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Historiography of South African social work: Challenging dominant discourses

Linda Harms Smith
- 11 Nov 2014 - 
- Vol. 50, Iss: 2, pp 305-331
TLDR
This paper examined the origins and development of social work in South Africa and found that socio-political and economic dynamics are formative of societal conditions and social work, which in turn has a role in shaping these dynamics.
Abstract
The task of examining the origins and development of social work is fraught with competing narratives. In South Africa individualist, liberal, colonial, masculine and “white” discourses prevail. The dialectical-historical perspective, rather than chronological “progress”, shows how socio-political and economic dynamics are formative of societal conditions and of social work, which in turn has a role in shaping these dynamics. The fiction of purely historical records of progress and freedom of choice is challenged, and hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses uncovered. Social workers are urged to be engaged with the full complexity of events emerging from the class and race-based antagonisms of South African society.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Social work in Africa: Decolonizing methodologies and approaches:

TL;DR: The authors analyzes literature on decolonization, indigenous methodology, and social work in Africa, stressing that decolonisation of social work requires challenging dominant models of practice and research, while integrating traditional values and practices that have withstood centuries of oppression into culturally consonant forms of service and inquiry.
BookDOI

Issues Around Aligning Theory, Research and Practice in Social Work Education

TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on issues around aligning theory, research and practice in social work education, with a slant towards an Afrocentric approach, aiming to facilitate strong reflective thinking.
Journal ArticleDOI

The end of social work

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the profession of social work cannot be reformed and must be abolished along with the institutions which maintain it; the professional bodies, the academic discipline and the formal title.
References
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Book

The Wretched of the Earth

Frantz Fanon
TL;DR: Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth as mentioned in this paper is a classic of post-colonization political analysis, and it is now available in a new translation that updates its language for a new generation of readers.
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Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci

TL;DR: The first selection published from Gramsci's Prison Notebooks to be made available in Britain, and was originally published in the early 1970s as discussed by the authors, was the first publication of the Notebooks in the UK.

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that "world outlooks" do not correspond to reality, i.e. do not "correspond to rcalif" (i.e., that the) constitute an illusion, and that they do mal.
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I Write What I Like

Steve Biko
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The rise and fall of the South African peasantry

Colin Bundy
TL;DR: The first edition of this book was hailed as a major reinterpretation of South African history and was criticised the prevailing view that African agriculture was primitive or backward, and attacked the notion that poverty and lack of development were a result of 'traditionalism' as discussed by the authors.
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