is in fact social work. The older women and their communities are their own social workers and instead of being dismissive, there is a need to embrace and admit that we can learn and adopt the work these communities are doing in our everyday social work education and practice. The Indigenous models of helping present social workers with an opportunity to engage in community development from a non-­colonial, non-­deficit and non-­ pathologising perspective. Indigenous models of helping have been utilised by communities for generations and represent their ways of survival and resilience. It is time for social workers to decolonise practise and education by recognising, reclaiming, and adopting these models as mainstream social work.

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References Cross-­Cultural Foundation Uganda [CCFU]. (2009). Culture and social protection for the very poor in uganda: Evidence and policy implications. https://crossculturalfoundation.or.ug/ Fr. Carmine. (2022). Uganda. Bulungi Bwansi brings people together. SouthWorld News and Views from Emerging Countries. www.southworld.net/ uganda-­bulungi-­bwansi-­brings-­people-­together/ Handasfield. (2021). Meet women group in Mt Kenya which started as ‘Chama’ of 10 Sh each to owning a 100 million building. Opera News. https://ke.opera.news/ke/en/ economy-­finance/fc4566b772227e797ee566427bf4da1c Ife, J. (2016). Community development in an uncertain world: Vision, analysis and practice (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Jones, B. (2007). The Teso insurgency remembered: Churches, burials and propriety. The Journal of the International African Institute, 77(4), 500–516. Kimani, M. (2022). With money to invest, Kenyans say no thanks to banks. Africa Renewal. www.un.org/africarenewal/web-­features/money-­invest-­kenyans-­say-­no-­thanks-­banks-­0 Little, K. (1962). Some traditionally based forms of mutual aid in West African urbanization. Ethnology, 1(2), 197–211. https://doi.org/10.2307/3772875 Musinguzi, L. (2015). The role of social networks in savings groups: Insights from village savings and loan associations in Luwero, Uganda. Community Development Journal, 51(4), 499–516. Mwanza, K. (2019). Somali-­Americans can buy homes without going to The Bank in Minneapolis thanks to collective investment. The Moguldom Nation. https://moguldom. com/220993/somali-­a mericans-­c an-­b uy-­h omes-­w ithout-­g oing-­t o-­t he-­b ank-­i n­minneapolis-­thanks-­to-­collective-­investment/ Ssonko, S. (2014). Rekindling the spirit of Bulungi Bwa Nsi. The Sun Rise. www.sunrise. ug/news/features/201401/rekindling-­the-­spirit-­of-­bulungi-­bwa-­nsi.html Twesigye, J., Twikirize, M. J., Luwangula, R., & Kitimbo, S. (2019). Building resilience through Indigenous mechanisms: The case of Bataka groups in Western Uganda. In M. J. Twikirize & H. Spitzer (Eds), Social work practice in Africa: Indigenous and innovative approaches. Fountain Publishers. Twikirize, M. J., & Spitzer, H. (2019). Indigenous and innovative social work practice: Evidence from East Africa. In M. J. Twikirize & H. Spitzer (Eds), Social work practice in Africa: Indigenous and innovative approaches. Fountain Publishers. Wamara, C. K., Twikirize, J., Bennich, M., & Strandberg, T. (2022). Reimagining Indigenised social work in Uganda: Voices of practitioners. International Social Work, 00208728221081823. https://doi.org/10.1177/00208728221081823

5 Decolonising values and ethics of social work Conceptualising Obuntu-led social work values and ethics

Social work ethics should be contextually defined yet ethics and values in social work practice have been predominantly grounded in Western philosophical traditions that assume an individual worker operating within rigid professional boundaries. An individual social worker is seen through an anthropocentric lens where human beings are viewed as superior or even detached from the natural environment. This chapter will bring a different perspective to social work ethics and values following conceptualisation embedded in Obuntu/Ubuntu and reflecting a way of being of people and communities in collective societies. Values of interconnectedness with environment, Value of hospitality interlinked with connection and genuine relationship building, and value of community accountability will be explored.

Introduction Values and ethics are interrelated. Our values stipulate what we regard as important in our being and doing. What we value, then, influences what we regard as right or wrong in our being and doing, which forms our ethics. Social workers around the world including in Africa are using their codes of ethics to define what is ethical, that is, appropriate and inappropriate professional behaviour. Ethical codes or codes of ethics are said to represent standards of ethical behaviour expected of social workers in a professional relationship. However, most of these codes of ethics reflect a mostly Western philosophical tradition (Tascon & Ife, 2020; Sewpaul & Henrickson, 2019). “The rootedness of social work ethics in hegemonic liberal humanist discourses, which are a poor fit with Indigenous, Asian, Arabic and African realities” form the basis for calls to decolonise social work ethics (Sewpaul & Henrickson, 2019, p. 1471). Professional social work ethics (the guidelines that social workers must abide by when operating in their professional capacities) predominantly reference Western cultural and epistemological assumptions about life, values, and what is morally right or wrong. However, contexts in which social work is practiced and taught vary considerably and so are the philosophical positions and cultural values that inform it. Hence some of what may be often defined as standards of ethical behaviour in some contexts may be in conflict or may even harm the relationship between the social worker and the people they work with, if applied uncritically to all contexts. There is a DOI: 10.4324/9781003407157-5

86  Decolonising values and ethics of social work need to problematise the predominant social work ethics and answer the question of whether it is possible to think about and do differently ethics beyond the Eurocentric constructions of professional ethical practice. As social work strove and still strives for professional recognition and status, a positivist scientific and expert model and its attendant principles were (are) exported through colonisation continually clashing and contradicting with Indigenous communities’ relational and interconnected way of being and working. “The dominant view of professionalism is infused with modernity’s positivist illusion of detachment in working relationships, neutrality, social worker-­as-­expert, universal laws and the separation of the professional from the personal” (Sewpaul & Henrickson, 2019, p. 1473). These views underly what gets conceptualised as ethical principles in most codes of ethics which remain founded on principles like confidentiality, individualism, etc, that guide social workers in their work. In social work education which is tasked to introduce students to ethics both in theory and practice, it is still commonplace that Biestek’s seven core principles are still taught as foundation ethical principles to be followed, but these reflect predominantly the Western way of life (Chenoweth & McAuliffe, 2017). Often uncritically, these principles are still predominantly taught in universities in Africa as the core principles for social workers (Sewpaul & Henrickson, 2019). These principles are Individualisation-­recognition of unique qualities of the individual; purposeful expression of feelings-­freedom of client to express feelings without fear of condemnation by worker; controlled emotional involvement-­workers’ sensitivity to client feelings and appropriate response to them; Acceptance-­worker deals with clients as they are by maintaining focus on dignity and personal worth; non-­judgemental attitude-­worker does not judge clients but their behaviours; user self-­determination-­recognition of rights and need for clients to have freedom in choices and decisions; confidentiality-­preservation of information disclosed in the professional relationship. (Chenoweth & McAuliffe, 2017, p. 70) Although at international level there have been efforts to harmonise and come up with global ethical principles like privacy, human rights, self-­determination, etc, these principles may also be defined and interpreted differently according to the diverse cultures and time. For example as Sewpaul and Henrickson, 2019 ask, “do notions of autonomy and self-­determination have any meaning in collectivist or Indigenous cultures, where the wellbeing of the family, clan or tribe is put ahead of the good of the individual?” (p. 1473). Could we talk about collective self-­determination instead to acknowledge the relational self that is interdependent with family and community and the environment, the living and dead? The born and yet-­to-­be-­born beings? When talking about care, could we talk about collective self-­care for the collective communities, embedded in their knowledges and cultural values and practices? When an entire family is involved in the self-­less collective care of a sister/daughter/auntie with dementia and therefore makes decisions based on family consensus, is it possible to talk about individualised confidentiality or family confidentiality? Where the family has cultural “powers of attorney” to make decisions about care and treatment,

Decolonising values and ethics of social work  87 guided by moral and not legal, ethics and obligations of Ubuntu/Obuntu care, can we describe their family self-­determination? As authors Mungai et al. (2014, p. 170) decry, the major challenge that social workers in Africa experience is one on “maintaining professional social work ethics, which are predominantly Western-­based, in an African cultural context”. Below I present some of the ethical standards which can be seen as in contradiction to non-­ Western cultural traditions and therefore should not be assumed to be standard ethical behaviour when working with clients from these traditions. At the same time, I present what is valued and may be regarded as ethical when working with communities in African contexts. I include scenarios with some questions to help a social worker think through the actions they may take and the reasons for those actions.

Valuing hospitality, connection, and reframing professional boundaries Scenario 1 You are a social worker working with a rural community in your country. You have organised and conducted a community education session on the topic of working in solidarity to preserve and keep clean water sources as well as the benefits of engaging in communal income-­generating activities. You have also visited some of the families with sick older people and children to check on their wellbeing. One of the community members has decided to give you a hen/chicken as a gift to say thank you for all you are doing. Another community member has also given you produce from their farm like onions. Another woman has given you one of the baskets she has weaved herself. Would you take these items? Why or why not? What would you use as the basis for your decision?

Scenario 2 You are a researcher conducting a study with a migrant community where they value food sharing as one of their cultural ceremonies. If you are invited, would you participate in this food sharing? What do you think would be the benefits and or disadvantages of doing so or not doing so? In African social work, the value of hospitality suggests that African people around the world are best able to relate to social workers who understand the unconditional willingness to help and share with others simply because they are human. Hospitality suggests generosity in assisting others, with no strings attached, and a welcoming of visitors and outsiders. African clients and communities are likely to judge social workers who do not honour hospitality harshly. Hospitality creates the expectation that clients, in turn, will welcome social workers with offers of a drink, food, or gifts like local handicrafts, or whatever the clients have available. These gifts are a sign of acceptance that social workers cannot refuse without risking connection and relationship with their clients. This practice may run counter to professional boundary

88  Decolonising values and ethics of social work restrictions and non-­acceptance of gifts or food sharing from clients found in Western social work ethics. Ubuntu/Obuntu does not distinguish between personal and professional relationships. It sees the social worker as a human being interacting with other human beings. There is no ‘us’, ‘them’, or ‘other’, only human beings inextricably tied to one another. Everyone is human first with obligations to others. Hence with such community values of hospitality, mutuality and reciprocity, the notions of professional distance and a detached professional persona create contradictions for African social workers. African values like hospitality encourage broad-­based definitions focusing instead on connections and relationships rather than professional boundaries. Thus, the imposition of rigid professional boundaries is a colonialist ethical practice in communities that value collectivism, hospitality and connection.

Termination of relationships vs making meaningful and long-lasting relationships As a social worker, if you were invited by your client to attend their wedding or christening ceremony for their child, would you go or not? Why? Why not? What would you use as the basis for your decision? When clients come to social workers to seek help, a professional relationship through which the help is provided is established. Some codes of ethics emphasize that once the goals or needs of the client have been met, the social worker is expected to terminate the relationship (NASWU, 2012; AASW, 2020). The social worker separates from the client. Thus, the relationship is contractual, based on the existence of problems or needs to be met. Termination of the professional relationship may mean that the client may not be permitted to visit the offices again if they have no problems for the social worker to address. One can argue that what is terminated is the professional or therapeutic relationship but, in practice, where a client’s problems or needs are the gateway to accessing the social worker, when there are no problems, it means the client has no entry or access to the social worker. However, Social work is relational, and these relationships must go beyond contractual, problem-­defined relationships, alien to most non-­western cultures. Bhangyi (2022) explains that in Ubuntu ethics, “the responsibility of helping those in need is a journey not an event” (p. 4). Relationships in social work are not neutral but are influenced and shaped by cultural context. In some non-­Western cultures like African and Middle-­Eastern (Al-­ Krenawi & Graham, 2001), and Indigenous peoples in Australia (Morseu-­Diop, 2013), there is value in genuine long-­term holistic relationships. Terminating relationships is foreign or out of place as it is considered a form of respect to cherish the relationship built with someone who has truly affected you and aspects of your life. In these cultures, it is believed that a friend in need is your true friend and therefore social workers who help people when they are in need can be regarded as friends for life. One would not want to terminate the bond with

Decolonising values and ethics of social work  89 a social worker who has helped them in times of need as this may be conceived as being ungrateful and thus the relationship is expected to be nurtured. Social workers as friends indeed become part of the family of their clients. It may not be surprising that a social worker will be expected to be part of the celebrations of this client like weddings or traditional functions. With this cultural context, the focus of ethical practice should be on how social workers can establish respectful, non-­hierarchical, harmless, and non-­exploitative long-­term relationships where the social worker will be friends with their clients for life. Valuing long-­term relationships would check social workers themselves to put into consideration their actions or inactions, knowing that whatever they do marks them for life. Knowing that there is a permanence of relationship with the people we help may facilitate anti-­oppression, anti-­discrimination, and anti-­racist practice in social work. Long-­term relationships bring to life the humanity of social work and they can foster belongingness, love, trust, and social cohesion, all important values, and goals of social work. Valuing long-­term relationships means that social workers go beyond working with clients for individual therapeutic purposes to also viewing or working with them as partners for collective action and social change. “In this way, issues arising from individual intervention may see a client and a social worker working together within the community to protest and develop community action”, which social workers see themselves as part of (O’Leary et al., 2012, p. 141). Long-­term relationships with clients go beyond the narrow, deficit or curative view of clients that confine them to only their problems, to viewing them in a collective and holistic sense as people social workers can work with. Valuing long-­term relationships normalises helping. Relationships with clients are not limited to the existence of problems and needs to address – which is a narrow and ‘unhuman’ way of looking at relationships and life in general. Rather long-­term and reciprocal/mutual relationships mean that a social worker helping the client could also be helped at one point as we do not know for sure when we might need help or from where and whom will be present at that moment to help us. Thus, African social work ethics and values would front a social work profession that values long-­term, reciprocal/mutual and respectful relationships rather than the termination of relationships.

Valuing social worker expression of feelings and emotions and lived experiences In the principle of purposeful expression of feelings and emotions, freedom of a client to express feelings without fear of condemnation by the worker is emphasized (Chenoweth & McAuliffe, 2017). In this way, a one-­way expression of feelings by the client is portrayed as ethical. A client can express their positive and negative emotions and feelings, with the social worker expected to listen to every tear or emotion expressed. Coupled with the principle of controlled emotional involvement, social workers are obligated to understand and listen to the expressed emotions of their clients but they should not engage themselves emotionally in their client’s problems nor express their feelings. This principle

90  Decolonising values and ethics of social work that requires non-­expression of feelings and emotions by social workers does not apply absolutely in all circumstances and in an African context, in some situations, it is ethical or appropriate or even expected that the social worker participates emotionally as they support their clients. For example in grief and bereavement support, a social worker’s emotional involvement and expression of feelings shows understanding, empathy and validation for what the client is experiencing during the grief and loss. It is culturally appropriate for a social worker to be part of the mourning and funeral services/prayers to show their support for the family or community in loss. The social worker can cry when they go to visit the family or community when the loss is announced or at burial or during the funeral or requiem masses that are usually held to pray for the person who has died and to comfort the family. Sometimes the social worker can be among the people expected to give a eulogy about the person that has died. Therefore tears, physical presence, financial assistance to organise burial by a social worker are all appropriate ways of expressing in action empathy, understanding, and genuine support during loss, grief and bereavement. Holding up emotions or keeping a distance from the client and community during times of loss is culturally inappropriate. Thus, it should be highlighted that this principle of controlled emotional involvement and non-­expression of feelings by a social worker should be limited to certain circumstances for example in preventing exploitative sexual relationships that may interfere with providing help to the client, but in other circumstances like those described above, a social worker is culturally allowed to express and share their emotions especially to show solidarity with their clients. During counselling, often professional social workers are told that they are not supposed to express or share their own stories and experiences with the clients. However, in African ways of knowing where lived experiences are regarded as a teaching tool, it would be regarded as ethical for a social worker to express their experiences during the counselling process to connect with or even validate the clients’ experiences or stories. This approach of sharing own experiences with the clients has been adopted and evidence from providing mental health support in Zimbabwe where a culturally appropriate model is being used, has shown that it helps to connect with the clients (Chibanda et al., 2015).

Valuing the mother tongue in social work practice It is only ethical and fair for social work services to be provided in the mother tongue of the people with whom we are working. Using or providing social work services in the mother tongues of the people we work with means social work is contributing to preserving and promoting the languages and culture of those people at a broader level. Language is more than a tool for communication, it is also a bearer of culture and a tool for decolonisation (Wa Thiong’o, 1986). In the context of colonisation where Indigenous languages were(are) devalued and some are getting extinct or endangered because of monolingualism, promoting culture and language through social work services positions the helping profession as part of undoing and ending colonisation. At a people-­centred level, providing social work services in the mother tongue of the clients helps to deal

Decolonising values and ethics of social work  91 with the limitations of using interpreters or translators in helping sessions. There remain challenges to employing interpreters fulltime in social work services. But besides, there are words, emotions, and experiences that are not easily translated and or shared with another person in a third language. There are simply words in mother tongues that cannot be translated into English and this means the social worker doing their helping in English will miss this information which might be helpful in practice. Research also shows that people do not feel comfortable talking about sensitive personal matters through a third person (Pohjola, 2016). Yet despite this evidence, social work, even when there is the capacity to employ social workers that can speak mother tongues directly with clients, continues to provide services through translators and interpreters. For Africans in diaspora, for example in Australia, the English language remains the predominant language used in social work practice despite the existence of over 200 Indigenous languages and over 300 other languages spoken in the country. Due to the language being a bearer of culture, Australian social work remains predominantly white, practised by predominantly white social workers, speaking the English language that is interpreted into Indigenous and other languages (Walter et al., 2011). As Pohjola (2016) argues, “the traditional notion that language competence means being able to understand others’ language is inadequate; we must go beyond words to experiential and cultural meaning, from mere understanding to profound understanding” (p. 647). Speaking in one’s mother tongue provides cultural safety. The mother tongue provides a language for expressing emotions, for which a foreign language is not necessarily well suited, or a person’s command of the foreign language is inadequate. The mother tongue is the language of the soul and heart and this provides a strong basis for providing, and where absent, advocating and establishing social work services in the mother tongues of the clients, beyond the use of interpreters. In research I conducted on experiences of international students who are parents and newly arrived academic staff parents in Australia (2022), during difficult times, the participants who included Africans talked of running to people in their networks who spoke their language so that they could express themselves well, to a person who also understands their context and cultural roots. Some of the students and staff were not comfortable expressing themselves in English, which was also an impeding factor for some to utilise some of the counselling and mental health services provided. Some were unwilling to participate in the research itself because of a lack of confidence that they could express the nuances of their experiences in English language. Hence, it is likely that providing services in mother tongues can enhance utilisation of the services for migrant communities. In addition, the services in the mother tongue, beyond use of interpreters, can enhance feelings of communality, identity, and cohesion in society as well as preserve the Indigenous languages facing extinction.

Valuing community accountability (Baragira ngwenki/What will people say?) Given that white Western social work has a strong grounding in the welfare state and work done by NGOs, and recently the market, the emphasis on

92  Decolonising values and ethics of social work accountability in social work is most often upward accountability to donors/ funders, government, Boards of Directors in NGOs, managers/supervisors, compared to downward accountability to the people and communities we work with (Ife, 1997, 2016). In Obuntu/Ubuntu ethics, a strong emphasis on community accountability by both individuals and community members and social workers would be expected as ethical behaviour. In most African Bantu societies, there is a strong ethic about what the community or others will think about the actions or even inactions, and behaviours of a community member. At the back of people’s minds is always that question of “what will people say, think?”. In Runyankore/Rukiga, it is common to hear someone say ‘abantu baragira ngwenkyi’ or in Rutoro among the Batooro in Western Uganda, ‘abantu baragira kiki?’. The power of community accountability was and is manifested in knowing that everyone is ‘watching’ closely what you are doing as an individual in that community. We think, act, and see ourselves in relation to others in the community. We often ask ourselves if what we are doing will benefit or ruin or destroy our community and its name or image. This is because we know that our community is because we are and we are because the community is, and because we are, therefore I am (Mugumbate & Nyanguru, 2013). The actions of an individual impact and reflect on the community they are from and what happens to the individual happens to the community. Also, The power in this community accountability was that there was no such thing as a private sphere where issues like domestic violence and child abuse are thriving today because of the individualisation of space. The power of knowing that everyone in the community is watching what you are doing or how you are treating others was significant to deter people from engaging in heinous acts that would violate the dignity and humanity of other people including their own wives or children. After all, wives and children were seen as belonging to the community implying what happened to them, even if in a private space, would be a concern to the whole community. The abuse or neglect of older people was also intolerable in the whole community and every child, family, and community itself would be judged and held accountable for the way it treated its older people. Through the power of community accountability, family and community care were ensured for every older person in that community. The shared concern to ensure that there is individual and community wellbeing and everyone’s humanity is respected resulted in shared responsibility in preventing dehumanising others. The community also had the power to intervene and punish perpetrators of acts that disrespected the humanity of others. Obuntu/Ubuntu and the power of community accountability provided an alternative way of constructing justice that went beyond the problematic approach by Western criminal justice system institutions like prisons, police, and courts of law, which adopt an emphasis on punishment, imprisonment, the estrangement of individual from the community. The adversarial approach that creates winners and losers does not align well with the Obuntu/Ubuntu approach, which seeks to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions but also find mutually acceptable solutions between the individuals and communities involved.

Decolonising values and ethics of social work  93 In resolving any conflicts in the community, the major focus of the Obuntu/ Ubuntu approach is To favour the re-­establishment of harmony in the relationship between parties, aiming at the restoration of the dignity of the plaintiff without ruining the defendant, in a restorative rather than retributive justice. Therefore Ubuntu operates in a direction favouring reconciliation rather than estrangement. This involves sensitising a disputant or a defendant in litigation to the hurtful impact of his actions to the other party and towards changing such conduct, rather than merely punishing the disputant. The outcome of such framing of the guidance from the law is: mutual understanding rather than punishment, face-­to-­face encounters of disputants to facilitate resolving of differences rather than conflict and victory for the most powerful; and civilised dialogue premised on mutual tolerance. (van Stam, 2014, p. 47) Thus, what is at the forefront in resolving any issues arising in the community is never vengeance, or confrontation, but mediation and reconciliation. The perpetrator is held accountable for their behaviours but for the goal of ensuring that the family and community can stay in harmony. The power of community accountability needs to be rekindled in most of the African countries where it is dwindling and social workers have the ethical obligation of restoring and reclaiming this Indigenous way of being to build socially cohesive communities where each one is accountable and watches for and about the other. Community accountability brings caring power back to the community, embedded in interdependent and interconnected Indigenous ways of being. Community accountability is appropriate in African contexts where institutions of modernity like police and courts of law are detached or located far away from the local communities, especially in rural and remote areas in Africa.

Valuing spiritual interconnectedness It is unethical for social workers in Africa to continue to ignore the importance of spirituality, faith, and religion which are very important dimensions of African peoples’ way of being and doing. With the enlightenment worldview and the push for professionalism, social work distances itself from religious and spiritual underpinnings (Mabvurira & Nyanguru, 2013; Gray, 2008; Bhagwan, 2010). However as evidence shows, spirituality and religion remain very critical components in the lives of social workers and their clients (Tusasiirwe et al., 2022; Twesigye, 2014). In Africa, collective spirituality is practised at churches, mosques, shrines, temples, etc, that also house community centres for youth, children, women, refugees, etc. The interconnectedness of the environment and the spiritual world is appreciated where communities believe in the agency and sacredness of natural features like forests, rocks, animals, etc. Thus, spirituality is a very critical element that should be incorporated in practice and Tusasiirwe et al. (2022) provide details of an African Spiritually Sensitive Practice-­Theory

94  Decolonising values and ethics of social work and a reflective tool that can guide social workers to incorporate this dimension in their education and practice.

Valuing interconnectedness with the environment African ontologies and epistemologies emphasise the interconnectedness and embeddedness of humans and the natural environment. It is a spiritual connection divorced from the anthropocentrism of Western individualism and beliefs in human supremacy. Western anthropocentrism sees the natural environment separately or independently from humans holding that human beings are central and have control over nature (Ife, 2016). Christianity teaches that humans have dominion over the earth and everything on it. These beliefs gave rise to industrialisation and capitalism that positioned the environment as something humans could subdue and exploit for their own ends (Ife, 2016). African philosophy like Obuntu/Ubuntu sees an inextricable connection between humans and the natural environment according to humans responsibility to care for the environment and all the creatures living in it. Parents, kin, and communities pass on this Indigenous knowledge to successive generations from a young age, where identities link to inter alia animals, plants, or birds, as totems that accord an ethic of responsibility for living creatures and their habitat. Individuals are not supposed to eat or kill their totem because it represents them and their clan. Thus, clans share responsibility for their totems (species or animals nearing extinction) to preserve them for past, present and future generations. In preparing social work students for ethical community-­led practice, it is important that they learn and apply in practice the interconnections between people and their natural environment. African and Indigenous communities have much to contribute to environmental or green social work knowledge, as, for them, caring for and protecting the environment is a way of life.

Conclusion This chapter has highlighted that social work ethics are contested and complex and no single set of rigidly defined ethical principles can apply everywhere or in every situation social workers around the world interface with. Every context or region needs to embark on defining what might comprise ethical behaviours for social workers there, and some examples of ethical values for the African context have been shared. The way these ethical behaviours are applied in practice will also vary as social work is itself very complex and depends on the social workers themselves to self-­reflect and be respectful of the worldviews, ways of being and doing of the people they are working with, while being aware of their own and avoiding imposing them on their clients. Culturally appropriate ethical practice that is embedded in Indigenous African ontologies and epistemologies may be one that values long-­term mutual, reciprocal relationships that normalise seeking and providing help, valuing hospitality and connection rather than distance and boundaries, valuing community accountability, and spiritual and environmental connectedness, among others.

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References Al-­Krenawi, A., & Graham, J. R. (2001). The cultural mediator: Bridging the gap between a non-­Western community and professional social work practice. British Journal of Social Work, 31, 665–685. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/31.5.665 Australian Association of Social Workers [AASW]. (2020). Australian Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics. https://www.aasw.asn.au/practitioner-­resources/code-­of-­ ethics Bhagwan, R. (2010, 03/01). Spirituality in social work: A survey of students at South African universities. Social Work Education, 29(2), 188–204. https://doi. org/10.1080/02615470902912235 Bhangyi, B. V. (2022). Towards developing ethical capacities in social work practice in Africa: Case study and critical commentary from Uganda. International Social Work, 00208728221136968. https://doi.org/10.1177/00208728221136968 Chenoweth, L., & McAuliffe, D. (2017). The road to social work and human service practice (5th ed.). Cengage Learning Australia Pty Limited. Chibanda, D., Bowers, T., Verhey, R., Rusakaniko, S., Abas, M., Weiss, H. A., & Araya, R. (2015). The Friendship Bench programme: A cluster randomised controlled trial of a brief psychological intervention for common mental disorders delivered by lay health workers in Zimbabwe. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 9(1), 21. https:// doi.org/10.1186/s13033-­015-­0013-­y Gray, M. (2008). Viewing spirituality in social work through the lens of contemporary social theory. British Journal of Social Work 38(1), 175–196. Ife, J. (1997). Rethinking social work: Towards critical practice. Longman. Ife, J. (2016). Community development in an uncertain world: Vision, analysis and practice (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Mabvurira, V., & Nyanguru, A. (2013). Spiritually sensitive social work: A missing link in Zimbabwe. African Journal of Social Work, 3(1), 65–81. Morseu-­Diop, N. (2013). Indigenous Yarning modalities: An insider’s perspective on respectful engagement with Torres Strait Islander clients. In B. Bennett, S. Green, S. Gilbert, & D. Bessarab (Eds.), Our voices: Aboriginal and torres strait islander social work. Palgrave Macmillan. Mugumbate, J., & Nyanguru, A. (2013). Exploring African philosophy: The value of ubuntu in social work. African Journal of Social Work, 3(1), 82–100. Mungai, N., Wairire, G., & Rush, E. (2014). The challenges of maintaining social work ethics in Kenya. Ethics and Social Welfare, 8(2), 170–186. https://doi.org/10.1080/1749 6535.2014.895401 National Association of Social Workers Uganda [NASWU]. (2012). Code of ethics for National Association of Social Workers of Uganda. NASWU. www.ifsw.org/ member-­organisation/uganda/ O’Leary, P., Tsui, M.-S., & Ruch, G. (2012, 01/17). The boundaries of the social work relationship revisited: Towards a connected, inclusive and dynamic conceptualisation. British Journal of Social Work, 43, 135–153. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcr181 Pohjola, A. (2016). Language as a cultural mediator in social work: Supporting Sámi culture with services in Sámi. International Social Work, 59(5), 640–652. https://doi. org/10.1177/0020872816646818 Sewpaul, V., & Henrickson, M. (2019, 11/01). The (r)evolution and decolonization of social work ethics: The global social work statement of ethical principles. International Social Work, 62(6), 1469–1481. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020872819846238 Tascon, S., & Ife, J. (2020). Disrupting whiteness in social work. Routledge.

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6 Decolonising social policy

This chapter tells the story of the introduction of neo-liberal policies, interventions, and programmes formulated outside Uganda by persistent colonisation through a government hierarchy strongly influenced by foreign donors and international partners. Funding for social interventions by international donors is contingent on the government adopting an agenda based on Western policies, interests and approaches, culminating into methodological and funder colonialism. However, there has always been persistent and well-developed resistance from local people. This chapter documents examples of alternative ways that local communities have decolonised policies and practices, with a suggestion that these models are adopted to decolonise social policy.

Colonisation in social policy Decolonising social policy involves recognition and understanding of ongoing colonialism and neo-­colonialism while also working towards their reversal and total dismantling in policy arena. This chapter aims to  expose neo-­ colonialism in social policy and provide some ideas to further decolonisation. With political decolonisation or ‘independence’ of African countries comes the assumption that they are in control of their decisions and socio-­economic policies put in place. However, evidence shows that although ‘independence’ was obtained for countries like Uganda in the 1960s, the rule of the colonisers is still manifested in the policies made, how they are implemented and evaluated. Bulhan’s (a Somaliland-­based scholar) concept of neo-­colonialism captures the well-­calculated, complicated practices and protocols imposed by the colonisers, which manifest the unfinished business of colonisation in African social policy (Bulhan 2015). Neo-­colonialism simply means that the colonisers are returning to the so-­called independent nations through ‘the backdoor’, with the colonisers controlling, behind the scenes, the economic and political power of the former colonies. The colonisers promote the flawed policies that serve their own interests. Neo-­colonialism is insidious and hard to detect because the colonisers have come back to their colonies in a redefined manner where they are sometimes positioned as donors, or international development partners and allies. DOI: 10.4324/9781003407157-6

98  Decolonising social policy Despite the technical ‘independence’ of most African nations, no socioe­ conomic policies are put in place without privileging the interests and getting the approval of the former colonising countries. As Nigerian scholar Okafor has elaborated very convincingly: In the present neo-­colonial era, the trajectory of colonialism includes the following and is maintained thus: the United Nations via the allied bodies (carrying the covert socioeconomic interests of the neo-­colonialists as expert policy suggestions and recommendations), the leaders of the third world nations (who are externally imposed on the people through pseudo democracy and corrupted election processes), the multinational corporations and socioeconomic aids (while the multinational corporations operate as agents for the actualization of the covert policy agenda of the neo-­colonialists, socioeconomic aids are designed to perpetually condition the neo-­colonised as dependent on the neo-­colonialists), the local ministries/institutions (these include what we know today as ministries of petroleum resources, agriculture, foreign affairs, health, etc., through which the indices of neo-­colonialists’ socioeconomic policy agenda are actualized), and the common masses (the indigenous people who simply act the script of the neo-­colonialists in their everyday socioeconomic activities). (Okafor 2020, p. 135)

Neo-colonialism in social policy: evidence from Uganda During my PhD research, I conducted interviews with nine Ugandan senior bureaucrats, key decision makers and social policymakers, particularly in social protection field, particularly ageing and older people. I also observed the work of three community workers involved in community development work with local government in Western Uganda. In this chapter, I first share the findings from the interviews with the senior bureaucrats, and then analyse the findings from the interviews with the community workers in relation to social policymaking and implementation processes. The participants decried the impact of top-­to-­ down colonial policy making which stubbornly remains hierarchical despite evidence of the inappropriateness of the approach. Impact of top-to-down colonial policies on senior bureaucrats The senior bureaucrats understood, very well, the influence of donors on policies and practices. They spoke particularly of having to ‘dance to the tune’ of the donors, if they wished to get funding for their projects. They explained that despite having vast experience and knowledge regarding the importance of Indigenous ways of helping and decision-­making, they have to follow donors who have the economic and supposedly epistemological privilege to determine what policies, programs and priorities can be funded and implemented. In other

Decolonising social policy  99 words, donors set the agenda, and determine policies and programmes to be implemented because of their financial privilege. For the time I have been in aged care organisations, it’s very challenging to influence the donor world and donors’ thinking because they have their priorities and also they are looking at numbers. (Josiah, NGO) Donor inflexibility is a very big challenge that policymakers encounter. Organisations have to follow donor priorities and the areas they want to fund, strictly. If donors give organisations funds for specific activities, money cannot be diverted to any other activity that the NGO deems a priority, even if it is in the best interests of the community. Donors’ priorities cannot be changed even if the needs in the communities show something different that should be addressed as Kellen explained: Our work is majorly 90% donor funded but even the donors need to understand advocacy for older persons. The donor priorities are a big limitation to our programs. Because, as an organisation, you have your priority as advocacy but if the donor’s priority is, say, for example, on community mobilisation, the problem is you will not get that money for community mobilisation and use it for national level advocacy. You cannot just compromise. (Kellen, NGO) The donors are imbued with neo-­liberal orthodoxy, and positivist ideologies of funding ‘numbers’. They prefer to fund target groups with bigger numbers as they regard large numbers as more impactful and thus worthy of funding. This has meant that older people, arguably, one the most marginalised and excluded groups, but whose numbers are few compared to children in Uganda, attract fewer funders because, there are very few older people, and ‘their impact is considered minimal’. Donors influence what governments at national level prioritise. Thus, The government and development partners [donors] have not paid much attention to the area of older people because what guides our development is statistics. So, they consider older people as a small section of people. They consider numbers and that’s why from 15–45 they pay attention but for older people, they are few and their impact is considered minimal. (Ken, government) Older people are not seen as a good economic development investment.Nationally, Somebody will tell you, like the finance ministry, that it doesn’t make economic sense, we would rather support the youth with the livelihood program, because they are vast, they are many, they are all over, they are stealing and yet older people are retired. (Kellen, NGO)

100  Decolonising social policy Economic development is given priority over social development. Funding is that, of course you know, our sector is not on the priority list, it is not top priority like other sectors, ours is more of a service sector. Vulnerable groups might not be as priority as roads. For the meantime, we are concentrating on building those big infrastructures. So that is how priority is, even if you went to the budget, you will see it, the social development sector may be only 2–3% of the national budget. (Warren, government) What Uganda, and indeed most African countries, are pursuing is the neo­colonial, neo-­liberal agenda spearheaded by the Western powers of the World Bank and the IMF, where economic growth is prioritised over social welfare and social spending on people/human capital (Okuonzi, 2004). This has resulted in what Okuonzi (2004) describes as the “dying for economic growth” paradox where, despite economic performance, the country’s social welfare situation remains miserable. The neo-­liberal agenda emphasises structural adjustments as conditionalities for its loans to “developing” countries like Uganda. A meeting in which such agreements come to be endorsed by “developing” countries like Uganda is described as “a meeting with a begging finance minister, who is handed a restructuring agreement pre-­drafted for voluntary signature” (Shah, 2013, n.p). As Stiglitz (2000, p. 3) explains: The IMF likes to go about its business without outsiders asking too many questions. In theory, the fund supports democratic institutions in the nations it assists. In practice, it undermines the democratic process by imposing policies. Officially, of course, the IMF doesn’t “impose” anything. It “negotiates” the conditions for receiving aid. But all the power in the negotiations is on one side – the IMF’s – and the fund rarely allows sufficient time for broad consensus-­building or even widespread consultations with either parliaments or civil society … IMF experts believe they are brighter, more educated, and less politically motivated than the economists in the countries they visit. Stiglitz is describing a hierarchical and hegemonic relationship with donor privilege at the centre which facilitates a uni-­directional flow of ideas from donors to borrowers, on the lenders’ terms. As Wiegratz et al. (2019) have argued, Uganda is “a peripheral, donor-­dependent country, subject to imperialist dynamics”. The funding priorities of donors must be obeyed by the Ugandan government for it to obtain loans for its programmes. Other conditionalities that manifest neo-­colonialism include the imposition of foreign expatriates to make the policies and design the programmes, implement and evaluate them, as seen in the Social Assistance Grant for Empowerment (SAGE) programme for example. SAGE is a donor-­led program funded by UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) that has undermined, bypassed and ignored the human resources and existing systems that the Ugandan government has developed. SAGE demonstrates how the West, that is, the

Decolonising social policy  101 UK, continues to view itself as “the centre and wellspring of knowledge” (Gray et al., 2008, p. 2). The SAGE pilot that ran from 2010 to 2015 was managed by a British private consulting firm, Maxwell Stamp, and the evaluation of the pilot was headed by a team of consultants from Oxford Policy Management (Oxford Policy Management Limited, 2019). The current SAGE programme, rolled out in 2016, is being managed by the UK-­based consulting firms Maxwell Stamp in association with Development Pathways (MGLSD, 2019). The management by companies of the former coloniser has prompted the Ugandan-­based authors Angucia and Katusiimeh (2015) to lament this cost and assault on the human resource and systems of Uganda. Contracting such a consultancy firm [Maxwell Stamp PLC] for five years is definitely expensive. Is this a way of sending British money back home in the name of technical support? Couldn’t Ugandans be trained to do what Maxwell is doing in the short or medium term or will the Government of Uganda be forced to retain Maxwell forever if it decides to take over and rollout the programme? (Angucia & Katusiimeh, 2015, p. 11) Expatriates earn salaries that are between 400 per cent and 900 per cent higher than those of local staff and they are, in addition, given insurance, allowances and vehicles as part of their package, something that local staff rarely have access to (Carr & McWha-­Hermann, 2016). The employment of expatriates undermines poverty reduction initiatives before they even reach the community (Carr & McWha-­Hermann, 2016). For example, the salaries paid to manage the fund cannot be comparable to the AUD10 paid to the few older people selected to receive SAGE. Therefore, the argument that “social protection is here [in Uganda] for DFID to get prestige” can be justified, since the programme is yet to adequately meet the needs of the very poor people that DFID claims to help (Hickey & Bukenya, 2016, p. 20). To state this differently in relation to colonialism, DFID, under its SAGE program, is in Uganda to reinforce its colonial narrative as a superior source of program ideas, modern systems and staff who can manage these systems in “uncivilised” countries. Thus, “it needs to be acknowledged that aid agencies such as DFID and others have placed a lot of reputational value on their promotion of social protection”, which as it currently is in Uganda, does not demonstrate the pro-­poor mandate that needs to prioritise broad-­based basic services for all older people (Hickey & Bukenya, 2016, p. 19). These policies and programmes, that come ready-­made by donors and central government level, have devastating negative consequences for community development workers and their local communities. The next section analyses the impact on community workers. Impact of top-to-down colonial policies on community workers and communities The community workers lamented the impact of the colonial policymaking process on them and their communities. They found it incredibly challenging to

102  Decolonising social policy implement the top-­down programs designed with very limited or no involvement or consultation with them. The policies and programmes were planned centrally by administrators who are situated hundreds of miles away from the local communities and the realities there. Those interventions put up by the government, they just sit in Kampala and do the planning. They have not come here [in the community] like you [researcher] have come … But for them [the ministry], they sit there at the administrative level and design policies and programs. (Harriet, community worker, government) There is a carefully designed specialisation of functions where the ministry does the policymaking and programme design, and in the eyes of senior bureaucrats, the community workers are just the implementers. For us (CDOs), in the eyes of Ministry of Gender, we are just implementers. For them at the ministry, they sit and design projects, they design application forms and they bring to us. For us we implement. (Jeremy) Policymaking is regarded as a separate role from implementation, a role reserved solely for senior or central management. The ministry designs and plans most of the nitty-­gritty of policies and program implementation, monitoring and evaluation, which community workers are then supposed to follow. The main problem is that such programs come as ‘orders from above’ or as ‘directives’, from the ministry. For us we operate on directives, these programs are run on “order from above”. For us we are just implementers … We are just directed, even in the meetings, we are just told what to do and how to do it. (Jeremy) The detrimental results from operating on ‘order from above’ are centralised government interventions that do not match the priorities, needs and activities of local communities. One example of this is the implementation of the Operation Wealth Creation Programme, a national government program supporting communities to commercialise agriculture to lead to wealth creation. This program directs communities in Uganda to grow cash crops like coffee. Government workers from the military are being sent to communities to pursue these government priorities. You just see trucks of coffee seeds coming to your community and they say, we have brought you coffee seeds, things you did not ask for. It is the drought season, people have no food crops, the village is hit by hunger, like the way you saw Bwambara, and now the government comes that it’s supplying cash crop seeds!! Sincerely!! (Harriet)

Decolonising social policy  103 At this time, when the coffee seeds arrived, the community had been affected by two consecutive years of drought and people were starving. What the community needed was seeds for food crops, and they were supplied with truckloads of coffee seeds that not only they had not asked for but were useless to them. The sad consequences of top-­down policymaking, and implementation is that the funds are used to service the bureaucracy and only ‘peanuts’ reach the communities/masses From central government sends compensation funds through Rukungiri District [local government]. Then Rukungiri District takes it to Bwambara [sub-­county], then Bwambara takes it to Kikarara [parish], which then takes it to the local community. Whichever offices the funds go through, they deduct some percentage; from the district, then also at the sub-­county, they deduct some percentage. You find what reaches the common person are just peanuts! (Jeremy) What communities and community workers in this research expressed was what Indigenous African evaluation expert Chilisa (2022) has called methodological and funder colonialism in Africa where most of the times we report that our interventions have been successful when on the ground nothing much has changed. Funders often give funding which comes with their conditions on how the interventions should be implemented and evaluated. Neo-colonial hierarchy of policy and program making Figure 6.1 demonstrates the current neo-­colonial, hierarchy in policy and decision making that begs for decolonisation. The top rung shows the most powerful in influencing policy and programs while the lower rung shows the least powerful, those for whom the policies are designed. The ideas, ways of thinking and doing of the stakeholders in the top rungs are privileged above those in the local communities, as the policies and programs are decided at the top. Figure 6.1 demonstrates a colonial top-­to-­bottom approach where there is continued dependence on donors not only for funding but also ideas and models of social work and policy. The voices of program donors or funders inform and influence policy to a far greater extent than the voices in the local communities, to the detriment of communities as their voices demonstrated in the above quotes. The rise of international agencies and their dominant but paternalistic role in Africa is part of extending the neo-­liberal agenda and Western philosophies (Twikirize, 2014). Modern day colonialism is about control of the agenda, as the donors are doing (Bulhan, 2015; Omolo-­Okalebo et al., 2010). Order from above comes from the donors through strict funding priorities and policies that come with conditionalities which are then imposed on local communities whose needs and voices are marginalised in the policymaking, implementation, and evaluation processes.

104  Decolonising social policy

Figure 6.1  Hierarchy of policy and programme making from donors to local communities.

Decolonising social policy: some alternative ideas In this section, I explore how we bring about change through a reversal approach to decolonising social policy where interests, aspirations and wellbeing of Indigenous people is at the centre. Okafor (2020, p. 135) eloquently argues: In the interest of decolonization of socioeconomic policies to achieve decolonization of the colonized and neo-­colonized, the socioeconomic policies, which were initiated from the “metropolis” with the interest of the colonizers at the base, during the colonial and neo-­colonial era, ought to be reversed to bring the interest of the indigenous people at the base in the decolonization era. This can be done by following the stringent and complicated protocols observed by the former colonialists and the neo-­colonialists in floating colonialism and neo-­colonialism. Specifically, the logical policy framework and institutional frameworks of colonialism and neo-­colonialism must be put into perspective and subject to transformations. (p. 135) In decolonising social policy, the interests of Indigenous peoples, their aspirations, their definitions and conceptualisation of what development and wellbeing are, should be the base on which social policies are founded. Their locally defined indicators of achievement needs to guide the evaluation of policies and programmes implemented. The reverse approach means dismantling the hierarchical order to policymaking which has resulted in a lack of participation, and consultation of local communities and government workers at the grassroots who are left to implement ‘orders from above’. The reverse approach where the interests of communities are the base can be achieved if for example Indigenous models of decision-­making like the consensus model are adopted.

Decolonising social policy  105

Decolonising by implementing a Obuntu/Ubuntu consensus decision-making model A start to decolonising social policy is embracing the Indigenous models of making decisions and action plans, embedded in local community languages and philosophies. Community workers and policymakers in this research have demonstrated that policy and program making remain largely centralised and dominated by the elite at the expense of voices from below. Donors mostly set the agenda directly or indirectly through the programmes and priorities they allow to fund and through international standards African countries are supposed to adhere to. From the international level, then national policies are decided up on by senior ministry officials at the central government. The concern is that Indigenous voices, knowledges and models of planning as well as the practice wisdom and experiences of local people, are neglected in the current top-­down policymaking process. This has had a negative impact on the outcomes of policies and programs because the administrators who design them are out of touch with the realities in the communities. This results in programs that do not match the activities, interests, priorities or even cultural values of the local people. Adopting the consensus model to decision-­making can reverse this order and progress decolonising of social policy if the principle of consensus decision-­making process is centered. Decisions come from the local community that comes to a consensus on its aspirations and interests, written in community languages and philosophies. Community consensus on the problem definition and interventions to be put in place to respond to these problems is prioritised. This consensus decision-­making model is adopted by most mutual helping groups in different communities and it is behind the Indigenous Burungi Bwansi model of community work discussed in chapter four where community interests are genuinely the top most agenda for every community member. The assumptions of this consensus decision-­making model are that no one wants or wishes badly for their community or other community members and that their individualistic interests are bracketed in favour of community wellbeing. Thus, local communities will make decisions and aspirations that donors and international development agencies are part of, adhere to, implement, and evaluate, alongside the communities. There is no hierarchy or separation of decision makers and implementers or even community because everyone involved is there for the sake of the community of which they are part, and each one’s contribution is equally valued as part of the whole. Social workers and policymakers are also regarded as part of the community and therefore the policies being made equally impact them. Policymaking happens at the round table where everyone’s voices and ideas are valued, listened to, and respected and an agreement is reached on the actions that should be taken to ensure wellbeing of everyone. When it comes to accountability, every community member participating in the policymaking process is responsible for ensuring that the decisions made are implemented and each one is accountable to the other in ensuring that what

106  Decolonising social policy was agreed upon is put into action. This approach of community accountability where each one has a role and obligation to play in developing or underdeveloping their communities can lessen the blame games that are often experienced when one part of the community is seen as responsible for decision-­making and the other for implementation. In consensus decision-­making, disagreements can be expected, however, the decisions that are finally taken are those that are widely agreed on after the process where everyone in the community feels listened to. No one should feel left behind and it is each one’s responsibility to ensure that this is achieved rather than leaving it or blaming it on the community leader or one single leader seen as the visionary for the whole community. Communal or collective vision is centered. There is no competition on whose ideas are adopted rather the alternatives agreed on are the ones that can best lead the community to achieve the collective aspirations. Voting or rule of the majority is not the same as consensus decision-­making as it nurtures numerical superiority over consensus on ideas by all community members. Voting divides rather than harmonises. If there are community members that are not yet convinced about a certain course of action, the other community members will make efforts to ensure that the actions or outcomes are explained to convince them to support the action plans or ideas. The goal of consensus is to ensure decisions are reached that enhance collective harmony, peace, benefits, caring for each one in the community. “The decision supported by the majority or the one reached through consensus is seen as superior to the one deemed right but which may be opposed and resented by many” (Mangaliso, 2005, as cited in Osei-­Hwedie, 2007, p. 796). Reaching a consensus requires time, patience, carrying every community member along. It is likely to result in actions or policies made by all of community members. Consensus cannot be rushed. It requires genuineness, honesty, and interest in wellbeing of a community. Genuine participation comes from local communities making decisions through models they are familiar with. Policies come from the community, in the languages of the community, then they are translated into English or other languages as necessary etc. Policies are made by people for the people. This is different from top-­down where policies are made for the people and government officials are just communicating them, where a few people make up policies for the majority. The consensus decision-­making model is embedded in the Indigenous African knowledge system and cultural values that encourage cooperation, oneness, team effort, etc. There are several African proverbs as Indigenous knowledges that emphasize consensus and collective decision-­making, for example the proverb that if you want to go fast, you go alone but if you want to go far, go together, emphasises the importance of carrying others along, which is likely to be more sustainable and impactful. The proverb that two brains are better than one encourages working with others to combine ideas on how to address any issue or task. In consensus decision-­making when people work together, successes and failures are viewed experienced collectively rather than on individual basis.

Decolonising social policy  107

Decolonising through aligning social policies with local philosophies There is an underrepresentation of Indigenous philosophies and local concepts in policies and policy statements in countries like Uganda which must be corrected. Using an example of Uganda’s older person’s related policies, taking a closer look at all the policy statements like the National Policy for Older Persons (2009) and the National Social Protection Policy (2015) and their guiding frameworks, demonstrates how these policies draw on regional and international instruments or conventions such as the United Nations Plan of Action on Ageing (1982), the United Nations Principles for Older Persons (1991) and the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (2002), among others. The Ugandan policies state their consistency with international instruments for the promotion of human rights, such as the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) (MGLSD, 2009, 2015). While it is important to draw on and strive to conform to such international and regional declarations, to decolonise means to think about whose ideologies or philosophies are at the margins and whose are centred and for what benefit. Obuntu-­based philosophies are common philosophies in most communities in Uganda, implying that these philosophies would be at the centre of most national policies for older people and for social protection. As it is stated that the national policies are consistent with UN conventions, making explicit that the policies are also consistent or seeking consistency with Obuntu values and philosophies would be just a starting point to embedding policies in local communities’ philosophies. However, the lack of centring of Obuntu philosophies demonstrates both colonisation and the invisibility of local ways of doing and thinking. There is an explicit striving for consistency with international philosophies while the local philosophies, languages, and concepts understandable to local people are neglected. A decolonising agenda would question and interrupt this domination, this lack of representation of local philosophies and thinking that have for long been critical for the survival of local communities. Making policies that are consistent with the local philosophies of Obuntu and using local language concepts would in fact bring policies closer to and more easily understood by local people, compared to the UN declarations of which local people have little if any knowledge, as demonstrated by the study by Spitzer and Mabeyo (2011).

Decolonising by centring community-led definitions in policy There are community-­led ways of defining concepts like ageing and older people which may not be the same as the definitions in the West or in international documents. Decolonising social policy means centring community and its conceptualising of things since the community is our base for social policy and initiatives. For example, while chronological age is used to define who an older person is and therefore determine eligibility for programmes such as SAGE,

108  Decolonising social policy biological age is not the number one indicator of old age in most local communities in Uganda. The Ugandan Central and local government have adopted the UN definition of older people as those aged 60+, although the age at which older people are eligible to benefit from SAGE starts at 65+ and there are currently suggestions that the minimum age is increased to 80+. This eligibility age is determined by looking at the official records of birthdates on the older person’s national identity card. However, considering only chronological age underplays the peculiarities in the Ugandan context, where the correct birth dates are often not known. In addition, communities and community definitions of older people centre around changes in people’s capabilities as they age. As a result, the birth of grandchildren, taking on elder roles in the community and so on, which are not recognised by government and donors as vital in defining an older person, constitute precisely what communities use to define who is older and who is not. Instead, Western definitions adopted by government take precedence over community definitions, which means that some older people whom the community would define as eligible for support from government would be excluded because the official records of their chronological age indicate that they are not eligible. The WHO (2019, p. 1) asserts that ageing or old age is “subject to the constructions by which each society makes sense of old age”. In the Western world, chronological age is of paramount importance, which explains why it is used to measure eligibility for pensions or retirement benefits. Copying and pasting such thinking to the Ugandan context, where limited importance is attached to calendar age compared to community definitions, is an example of colonising practice. While most governments and development partners tend to be more concerned about data comparability across different countries, which explains why a standard age like 60 is often adopted (WHO, 2019), this preference for standardisation or universalisation over contextualisation begs for decolonisation.

Decolonising policy as conditionality and responsibility of donors and international partners The responsibility to decolonise social policy is an obligation that donors or international development partners have. It is evident that modes of operation of international development agencies operating in most African countries have the voices, interests, languages, of the local communities affected by their policies at the periphery or in the margins. Their pursuit of donors’ own agenda, priorities, and interests is a demonstration of colonialism and neo-­colonialism. The imposition of their own human resources or expatriates in countries that have fully operational human beings demonstrate ongoing colonisation and racism manifested through the invisibility of Indigenous peoples, their own knowledges and models of working. There is therefore a need to decolonise which the agencies responsible for colonisation must fix. It is up to donors and international agencies to prove that they are not colonialists or racists through their actions and those of their governments. Donors need to prove that indeed they are pro-­poor like they claim, because experiences on the ground show contradictions to the claims.

Decolonising social policy  109 We have seen the approach of conditionalities tends to work very well for example when it was a condition that countries must adopt structural adjustment policies that demonstrate less government social spending before they would be given loans from the IMF and World Bank. Therefore, I propose that decolonising social policy should be a conditionality that donors and international agencies set for themselves to prove their non-­neo-­colonial or racist agenda in African countries. These agencies should be self-­reporting to local communities about their progress in decolonising the policies and programmes to be true to their allegations that indeed they are in Africa for the sake of the masses.

Conclusion In this chapter, the persistence and resilience of colonialism and neo-­colonialism in social policymaking has been explored, with examples from Uganda’s social protection policies for older people. Neo-­colonialism is manifested through donors and international development partners setting the agenda and deciding standards and policies that central government and ministries must adhere to. The most concerning aspect is that the local communities or masses’ interests, aspirations, wellbeing are ignored and neglected through these top-­down neo-­colonial policies. The need for a thorough decolonisation of social policy is therefore urgent and requires that the interests, aspirations, voices, cultural philosophies, language, community led definitions, of the communities or masses become the base of any social policy. Indigenous models, like Obuntu consensus decision-­making models, can be adopted in policymaking to ensure decolonised social policies. It is an obligation and conditionality for donors and international partners to prove their non-­complicity to colonialism and racism in the present era in African countries.

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110  Decolonising social policy Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development [MGLSD]. (2009). National Policy for Older Persons (2009). MGLSD. Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development [MGLSD]. (2015). The National Social Protection Policy. MGLSD. http://socialprotection.go.ug/wp-­content/uploads/2016/07/ National-­Social-­Protection-­Policy-­uganda.pdf Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development [MGLSD]. (2019). Our Partners. http://socialprotection.go.ug/our-­partners/ Okafor, S. (2020). Decolonization of policy process and not the policy of decolonization. CUJHSS, 14(1), 126–137. Okuonzi, S. (2004). Dying for economic growth? Evidence of a flawed economic policy in Uganda. The Lancet, 364(9445), 1632–1637. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-­6736(04)17320-­0 Omolo-­Okalebo, F., Haas, T., Werner, I. B., & Sengendo, H. (2010, 08/01). Planning of Kampala City 1903—1962: The planning ideas, values, and their physical expression. Journal of Planning History, 9(3), 151–169. https://doi.org/10.1177/1538513210373815 Osei-­Hwedie, K. (2007). Afro-­centrism: The challenge of social development. Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk 43(2), 106–116. Oxford Policy Management Limited. (2019). Uganda Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE) Programme. Retrieved 20th October 2019 from www.opml. co.uk/projects/uganda-­social-­assistance-­grants-­empowerment-­sage-­programme Shah, A. (2013). Structural Adjustment—A Major Cause of Poverty. www.globalissues.org/ article/3/structural-­adjustment-­a-­major-­cause-­of-­poverty Spitzer, H., & Mabeyo, Z. M. (2011). In search of protection: Older people and their fight for survival in Tanzania. Drava. Stiglitz, E. J. (2000). The insider – what I learned at the world economic crisis. The New Republic. http://online.sfsu.edu/jgmoss/PDF/635_pdf/No_28_Stiglitz.pdf Twikirize, M. J. (2014). Indigenisation of social work in Africa: Debates, prospects and challenges. In H. Spitzer, M. J. Twikirize, & G. G. Wairire (Eds.), Professional social work in East Africa: Towards social development, poverty reduction and gender equality. Fountain Publishers. WHO. (2019). Proposed working definition of an older person in Africa for the MDS project. WHO. Retrieved 3rd May 2019 from www.who.int/healthinfo/survey/ageingdefnolder/ en/ Wiegratz, J., Martiniello, G., & Greco, E. (2019). The ‘New’ Neoliberal Uganda. https:// africasacountry.com/2019/01/what-­is-­the-­new-­uganda

7 Orature (proverbs and stories) Decolonising epistemologies

Adopting a decolonising approach to epistemologies requires us to revalue and re-utilise the extensive Indigenous orature (oral literature), proverbs, stories, rituals, songs/music, dance, myths, folktales, gestures, and metaphors. These Indigenous knowledges have remained in active use by local communities guaranteeing their survival, while at the same time having been devalued by colonialists as illegitimate and unscientific. Social work educators, practitioners and policymakers constantly decry the lack of Western teaching or Indigenous practice materials in Africa, yet they are amidst a wealth of orature and lived experiences. The gap remains in making the connections or showing the relevance of orature to different disciplines including social work. We all need to bring this orature to the forefront. This chapter explores how African orature can be used in different fields of social work education and practice with some examples of application in a social work classroom in Australia

Introducing orature Orature encompasses the stories, proverbs, rituals, songs, myths, and folktales that prevail in most African languages. Orature is part of the Indigenous knowledge system that is in daily use and passed on through oral traditions and spoken word. African conversations in African languages are often laden with proverbs or stories or gestures which all communicate messages through the narrative word and also how they are performed. This orature is often used when something that directly relates to it happens in the community, for example when a good or bad behaviour or occurrence happens, someone remembers and uses the proverb or story or other orature to talk about or make sense of the occurrence. When I was writing this book and the different chapters, proverbs kept on coming in my mind, and where possible I have tried to incorporate them in some of the chapters, before writing this chapter that explores orature and its various utilisation in-depth. When engaging with people, especially Indigenous Africans, it is ethical and fair that we use their own literature as their frame of reference. Notably, much of the orature cannot be easily/directly translated into other foreign languages like English. Orature explores, celebrates, and teaches Indigenous African people’s philosophies, cultural values, and ways of life (Gudhlanga & Makaudze, 2012; Chilisa DOI: 10.4324/9781003407157-7

112  Orature (proverbs and stories) et al., 2017). Orature teaches discipline and censures social deviance. This Indigenous knowledge is holistic in that it is not broken down into separate subject areas or disciplines as it seeks to reflect life itself which is interconnected (Muwanga-Zake, 2022). Orature offers guidance and caution on what is good and bad, and teaches African cultural norms. Also, it teaches and preserves Indigenous languages, enhances imagination, emphasises respect for humanity, individual and collective responsibility, and interdependence with and care for the environment (Gudhlanga & Makaudze, 2012). Orature teaches and reveres critical thinking, reflection, patience, respect for difference and diversity as well as spirituality. Indigenous knowledge remains a very important tool for anti-colonialism and liberation of the mind. The impact of colonialisation on Indigenous African knowledges has meant that orature requires self-definition and self-discovery by Africans, who have continued to preserve and pass it on to generations, mostly through oral means. In fact, this Indigenous knowledge was intentionally made tacit to protect it from misuse and exploitation for selfish interests (Muwanga-Zake, 2022). Some of the orature including songs reveal African resistance to Western cultural hegemony and colonisation (Chilisa et al., 2017). Orature provides an important socialisation tool for children and also adults about relational ways of being. Values of respect for elders and older people, living peacefully with others and the environment, and respecting every human being irrespective of their colour, class, status, ability, etc are imparted to children and adults, creating a society of co-existence (Gudhlanga & Makaudze, 2012, p. 2292). Proverbs in particular which permeate most African conversations are used to resolve misunderstandings and conflicts (Tedam, 2013). In fact, African Indigenous orature is much more needed today than ever before especially given the pervasive lack of respect for one another, the discrimination of people, looking down on people experiencing disadvantage, lack of empathy and care about what others are experiencing, lack of collective solidarity to help those experiencing social problems like refugees, etc. If care and concern about everyone’s humanity were there in every society, we would not see these problems like refugees, hunger and starvation when neighbours have food in plenty, etc. As social workers, we need to re-orient people to the sacredness of human life, which is all emphasized in the orature. There are similarities with other Indigenous communities elsewhere in the world like Australia, where stories which are most often full of metaphors, contain the law/lore that governs individual and social behaviour (Ife, 2020; Morseu-Diop, 2013). Sacred stories/storytelling is a recognised way of life of passing down morals, values, and knowledge of historical events, and seasons, among others. There is an expectation that young people learn stories from the elders, healers, and leaders, who are the custodians of secret and sacred knowledge (Morseu-Diop, 2013). Stories, therefore, are sources of legitimate knowledge that should guide how social workers work with Indigenous people. As Indigenous social worker Morseu-Diop (2013) has highlighted, stories, metaphors, analogies, and proverbs are often used to convey, in a non-confronting way, messages, advice, and or caution on appropriate conduct and protocol in the

Orature (proverbs and stories)  113 community. For example, through an idiom or proverb like “meke rod streit pas, no matha paipa”, social workers are cautioned to not rush in to help but to build a relationship and foundation first with the individuals, families and communities they are to work with (Morseu-Diop, 2013, p.125).

Scholar’s successful practical use of orature in different fields and contexts in Africa and the diaspora Scholars are highlighting the successful practical use of orature in different fields and disciplines. For example, Chilisa utilises African proverbs when doing research on hard and sensitive topics like high-risk sexual behaviours among adolescents. Based on her lived experience as an African researcher, she highlights that: generally, proverbs can be analysed to reveal and express social, cultural, natural, and community events and practices. They can form sound theoretical frameworks that move away from conceiving the researched as participants to seeing them as co-researchers with authentic literature about their communities. (Chilisa et al., 2017, p. 335) Proverbs are authentic theoretical frameworks given that they are based on a myriad of experiences relating to the physical, spiritual, cultural, and social environment (Morseu-Diop, 2013). Through proverbs, Indigenous knowledge is disseminated and preserved (Sithole, 2007). Indigenous knowledge in general has been developed by ancestors from centuries of accurate observation, through experience, familiarity, and understanding of the ecosystem (Njoki et al., 2015; Ogungbure, 2013). Tedam (2013), uses proverbs in social work education in England to stimulate students’ imagination, critical reflection, and self-reflection, which in the end, results in transformative learning. She argues that social work as a profession requires skilled communication that is appropriate for various settings or contexts. Being skilled in an African context includes understanding the African frames of reference which incorporate the use of metaphors, proverbs, and stories, among others. Research done by Higgins (2019) exploring how African families in Australia construct and understand human rights writes about how Africans use metaphors, proverbs, and stories to communicate their understanding of human rights, instead of the Western, legal language of treaties, and conventions, often used by professionals social workers. Metaphors, proverbs, and stories help us re-imagine possibilities and allows creativity, conversation, and engagement with the people we work with, who are often silenced when Western languages of ‘bills of rights’, conventions are used (Ife, 2020). These foreign frames of reference ‘kill’ conversations; they encourage cramming as people have to consult Western books or sources to know what they mean. The legal language does not allow for culturally constructed concepts and imaginations and so it becomes

114  Orature (proverbs and stories) a West-to-the rest knowledge production and consumption. Community constructions of human rights are silenced when social workers impose Western conventions, concepts, and definitions, which impacts connection, engagement, and understanding by the local communities. A study by Spitzer and Mabeyo (2011) found a startling information gap among older people in Tanzania where the majority had absolutely no information about policies or their rights and entitlements as older people. These authors proposed that social workers must engage in information transfer where they sensitise communities about these policies and their rights and entitlements, with a particular focus paid to rural areas. However, an alternative approach would be to consider engaging communities to define their rights and to define suitable policies to ensure those rights, in languages and using frames of reference that people understand, embedded in their philosophies. Such an approach could, perhaps, ensure genuine participation and local understanding of policies and frameworks that are guaranteed to the local communities rather than social workers trying to sensitise the local community about policy frameworks made by the United Nations or national government, in inaccessible languages. Coming up with community-led understandings of human rights and policies would ultimately result in a culturally and contextually understood practice and policy compared to the assumed ‘universal’ or standardised definitions that communities are expected to cram or recite. Similar to Higgin’s (2019) findings, my research with older women in Uganda (Tusasiirwe, 2019) demonstrated how the language of proverbs and metaphors framed how they constructed a social care model for older people. The older women used proverbs to describe who should care for older people and why. Their Indigenous perspectives around ageing and aged-care support for older people in Uganda still emphasise the role of extended family and in particular children to care for their older parents. Intergenerational connectedness is at the centre of aged care. The parents used proverbs like When the rabbit grows old, it sucks the breasts of its children and the old woman looks after the child to grow its teeth and the young one in turn looks after the old woman when she loses her teeth. to echo the interdependence of the young and old in African society and the need to care for each other at the different times in life. From my experience, it is possible to miss such cultural expressions and their indirect meaning, if the researcher does not attach value to this cultural way of expressing values and life philosophies. Also, when transcripts are translated into another language like English, some of these proverbs lack direct translation and may be just described or their meaning explained. When researching African people, their frames of reference and way of expression should be maintained and included in the reports as a matter of respect and representation. Capturing such expressions may require revisiting the transcripts or even relistening to the conversations conducted in the Indigenous language to capture and describe the meaning. I have also used orature in data analysis and interpretation of results for my PhD research. Because orature, from the start of colonial education, was never

Orature (proverbs and stories)  115 part of the educational curriculum in universities in Africa, some students and indeed researchers do not think or are not encouraged to draw on these ways of knowing of the people they are researching (Chilisa, 2012). There is fear that work will not be published or that the dissertation will not pass if orature or Indigenous literature is used because of the misconceptions that they are not authentic or academic or they are inferior to Western theories and literature (Mugumbate & Chereni, 2019; Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010). Consequently, some students struggle to apply or force Western theories and concepts on the data that African orature and literature would have provided a better interpretation and representation. In my PhD work, I had to overcome the internalised colonial thinking that devalued African literature and orature. Since the older women used this orature as their frames of reference, it was out of honour and respect that their knowledge shared is included and acknowledged in the PhD work. I for example used the story of the hummingbird to analyse older women’s stories of their resilience and survival in the rural area in Uganda. However, I needed to be brave and courageous and deal with the fear that my PhD at a Western university may be marked down because a Western theory has not been used to make sense of the data from older women. As Bessarab and Ng’andu (2010) found out, students who use Indigenous methodologies tend to be criticised for not using the so-called “bona fide” research methodologies. It is not very common to see African orature and literature used in journal articles, conference presentations and other publications as legitimate theories and knowledges that guided the research, a colonial trend that must be disrupted. My experience has been that aligning my PhD work with the decolonisation theory, and acknowledging rather than silencing African ways of knowing was both liberatory and a form of resistance to the non-representative colonial education system. Decolonisation requires reclaiming the place for Indigenous literature and orature which remain the ways of knowing and language of expression for most of the people we work with.

Potential use of orature in a social work classroom and or practice Teaching and understanding social work theories and concepts is a complex undertaking for both educators, practitioners, and students in African contexts. The difficulties come from reliance on Western theories and concepts that lack equivalent translations in African contexts, but which are also laden with Western cultural and epistemological assumptions. As Twikirize (2014) highlights, students who subsequently become practitioners use a lot of time and energy “trying to interpret and adopt concepts and theories to their local contexts” (p. 83). Where concepts do not make sense, with the banking teaching model, students just cram and reproduce them in an exam to just pass. Proverbs and stories can be used as local teaching materials in the classroom, and they are viewed by the author as having the capacity to save time and energy and foster deeper connection, identity, and framing of social work according to the local context. These proverbs and stories are in local languages that are accessible to students and communities. As Nelson Mandela stated, “If you talk to a man in

116  Orature (proverbs and stories) a language he understands, that goes to his head but if you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart” (Brainy Quote, 2019). Using Indigenous literature and orature, learning and teaching social work will be a heart (connection), not a head (cram work) thing. Africa has a diversity of Indigenous literature and orature, which means that in a social work classroom, a teacher cannot claim expertise at all. A social work classroom can be a space where students are facilitated to come up with proverbs, metaphors, stories etc that may be relevant to the different fields of social work with the individuals and communities they will work with. Below, I provide an example of the story of the hummingbird and how it can be relevant for social work, particularly, the moral lessons that the story imparts.

The African story of the hummingbird The story is about a jungle being consumed by a huge fire. All the animals in the jungle, including the enormous elephants, the king of the jungle – the lion, the brave gorillas, among others, ran away to the other side of the river where they watched as the fire consumed their homes. Only the little hummingbird thought and said, “I will and must do something about this.” So, the little hummingbird flew to the river, got water in her beak, and came back and dropped the water into the fire. She went again to the river, got some water in her mouth, and came back and dropped the little bit of water into the fire. She kept on going back and forth, getting drops of water and putting them in the fire. Soon the animals looked at her and said: Little hummingbird, what do you think you are doing? Do you think you can put out this huge wildfire? Your wings are so little, your beak is too small, the fire will consume you! Of what good is a drop of water to this wildfire? It’s of no use!! But the little hummingbird, tired from going back and forth to collect water from the river, said to the animals: “I am doing the best I can!!.” Now the other animals were challenged and forced to reflect. They felt ashamed and covered their faces. They scratched their heads and started thinking: “Hmmn, hmmn.” Then the lion said, You know what, I think the little hummingbird is right. If each one of us can do the best we can to save our homes. Let us not stand and watch helplessly as fire consumes our homes, community, schools, and country. And so the rest of the animals agreed to do the best they can…

Moral lesson of the story and social work The story of the hummingbird teaches us the value of doing something about a situation, and always doing our level best. We need to do what we can about anything or issues we may face in life. It challenges us as people not to

Orature (proverbs and stories)  117 be passive victims of problems or challenges. It challenges us to act, think, imagine, and create solutions. We must try, even if an issue or problem may look overwhelming. The story equally challenges social workers to do the best they can even though situations may be enormous. This may be in advocacy or activism for systemic change, where it may seem unlikely that something may change. The little hummingbird’s actions teach us not to just sit and watch and wish away problems or barriers, we must do something. The current neo-liberal environment has been overwhelming for social workers to operate in globally and locally. Social workers in Uganda, for example, operate in environments with very insufficient resources, with very limited or no funding for interventions in the community. The natural gateway may be to get into depression or wish you had this or that, ending up not doing anything. But social workers in African contexts are indeed hummingbirds, doing the best they can. There is a need to now work as a collective, in our associations and networks, so that we can see the systemic changes in the structural oppressions behind the individual sufferings of people in our communities. The individual cases we meet in our direct practice should be turned into causes for our collective action for change.

Using orature: a reflection from my social work classroom in Australia My experience from using orature in form of stories to teach and encourage students’ critical and creative reflection on power and marginalisation in social work has yielded some important lessons to share. For a social work educator to get students to embrace the use of stories and storytelling in social work requires encouraging the students to debunk the myth that stories are not authentic and legitimate knowledge sources worthy of use in our professional practice and education. Western enlightenment modernity and the emphasis on empirical evidence/evidence-based practice or scientific knowledge as the supposedly superior way of knowing or source of knowledge for social workers have resulted in the relegation of stories as social work knowledge. Yet as Ife (2020) notes, “a decolonising epistemology would not hesitate to call them [e.g. evidence-based practice] stories-of a particular kind that can be set alongside other stories that have their own validity, authenticity and legitimacy” (Ife, 2020, p. 35). In fact, stories and storytelling remain the most familiar way of knowing for clients and even social workers themselves. Social work practice is a space where clients express stories of their lives. People remember stories, some traditional, that help them make sense of the problems they may be experiencing. Some remember the guidance and caution, loaded in the stories. Below I share a reflection piece produced by one of my students who remembered the old stories she was told from Thailand where she grew up. She used one of the stories to share her reflection on the meaning of power and marginalisation and how they may impact her practice as a social worker. I found that allowing students to use the frame of reference they are familiar with helped them to think deeper and personally. Students were able to genuinely connect and apply the social work concepts I was teaching them, instead of simply reading literature and reproducing

118  Orature (proverbs and stories) it in their work. In the student’s reflection below, she used the story of the mouse and the king of the jungle to unpack Michel Foucault’s conceptualisation of power and knowledge as everywhere and multidirectional.

Creative critical reflection expression piece on power and marginalisation One of my favourite Thai bedtime stories told by my mother, and my grandmother, was called The Mouse and The King of the Jungle. It is a story about a lion, the king of the jungle, and of all animals, who was in a deep sleep until a little mouse accidentally ran into him, and woke him up. The lion angrily used his paws to grab his prey and was about to suffocate the little mouse to death. The little mouse pleaded; “Please forgive me, King of the jungle, it was not my intention to wake you up. If you spare my life now, I swear I will repay you”, the mouse begged. The lion laughed and said: “you are just a little mouse, how could you ever repay a king, like me?” – the lion thought the mouse’s promise was absurd, but the lion let the mouse go. One day, the king of the jungle walked into a booby trap – he tried his hardest to escape, but he could not. He, then, started screaming for help, and it was the little mouse that heard his cry. The mouse began to bite the rope helping the lion escape, and once the lion was completely free from the booby trap, he thanked the little mouse and apologised for his arrogance. The appreciative mouse replied: “I was never angry at you, but thankful that you spared my life.” When looking through the lens of a social work professional, I am, now, able to see different perspectives and different morals regarding power and marginalisation in this bedtime story. For example, it is my understanding that although minority groups are the inferior groups of a society, and are often limited from opportunities, resources, or even rights; it is also important to recognise, acknowledge and focus on their strengths and their abilities, and it is important to use those strengths and abilities to provide extensional support and empowerment. Another example would be the notion of “us” and “them”, which isolate groups on the basis of “differences”, and the association of social difference and social deviance; however, this bedtime story conveys that when there is respectful recognition of “difference”, different groups can work collectively to help and support each other.

Proverbs and their application in different social work fields Below I share some proverbs and wise sayings from my Indigenous language, Runyankore/Rukiiga, and the fields of social work to which they may be relevant. The proverbs emphasize cultural values and philosophies and may be used

Orature (proverbs and stories)  119 to teach students about the fields of practice. They can also be used by social workers in the community to stimulate conversation and actions with clients in a given field of practice. Readers are asked to re-imagine proverbs, metaphors, and stories from their own cultural context and how they may inform social work in that context. I state a field of practice, then the proverb and then provide some brief translation and explanation of the proverb and how it applies to the field. (be aware that proverbs do not translate directly into languages like English-hence descriptions may be provided, although in the local language, the proverb is more powerful and meaningful compared to when translated). Community work and development

Proverbs: Agogaya nigo gabutosya (The little water you despise and add in the pot is what makes the millet bread soggy) Abangana tibakanya (People or family that hate each other can never multiply or prosper) Ageteriine niigo gaata iguffa (The teeth have to work together to break a bone) Akakye nikazira omurisho (A speck, small as it is, only needs to enter the eye and it can cause damage)

Use of these proverbs in community work These proverbs emphasize the cultural value of working in solidarity, in unity, and believing in what people have. These proverbs also stimulate thinking about what can be achieved when people work together. These values of the community are opposed to the divisive, competitive, profit-oriented values predominant in the capitalistic institutions where social workers work. Social workers must resist these social justice contradictory values as they align themselves and work alongside communities. The proverbs encourage communities not to despise the little resources, knowledge, and skills they have but to believe and go ahead and do something with those resources. The proverbs emphasize collective caring values in responding to human needs. They emphasise people looking out for each other and ensuring that each one has a responsibility for the welfare and wellbeing of others around them. This challenges individualistic ideologies of welfare characterising some welfare states where individual responsibility is emphasized and seeking help is punished and stigmatised. The proverbs can foster connection and cohesion, building collective care-centred and reciprocal communities. Issues of loneliness are addressed as community cohesion is emphasized by such a value system that centres collective wellbeing and communalism. These proverbs can be used to challenge the deficit model of community development where the communities’ vulnerability, weaknesses, or what they lack or the problems they have, are given more attention and prominence than the little or big things, strengths, resources, and resilience. The proverb challenges us to

120  Orature (proverbs and stories) go beyond the single story we tell about individuals and communities we seek to help, one that focuses on social problems. Rather there is a need to recognise the efforts being put in place by the individuals and communities and to build on those initiatives, while also working alongside them. For social workers themselves, the proverbs encourage them to work together in collective action for social change of the status quo. Social workers should do the little they can to help others, and their effect can be felt just like when a little speck goes in your eye. This emphasis is particularly relevant in African settings where social workers are working in very resource-constrained environments. They should not be discouraged but should do what is within their means, using all that they have to make a difference in people and in challenging oppressive colonial systems, practices and ways of thinking. Social work with children and youth Proverbs: Embuzi embi aheeri, otasibikaho eyaawe (You should not tie your goat near the bad-mannered goat) N’omuto nateera engoma abakuru bazina (Even a small child can drum and the adults dance to the rhythm/tune)

Use of these proverbs in social work with children and youth Social workers can use these proverbs to stimulate discussions with the youth about inappropriate behaviour and gangs/destructive groups. Being part of destructive groups can cause bad influence. The opposite can also be true. That children and youth and adults should join hands and support those movements or groups that are working for the collective wellbeing, after all, a child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. The second proverb encourages children or youth-led action in addressing issues affecting children and their communities. Children and youth can also have ideas and initiatives which can make a difference if they implement them. Thus, children and youth should not hide their talents, and feel less confident because of their age, but should blossom and do something about the issues impacting them individually and in their communities. These proverbs can steer youth-led community and social action social work, in simple language accessible to the youth. Health social work Proverbs: Amagara nigakira Amagana (Having a healthy life is better than having a lot of riches/wealth) Obulamu bwe bugaga (Health is wealth)

Orature (proverbs and stories)  121 Use of these proverbs in health social work These proverbs can be used to engage individuals and communities about valuing health. In workplaces, they can be used to discuss and emphasize the importance of work-life balance. In communities, the importance of peace of mind, love, family, and friends are positioned as more important than the money or wealth someone has accumulated. Use of these proverbs by a social worker can help in emphasizing the importance of mental health. The proverbs can also be used to challenge neo-liberalist ideologies that are forcing people to believe that material wealth and profit accumulation is more important than service to self, others, and the environment. These individualistic ideologies have resulted into creation of classes instigated by wealth inequality. The love for wealth and money is also responsible for a lot of problems like human trafficking, environmental destruction, dispossession of Indigenous peoples, and crimes including murdering people to take over their property like older people experiencing financial abuse. Such a proverb can in fact be used to challenge the penetration of neo-liberalism and privatisation of health services where profits are being put first over than health and wellbeing of people. Social workers as change agents and advocates, the proverb can show that wealth or property accumulation is unAfrican and a foreign ideology that is destroying individuals and community’s wellbeing and therefore should be opposed. Community and social action

Proverbs: Osasiire niwe ayara (The one who is sleepy makes the bed) Omuti tigwimukyira nyonyi (A tree does not move to where the bird is to give it shelter, it is rather the bird that must move, to find shelter in the tree)

Use of these proverbs in social and community action These proverbs encourage community-led social action. Their use can help in community mobilising, organising, and participation. Those with a problem, those who are hurting must take responsibility to do something about their problem, including speaking up about the issue facing them, since they understand the need better. They know how painful it is and therefore can commit to seeing that it is addressed, compared to those not bothered by the issue. The proverbs can also stimulate the community to hold the leaders or governments accountable by speaking up about the issues they are facing and demanding that they are addressed. Sometimes an issue may not come to the attention of people responsible to address it unless it has been spoken about, often by people with lived experience. The proverbs encourage valuing lived experience to advocate for self and systemic changes. They can be used to stimulate and empower groups experiencing marginalisation or discrimination and disadvantage to speak up and share their experiences. It can be related to slogans like ‘Nothing about us without us’

122  Orature (proverbs and stories) used in the disability movement to emphasize the importance of listening to the voices of people with disabilities and for them to be leaders in making policies aimed at addressing their needs. Social work with people with disabilities Proverb: Owibango waba otamuhemukyiire noraara ot’eshwekyire (if you do not tell off a person with a hatchback, they can use all the blanket and you will spend the night cold. (The hatchback can take more of the blanket) Use of proverb Although this proverb encourages speaking up, it also shows the inherent labelling of people with disabilities. It can mislead and encourage a lack of empathy for people with physical disabilities. Talking through this proverb with the community can awaken them to ways they should treat people with disabilities in their community.

Critical thinking and reflection in social work Proverb: Obutebuuza bukatwaara amaizi nyekyiro The literal translation of the proverb is that a lack of reflective thinking has kept streams of water like rivers flowing non-stop, even during the night Use of proverb Using the analogy of a river that flows day and night without stopping to think about what is happening, the proverb cautions social workers about doing the same thing all the time, without spending some time to stop and reflect on their actions and inactions. This proverb challenges people to engage in reflective and critical thinking. It challenges one to always find some time to stop, think, reflect on whatever they are doing or would want to do. Such a proverb could be used to stimulate and encourage reflective and critical thinking among social workers and social work students, which is likely to prevent colonial practice.

Conclusion This chapter has highlighted the importance of revaluing and restoring Indigenous orature and literature in social work. I have shown examples of how proverbs, and stories, can be used in different ways to discuss and teach different social

Orature (proverbs and stories)  123 work fields. I have given an example of how the use of stories stimulated a master’s in social work qualifying student in Australia to engage in creative critical reflection on the subject of power and marginalisation, using a bedtime story. As Kenyan decolonisation author Wane (2008) has argued, Indigenous knowledge is a living experience and the most crucial form of anti-colonialism and resistance. When social work educators decide to draw on Indigenous literature and orature, which remains a familiar way of knowing for most of our clients, they are making a choice of standing with and alongside their clients and their frames of reference. In academia, however, social workers must be ready to confront the backlash from some academics and some students who shun Indigenous materials following the impact of colonisation and professional imperialism (Mupedziswa, 2001). The rich orature and Indigenous literature are embedded in the diverse local languages, meaning that social work educators have to engage students to identify literature in their local languages and how they can inform social work. This means a radical change in pedagogy from the current system to a decolonised one where students and teachers engage in collaborative learning. One cannot expect a social work educator to be familiar with all the knowledges from diverse communities. An educator, therefore, must engage students as gateways to exploring and sharing some of the Indigenous literature and orature that could be unique to their communities. Drawing on Indigenous literature also implies involvement of elders in the communities, who could be involved in teaching and sharing Indigenous knowledge with students in the decolonised spaces in the curriculum and university. From my experience as a social work educator in Uganda, and Australia, educators are facing challenges of stimulating conversations and active engagement in the classroom. Use of proverbs and stories, which allow room for developing respectful conversations about diverse interpretation and application to the listeners’ circumstances can be embedded in teaching and learning. Students and teachers sharing proverbs and stories from their own contexts, enables us to incorporate Indigenous knowledge, practices and storytelling from around the globe into our social work education and practices.

References Bessarab, D., & Ng’andu, B. (2010). Yarning about yarning as a legitimate method in indigenous research. International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies, 3(1), 37–50. BrainyQuote. (2019). Nelson Mandela quotes. www.brainyquote.com/quotes/nelson_ mandela_121685 Chilisa, B. (2012). Indigenous research methodologies. SAGE Publications. https://books. google.com.au/books?id=kFHUWcIGaMcC Chilisa, B., Major, T., & Khudu-Petersen, K. (2017, 04/01). Community engagement with a postcolonial, African-based relational paradigm. Qualitative Research, 17(3), 326–339. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794117696176 Gudhlanga, E. S., & Makaudze, G. (2012, 12/20). Useful or less serious literature? A critical appraisal of the Role of Ngano (Folktales) among the Shona of Zimbabwe. International Journal of Asian Social Science, 2(12), 2291–2299. https://archive.aessweb. com/index.php/5007/article/view/2391

124  Orature (proverbs and stories) Higgins, M. (2019). ‘Like gold scattered in the sand’: Human rights as constructed and understood by African families from refugee backgrounds [ACU]. ACU. https://acuresearchbank. acu.edu.au/download/447e75229935d1c08a37e2168cb322d3d9a0673252e76785eec fe1eca90bb216/4505822/Higgins_2019_Like_gold_scattered_in_the_sand.pdf Ife, J. (2020). Whiteness from within. In S. Tascon & J. Ife (Eds), Disrupting whiteness in social work. Routledge. Morseu-Diop, N. (2013). Indigenous Yarning modalities: an insider’s perspective on respectful engagement with Torres Strait Islander clients. In B. Bennett, S. Green, S. Gilbert, & D. Bessarab (Eds), Our voices: Aboriginal and torres strait islander social work. Palgrave Macmillan. Mugumbate, J., & Chereni, A. (2019). Now, the theory of Ubuntu has its space in social work. African Journal of Social Work, 10(1), v-xvii Mupedziswa, R. (2001, 07/01). The quest for relevance: Towards a conceptual model of developmental social work education and training in Africa. International Social Work, 44(3), 285–300. https://doi.org/10.1177/002087280104400302 Muwanga-Zake, J. W. F. (2022). Salvaging African sustainable development through ObuntuBulamu. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmQCQe6zwOc Njoki, A. M., Kinyua, P. L., Muli, L. N., & (2015). The practice of African Indigenous education and its relevance to theory and practice of modern education in Africa. International Journal of Innovative Research and Studies, 4(12), 132–149. Ogungbure, A. A. (2013). African indigenous knowledge: scientific or unscientific? Inkanyiso: Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 5(1), 12–20. Sithole, J. (2007, 06/01). The challenges faced by African libraries and information centres in documenting and preserving indigenous knowledge. IFLA Journal, 33(2), 117–123. https://doi.org/10.1177/0340035207080304 Spitzer, H., & Mabeyo, Z. M. (2011). In search of protection: Older people and their fight for survival in Tanzania. Drava. Tedam, P. (2013, 09/19). What can social workers learn from African proverbs? The Journal of Practice Teaching and Learning, 12(1), 6–21. https://doi.org/10.1921/jpts.v12i1.283 Tusasiirwe, S. (2019). Stories from the margins to the centre: Decolonising social work based on experiences of older women and social workers in Uganda [Western Sydney University]. Unpublished Doctoral Thesis. Twikirize, M. J. (2014). Indigenisation of social work in Africa: Debates, prospects and challenges. In H. Spitzer, M. J. Twikirize, & G. G. Wairire (Eds.), Professional social work in East Africa: Towards social development, poverty reduction and gender equality. Fountain Publishers. Wane, N. N. (2008, 07/01). Mapping the field of Indigenous knowledges in anti-colonial discourse: a transformative journey in education. Race Ethnicity and Education, 11(2), 183–197. https://doi.org/10.1080/13613320600807667

8 Furthering the decolonisation project

This chapter recognises the challenge of decolonising in a context where social interventions and programmes are heavily influenced by external sources and the profession is steeped in Western knowledge and approaches. It wraps up and explores further ways in which social work education and knowledge production could lead the way in devising decolonising models more suited to local cultures and practice challenges and social problems in Africa. The chapter starts by restating the decolonisation agenda, and then highlights the barriers and myths that need to be busted to further the collaborative project of decolonisation.

Recapping the decolonising agenda Colonisation is about imposing one’s world view, a set of values, ideas about how things ought to work, languages, and an agenda onto other groups and communities that have their own (Ife, 2016). Based on ideological and egoistic thinking that one’s own worldview or culture is superior, the coloniser invades, dominates, impoverishes, erases, marginalises, devalues, and takes over other people’s land, resources, culture, identity, systems, and language. To state the obvious, decolonisation is about addressing colonisation, acknowledging its occurrence and impact, and working towards dismantling it and total eradication. Decolonising involves questioning and eradicating those oppressive, racist, assimilationist social policies, practices, and processes that continue to marginalise, denigrate, disrespect and disadvantage Indigenous peoples that have experienced colonisation. Decolonising also involves embarking on the process of reclaiming and naming and applying Indigenous African knowledges, models, research methods, agenda, theories, and aspirations. The implication is that decolonisation is a journey rather than a sprint. African people as colonised people continue to survive despite the onslaught of colonisation and so it is important for decolonising projects to explore, document, and rekindle those Indigenous philosophies, models, and knowledges that are behind the collective survival. Such knowledge will enable decolonising practice embedded in African experiences of resilience, resistance, strengths, perseverance, co-­existence, and interconnectedness. In research, decolonising involves acknowledging the possibility of it being a colonising project especially DOI: 10.4324/9781003407157-8

126  Furthering the decolonisation project where it serves the agenda of the researcher without any tangible and sustainable benefits to the community being researched. Research that positions a researcher as an expert is likely to result into a colonising project where the researcher’s worldviews and methodology are imposed on the participants. Hence decolonising research requires valuing Indigenous worldviews, perspectives, cultures, and ethics, and it involves coming to know through the perspectives of those being researched. The goal of decolonising research especially for Indigenous researchers is summed up by (Chilisa, 2014, p. 43) where she highlights that: “diverse methods of research, methods of understanding and analysis, are already there in our respective Indigenous cultures. It’s now for us to recognise them, to name them, and articulate them in a language that others can understand.”

Dismantling ideology of the colonised and colonial privilege of colonisers Furthering the decolonising project requires that we acknowledge, recognise and dismantle the ideology of the colonised and ongoing colonial privilege for the colonisers. Ideology of the colonised refers to that colonial mentality where the colonised have internalised the colonial doctrine that what they need is Western knowledge, languages, culture, etc to be able to exist or to address the problems they encounter in their countries. The colonised are now their own ‘colonisers’ whereby they are engaging in perpetuating the devaluation and marginalisation of their own local or Indigenous cultures and knowledges by believing and presenting white Western knowledges as superior. For example, Okafor (2020) describes the current situation in Nigeria where the education sector “is yet to think about a policy framework, which can accommodate indigenous education and the underlying challenges of the indigenous people, instead, overseas certificates are valued as ‘supernatural’ solution to challenges of the indigenous people” (p. 134). In East Africa, Spitzer (2014) describes the Muzungu perspective where a Muzungu (white person) in Africa is seen as synonymous with knowledge, power, and wealth meaning that their knowledge and experiences are privileged over others in Africa. A colleague recently went to negotiate collaborative contracts between Australian universities and so-­called third-­world nation institutions. He led the delegation that included officials of universities in Australia. Upon returning, he describes how he was invisible in his own country, yet he is also invisible in Australia as someone from a so-­called third-­world country. His own people did not see that he existed or had any knowledge to contribute despite him being the originator of the collaborative efforts. During meetings, his own people did not seek knowledge from him. What is important to learn from his experience is his story of attempts to avert invisibility. A senior official from the Australian university when given a platform or a voice, always turned to him (the African) and asked him what his view was on the issue being discussed. It is defeating that it had to take an external party of the Australian team to intervene and give him a voice in his own country. The ideology of the colonised can manifest in the colonised devaluing learning from their own people, and to further decolonisation, this ideology must be acknowledged and when

Furthering the decolonisation project  127 it manifests, it needs to be disrupted to allow an exchange of knowledge and to learn and listen to voices of people that have been silenced by colonialism, including internalised colonialism. Disrupting the ideology of the colonised requires those in a privileged position to disrupt their colonial privilege. Mayeda et al. (2020) describe privilege as denoting the advantage a group of people hold relative to others and often people from privileged backgrounds tend to lack an awareness of their advantaged status. The official in the story above was aware of their colonial privilege and used it to avert the invisibility of the African colleague that led him to the African country. We need more people who can recognise the colonial privilege and use it to value, validate, encourage, nurture, decolonising endeavours in social work practice, education, research, policy, etc. Spitzer (2014) based on his more than 20 years of work in Africa explains that most Africans are blinded to their own knowledges, concepts, and theories, to the extent that they need an outsider’s perspective to point them to the potential of what they have. This means that furthering decolonisation in social work is a concerted effort of both Africans and non-­Africans especially from the West.

Decolonising in the West: addressing extraversion Decolonisation is a project of the South as much as it is for the West. In the West, it requires addressing the problem of extraversion. In the West, there must be an attitude or mind change particularly to allow and normalise learning from and with the South, acknowledging Indigenous knowledge as valid and legitimate. Extraversion means “being oriented to authority external to your own society” where “researchers in the global North usually cite other researchers in the global North, often only researchers in the global North; researchers in the global South mainly cite researchers, and especially theorists, in the global North” (Connell, 2018, p. 401). For knowledge exchange and learning from each other to occur, authors in the North/West must show interest, look for, cite, and teach with authors in the South. There needs to be a genuine exchange of knowledge, and the attitude that non-­Western knowledges are inferior or invalid must stop to allow that genuine interaction and learning from and with each other in academia, research, practice, and policy, among others. In the quest for knowledge, we need to be guided by the need to find solutions to the world’s current social, economic, political, and ecological crises, and the answers cannot be found only in the West. The world as it is today needs creative and re-­ imaginative ideas, models, and methods, to respond and even prevent further crises from happening. In all our dealings and quest for knowledge, the need to address issues facing our communities should be at the forefront, instead of wars or disagreements focussing on whose knowledge is superior. Contexts and issues should determine the relevant knowledge components that are needed and applicable. Countries like Australia and others in the West are increasingly becoming multicultural, and this implies the need to embrace epistemological diversity in informing social work that is appropriate for a multicultural context. With a growing African community in diaspora, Indigenous African knowledges

128  Furthering the decolonisation project becomes relevant and can be drawn on in social work with African communities because: Among Black Africans, there are more similar than diverging values. It is colonial languages and religions that magnify differences between Africans … It is impossible to replicate African communities in the diaspora, but what is possible is to incorporate core African values that have sustained generations. This will contribute to the sustainable wellbeing of African communities in the diaspora. Social workers can play a significant part in ensuring this. (Abur & Mugumbate, 2022, p. 35) Decolonisation is about resource redistribution, especially in the West. This includes using resources in the West for developing teaching and curriculum materials, books, and publications to advance decolonising knowledges. Libraries need to stock literature and orature that is non-­Western and by non-­Western authors to increase the accessibility of the work for students especially Africans in the diaspora. We all know that colonisation of knowledge happened through the West mining data from the South and writing or theorising it into narratives that suited colonial interests (Fanon, 1961; Ranta-­Tyrkkö, 2011; Wa Thiongʼo, 1986). African people and cultures were written about by and from outsiders’ gazes or perspectives. It is therefore imperative that Indigenous African’s literature and orature, written from insiders’ perspectives are also considered where it is available and stocked in the libraries for wider communication and utilisation. The libraries would have a responsibility to search for it and communicate to the students, academics, and researchers about its availability, just like it is done for other sources. This agenda goes beyond expecting African students or academics to go to the libraries to request stocking of African literature. While this is an option, it cannot be the only strategy to be relied on as it increases the emotional labour for the already marginalised and burdened. African Indigenous knowledge is facing extinction and therefore there is an indelible need to document, analyse, and disseminate it (Sithole, 2007). However, documentation of this Indigenous knowledge in Africa requires confronting the challenge of the lack of adequate financial resources that is constraining African libraries and information centres. This “socially desirable, economically affordable, sustainable resource that provides humankind with insights on how communities have interacted with their changing environments, including flora and fauna” could be just what we need to re-­imagine a post-­anthropocentric social work (Sithole, 2007, p. 118). It is therefore worth investing in although the challenge remains on how to guard against neoliberal exploitation of African knowledges for individualistic goals and interests.

Low hanging fruit: students’ research in higher education institutions in Africa and the West Social work institutions in Africa need to establish research agenda for students’ dissertations to be focused on decolonising, developing, and informing

Furthering the decolonisation project  129 home-­grown, bottom-­up social work theories, methods, models, case studies, and innovations to respond to social problems in Africa. Students should be prepared to engage in research that has greater utility for practice in African contexts. Research also needs to build new theories, and this requires supporting students and faculty to dispel the myths that theories only come from the West. Almost every university in Africa has an untapped resource of students’ research that it can focus on to explore culturally appropriate social work. Students at bachelor’s, master’s, PhD, and postdoctoral levels engage in research year in and out; however, this research is often underutilised as it sits on library shelves gathering dust. Part of the reasons for underutilisation include students doing research only to pass their course; inaccessible forms of the theses, some are only accessed in hard copies and therefore only serve those with physical access to the dissertations, etc. To attain meaningful outcomes and usable work, institutions need to set a national research agenda and influence research to be conducted in those areas. Social work lecturers can identify and work with students on the areas on the agenda and produce research outputs, learning materials, case studies, publications, by and for African social workers. Institutions can mandate outcome-­based research where students and their supervisors must indicate how they research a certain social problem in their communities and come up with a solution or intervention. Other students can engage in research that tests a given social work intervention to respond to a certain social problem. Students can research ways of being and doing that have helped local communities survive and from these experiences theorise approaches, methods, and models that are embedded in the community’s worldviews and values. Students can choose a social problem or field of practice, and they go into the community and ask how the community responds to such a problem, and what kind of resources or systems they use or would use. Students together with their supervisors can take the following steps: 1 Choose a field of practice that needs to be developed or a social problem that needs to be addressed. 2 Approach a community, present a scenario or a problem and ask how the community helps or responds to such a problem or issue, e.g. develop a case or scenario of an older person who needs care and ask the community how they respond to such cases, or a child with a disability and how they are cared for or not in the community. Ask about the resources, systems, and philosophies behind the care. This process can take time and should not be rushed. The data collection can also be an ongoing process that utilises Indigenous methods of knowing like the ones shared in this book particularly chapter 3. 3 The ongoing conversations, models, theories, and approaches behind helping can be developed to inform social work in African contexts, embedded in African philosophies, and ways of helping. This kind of research agenda requires current institutions and their academics to challenge the current myths about research as about proving what other people have already found out or confirming the already existing literature as there is often a predominant emphasis on deductive reasoning especially in Africa.

130  Furthering the decolonisation project There is a need to focus on inductive reasoning to develop relevant theories and models from the communities and use their ways of knowing and perspectives.

Refrain from single storied, self-deprecating, self-hatred and sabotage education, scholarship, research, etc To further the project of decolonising social work and life in general in Africa, Africans, especially the elite, must refrain from doing things that are self-­deprecating and sabotaging. There is a lot of hatred for self and their own culture, and identity, for most people especially those that have experienced and internalised colonial doctrine of ‘backwardness, primitivity, non-­modern’ etc. Colonial tendencies and global pressures today demand conformity to gain Western acceptance or approval in different spheres (Abur & Mugumbate, 2022). When I gave students an assessment to explore how social work can be reimagined or informed by their culture, the self-­deprecating attitude was laid bare, and it was impeding students from appreciating or even loving who they are and where they come from. Students, especially from Asia and Africa, were very harsh about their own cultures and talked of how there was nothing positive including knowledge that could ever come from their culture. It was after so many conversations in class, a series of emails, and face-­to-­face meetings, that most students would agree that there can be something positive that we can learn from their culture. Fatuma explained: Even though, my own family is liberal I had a hard time connecting with my Pakistani roots so finding something positive was quite the dilemma. After sitting down by myself to examine the Pakistani society from an unbiased point of view, I realised where there is bad, there is also good and that is true for every society. I enjoyed viewing two concepts from my culture in a positive manner. I learnt how to think differently, by respecting aspects of my culture rather than completely disregarding it and viewing it as toxic. (Fatuma, social work student 2021) Students wanted to focus on pointing out the flaws of who they are and where they come from, manifesting how rampant self-­deprecation is a default, especially for people that have experienced colonisation. On the contrary, self-­love was mostly reported by the white-­western domestic students in my class. Self-­ hatred goes beyond knowledge or education and is manifested in life in general, for example for African people, self-­hatred of own skin colour, which results in bleaching or whitening of black skin; self-­hatred of own kinky hair resulting in the use of hair gels that burn scalp to straighten the hair or wearing of very long weaves and wigs to hide one’s original hair, etc. Other examples are: hatred of own Indigenous language in favour of the language of the coloniser; hatred of and erasure of own Indigenous names in favour of names of the colonisers, e.g. use of English names. Self-­deprecation by Indigenous peoples is often done to gain acceptance by the West, at the expense of self and own community. This results in feelings of emptiness, lack of self-­worth, and double loss for the

Furthering the decolonisation project  131 colonised. Double loss for the colonised means they are outside their own Indigenous way of life which they hate as ‘backward’ but are also outside the Western culture which they revere but do not completely or fully belong. A good example of the double loss of the colonised is around the issue of proving English language through tests like International English Language Test (IELTS) for the colonised who grow up being forced to speak and learn these languages at the expense of their own Indigenous languages. From the age of five, I started learning and speaking English in school where I spent most of my life. When I arrived in Australia to do my PhD and applied to join the association of social workers, I was forced to do an English test to prove my English proficiency. All along I stated that English was my first language given the exposure to the language from a very young age but then the English-­speaking countries do not recognise or accept me as an English-­speaking person. Hence, I am not proficient in my Indigenous language as I cannot write it very well and nor do I belong to the English speaking because I am not accepted there. It should be noted that a self-­deprecating, self-­ hatred was indeed the means and end goal of colonialism given the ideologies of cultural superiority and racial prejudice that were used to indoctrinate the colonised. Thus, the colonised must confront themselves when they are engaged in self-­deprecation and start to reverse and heal, restore, revalue, and reclaim to move forward-­decolonising colonised self. The colonised and the colonisers must confront themselves when they are telling a single story about their own culture, ways of being and knowing; a single story which is usually the negative/ deficit one for the colonised. I agree with Chimamanda Adichie that: Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower, and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people. But stories can also repair that broken dignity … When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise. (Adichie, 2009, n.p.) No culture is perfect, but self-­deprecation or single stories continue to bleed dependency and sabotage, which will not further decolonisation in a world in need of re-­imaginations to address the issues that surround and are engulfing our communities. From my experience writing and talking with people about decolonising social work and the need to value Indigenous knowledges, I have learned the need to be consciously insistent and to be intentional about decolonising work. From my experiences, I have been shut down by claims that centre, the deficit story about African cultures, peoples, etc. However, in this form of silencing, I have had to stay on track, to remember that it is easier to pick out and write about the negatives or weaknesses than it is often with identifying the strengths. Yet the strengths can move us forward. People that have experienced colonisation must bear the emotional labour of remembering and writing about the strengths that they have in their ways of being, doing, thinking, knowing, that is relevant to social work, this literature/knowledge is missing and it is gap that demand to be filled. I have

132  Furthering the decolonisation project found that talking about decolonising is discomforting for some, but there is space for this discomfort and what is crucial is to move above and beyond it. There is a need to understand what is causing the discomfort and how to use it positively and respectfully for the benefit of us all, human and non-­human beings and for the restoration of humanity. I am finding that we are all at different levels in decolonising agenda, there are those opposed to decolonising; those that think that we have already decolonised and thus social work is ready for a two-­way transfer of knowledges. The ultimate goal for decolonising is to achieve respect and justice where all cultural centres and knowledges are respected but this starts with acknowledging the existence and independent validity of knowledges that have been dismissed, marginalised, and erased through colonial doctrines. Two-­way transfer is not tokenistic when it allows full articulation of indigenous and southern voices and knowledges first.Those that have reached the stage of two-­way transfer need to be patient, not to rush but to walk alongside others, especially those still doubting the validity of non-­western knowledges. It should be noted that Indigenous knowledges stand alone and do not need validation from the West or through non-­Indigenous perspectives or framings or concepts. There is a need for those that have experienced colonisation to articulate knowledges, theories that can be shared or transferred across, for example in articulating African social work fields hinted on chapter 1 and others. Writing and speaking up requires being brave, and courageous and believing what you know and have experienced as important knowledge to learn from and share. Thus, like the African philosophy of Ubuntu/ Obuntu acknowledges, in decolonising, there is a job or role for everyone, and it is an expectation that all involved in social work contribute because agetereine nigo gata igufa (concerted efforts are so strong that they can break a bone). Everyone needs to put their brick to complete the house of decolonised social work. Without wanting to sound assimilationist but if everybody can embrace the tenets and values of Obuntu/Ubuntu including humanness, respect, dignity, compassion, solidarity, helpfulness, sustainability, responsibility, interconnectedness, support, sharing, and interdependence, etc, the world’s problems would be wiped away. Interconnectedness and interdependency with the environment would ensure its care and sustainable use; the sacredness of life would ensure respect and value for each other’s life; sharing would ensure no hunger and starvation for some people when landfills are filled with food wasted and markets are stocked to full capacity; valuing each other’s interconnected and interdependent humanity and humanness would ensure no discrimination in the various ways it is occurring.

References Abur, W., & Mugumbate, J. R. (2022). Experiences of Ubuntu and implications of African philosophy for social work in Australia [Other Journal Article]. Advances in Social Work and Welfare Education, 23(2), 21–37. https://doi.org/10.3316/informit.5710576 35557631 Chilisa, B. (2014). Indigenous research is a journey: An interview with Bagele Chilisa. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, 2, 41–44. Connell, R. (2018, 07/01). Decolonizing Sociology. Contemporary Sociology, 47(4), 399– 407. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094306118779811

Furthering the decolonisation project  133 Fanon, F. (1961). The wretched of the earth. Penguin. Ife, J. (2016). Community development in an uncertain world: Vision, analysis and practice (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Mayeda, D., Pukepuke, T., France, A., Cowie, L., & Chetty, M. (2020). Colonial privileges in a settler society: Disparities of cultural capital in a university setting. International Journal of Roma Studies, 2(1), 4–27. https://doi.org/10.17583/ijrs.2020.5156 Okafor, S. (2020, 06/01). Decolonization of policy process and not the policy of decolonization. CUJHSS, 14(1), 126–137. Ranta-­Tyrkkö, S. (2011, 06/01). High time for postcolonial analysis in social work. Nordic Social Work Research, 1(1), 25–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/2156857X.2011.562032 Sithole, J. (2007, 06/01). The challenges faced by african libraries and information centres in documenting and preserving indigenous knowledge. IFLA Journal, 33(2), 117– 123. https://doi.org/10.1177/0340035207080304 Spitzer, H. (2014). Social work in African contexts: A cross-­cultural reflection on theory and practice. In H. Spitzer, M. J. Twikirize, & G. G. Wairire (Eds.), Professional social work in East Africa: Towards social development, poverty reduction and gender equality. Fountain publishers. Wa Thiongʼo, N. (1986). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature. James Currey. https://search.library.wisc.edu/catalog/999573905602121

Index

Pages in italics refer to figures. Abur, W. 128 Adichie, Chimamanda 131 African cosmology 2–4 African Indigenous knowledge 30, 128 African Indigenous peoples xi African Native Authority Ordinance of 1919 13 African social work: absence/lack of strong association 18–20; as academic discipline 1; approach to grief and bereavement 4–5; brain drain 17–18; care for older people 7–8; child adoption approach 5–7; education and practice challenges 12–17; environmental social work 2–4; mental health and suicide prevention mechanism 10–12; religion and spirituality 9–10; with families 8–9 African Spiritually Sensitive PracticeTheory 93 African story of the hummingbird 116 Angucia, M. 101 Anucha, U. 17 anti-colonialism 112, 123 anti-discrimination 89 anti-oppression 89 anti-racist practice 89 Association of African Schools of Social Work in Africa (ASSWA) 18 Africa Social Work Network 17 Baltra-Ulloa, J. A. 21 Bar-on, A. 16 Barya, J.J. 13 Bataka groups 70–71 Bessarab, D. 115 Bhangyi, B. V. 88 Bulhan, A. H. 97

Burungi Bwansi model 68; Indigenous community development 77–79; in social work and community development 79–81 Canavera, M. 13 Chamas 74 Charity Organisation society 29 Chereni, A. xii Chilisa, B. 3, 44–45, 55, 103 Chilwalo, M. 15 Chimamanda, Adichie xi Chitereka, C. 14 Christianity 94 colonial legacy 13, 44–45 colonial thinking 27, 30, 41, 115 colonisation 3, 12, 15, 18, 28, 31–32, 36–39, 44, 86, 90, 97, 107–108, 112, 123, 125, 128, 130 community-led understandings: African literature and 114; of human rights 114 decolonisation 125; -first theory-practice 41–42; project 126–127; social work institutions in Africa 128–130; social work project 130–132; in the West 127–128 decolonising approach: questioning 38; re-imagination, sharing and action 40–41; remembering and or rediscovery 38–39; social work education 41–42; in social work practice and research 42; students as teachers 35–36; teaching the indelible need 36–37; to learning and teaching 33–35; to teaching and practice 35; unlearning and re-learning 39–40 decolonising research ethics 44

Index  135 Decolonising self and mind 26, 37–38 decolonising social policy 103; ageing and older people 107–108; conditionality and responsibility of donors 108–109 decolonising theory 32–33 Department for International Development (DFID) 100 Double loss 130–131 Epistemologies x–xi, 12, 22, 26, 30, 41–42, 44, 66, 94, 111 epistemic racism x, 28 epistemological diversity x–xi, 33, 41, 127 Eurocentric curricula 17, 28, 31 Eurocentric curriculum 4, 27–28, 32, 40 Eurocentric ideology 15 Euro-Western philosophy 44 Ethics review boards 58–59, 61 Empiricism 45–46 Fanon, F. 128 Fook, J. 34 formal education system xii France, A. 127 Gatwiri, K 33 global ethical principles 86 Gonzalez, O. 14 Gray, M. 34 Henrickson, M. xiii, 86 Higgins, M. 113 Hochfeld, T. 14 Hickey, S. 101 Hlatshwayo, M. 27–28, 30 Ibrahim, A. 14 Ideology of the colonized 126–127 indigenisation: colonial agenda and approach to education 31–33; decolonisation theory 27; definition 26; Eurocentric curriculum and conceptualisation of social work 28–30; knowledge production and consumption 30–31; social work in Africa 26 Indigenous African research framework: ethics of Indigenous Africans 49; Indigenous or local languages 47–48; local and community structures 48–49; oral storytelling methodology 49–51; research for the benefit of the community 46–47 Indigenous African research methods: conversation method (Okuganira)

52–53; group conversation method 53–56; learning-by-observation 56–58 Indigenous cultures 22, 126 Indigenous knowledge 6, 28, 30, 50–51, 82, 94, 111–112, 123, 127–128 indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) 4, 28, 111 Indigenous models of helping: adopting Indigenous philosophies 83; social workers 82; validating and valuing local resources, wisdom and knowledge 82 Indigenous philosophies 78, 83, 107, 125 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 107 International English Language Test (IELTS) 131 Ife, J. 2, 21–22, 28, 30–31, 33, 82, 85, 92, 94, 112–113, 117, 125 Kansiime, P. 93 Katusiimeh, M. W. 101 Kazeem, K. 1, 8 Keane, M. 49 Khupe, C. 49 Kovach, M. 51 Kutanda Botso 7 Literacy Action and Development Agency (LADA) 75 long-term relationships 63–64, 88–89 Mabeyo, Z. M. 107 Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing 107 mama mkubwa concept 5 Mandela, Nelson 115 Mayeda, D. 127 Mbembe, A. 44 merry-go-rounds 74 Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) 14 Morseu-Diop, N. 36, 112 Mtetwa, E. 44–45 Mucina, D. D. 50 Mugumbate, J. 44–45 Mungai, N. 87 Mupedziswa, R. 14, 17 mutual helping: based on common interest or age 72–74; communityled model 76–77; community-led vs. NGO-led or government groups 75–76; in diaspora 74–75; during grief and loss 70–71; model 69–70; through clans 71–72

136  Index Muwanga-Zake, J. W. F. 28, 30, 112 Mwambari, D. 46 Nabbumba, D. 93 National Council for Social Work Bill 2022 19 National Policy for Older Persons 107 National Social Protection Policy 107 neo-colonialism: colonial top-to-bottom approach 104; hierarchy of policy and program making 103; impact of topto-down colonial policies 98–101; in social policy 97–98 neoliberal structural adjustment policies 16 Ng’andu, B. 115 Ntseane, G. 55 Obuntu/Ubuntu 92–94, 132; consensus decision-making model 105–106; values and philosophies 107 Okafor, S. 104, 126 Okuonzi, S. 100 Operation Wealth Creation Programme 102 orature: African literature and 115; definition 111; epistemologies x; proverbs and their application 113–114, 118–122; in social work classroom 115–117; social work classroom in Australia 117–118; uses of 113–115 Osei-Hwedie, K. 16, 26, 30, 106 professionalisation 19 professionalism 86, 93 professional relationship 85–86, 88 professional social work ethics 85, 87 proverbs: in community work 119–120; critical thinking and reflection in 122; in health social work 120–121; in people with disabilities 122; in social and community action 121–122; in social work with children and youth 120 Ross, Ronald 13 Runyankore language 48 Rush, E. 87 Sankofa classes 39 Sewpaul, V. xiii, 86

Simpson, William 12 Sinkamba, R. 14, 17 Social Assistance Grant for Empowerment (SAGE) 100 social policymaking xi, xiii, 98, 108 social work; see also African social work; with children and youth 120; classroom in Australia 117–118; critical thinking and reflection in 122; education 33; education models xi; people with disabilities 122; social and community action 121–122; use of orature 113–115; use of proverbs in health 120–121; valuing community accountability 91–93; valuing feelings, emotions and lived experiences 89–90; valuing interconnectedness with the environment 94; valuing spiritual interconnectedness 93–94; valuing mother tongue in 90–91 Spitzer, H. 107, 114, 126 Stiglitz, E. J. 100 Tascon, S. 2, 21–22, 28, 30–31, 33, 85 Tedam, P. 113 third-world country 126 third-world nation institutions 126 Tusasiirwe, S. 93 Twikirize, M. J. 14, 115 Ubuntu ethics 88 Ubuntu/Obuntu 69, 87–88, 132 United Nations Plan of Action on Ageing 107 United Nations Principles for Older Persons 107 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights 107 Ugiagbe, O. E. 27 Wairire, G. 87 Wane, N. N. 18, 123 Western child protection social work 28 Western model of social work 15, 20–22 white Western model xi white Western social work 12, 21 Wiegratz, J. 100 Wildlife Conservation Education Centre 4 Wa Thiong’o, N. 31, 50–51, 90, 128