Disrupting Whiteness In Social Work

<P>Focussing on the epistemic – the way in which knowledge is understood,</P><br/><br/><P>constructed,</P><br/><br/><P>transmitted and used – this book shows the way social work</P><br/><br/><P>knowledge has been constructed from within a white western paradigm, and</P><br/><br/><P>the need for a critique of whiteness within social work at this epistemic level.</P><br/><br/><P>Social work, emerging from the western Enlightenment world, has privileged</P><br/><br/><P>white western knowledge in ways that have been, until recently, largely unexamined</P><br/><br/><P>within its professional discourse. This imposition of white western</P><br/><br/><P>ways of knowing has led to a corresponding marginalisation of other forms</P><br/><br/><P>of knowledge. Drawing on views from social workers from Asia, the Pacific</P><br/><br/><P>region, Africa, Australia and Latin America, this book also includes a glossary</P><br/><br/><P>of over 40 commonly used social work terms, which are listed with their epistemological</P><br/><br/><P>assumptions identified. Opening up a debate about the received</P><br/><br/><P>wisdom of much social work language as well as challenging the epistemological</P><br/><br/><P>assumptions behind conventional social work practice, this book will be</P><br/><br/><P>of interest to all scholars and students of social work as well as practitioners</P><br/><br/><P>seeking</P><br/><br/><P>to develop genuinely decolonised forms of practice.</P>