European Enlightenment and Colonialism

Question 1

European Enlightenment:

Answer 1

• Rational and logical thinking as the primary standard of thought.
• Scientific method.
• Highly influential to modern/Western thinking.
• Characteristics of homogeneity (universalism), standardisation, predictability, regulation order and binary thinking.
• This has been a dominant form of thought that has been produced at a global scale.

Question 2

Bureaucracy:

Answer 2

• Top down structure.
• Impose control and structure.
• Specific roles, no individualist.
• Managerialism.

Question 3

Science:

Answer 3

• Values empirical measurement.
• Separation of fact and value.
• Is there a single truth, or multiple truths?

Question 4

Diversity:

Answer 4

• Universalisation and uniformity represses diversity.
• Singling out individuals can make them vulnerable.
• No one right way to do social work.

Question 5

Romanticism:

Answer 5

• Rejection of the precepts of order, balance, idealisation.
• Emphasis on the subjective, irrational, imaginative, personal, spontaneous, emotional, visionary, transcendental.

Question 6

Postmodernism:

Answer 6

-‘Truth’ is constructed from below rather than the top (e.g. the reader rather than the author).

Question 7

Colonialism:

Answer 7

• The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.
• A set of beliefs, values and world views that is reproduced.
• European colonisation was justified as a scientific, civilising mission.

Question 8

Postcolonialism:

Answer 8

• A movement that sought to have the voices of the colonised heard.
• The coloniser is the problem, not the colonised (challenges the history, and acknowledges multiple truths/accounts).

Question 9

Decolonisation and Indigenisation:

Answer 9

• Indigenisation: acknowledgement and assertion of local or Indigenous world views, knowledges and values.
• Decolonisation: challenging the dominance of world views imposed by colonialism and imperialistic practices.

e.g. Western culture/beliefs/knowledge systems are unsustainable due to ecological limits.

Question 10

Epistemicide:

Answer 10

• Elimination of specific knowledge systems and denial of their validity.

Question 11

3 stages of decolonisation:

Answer 11

• Step aside: not just ‘validating other voices’ or ‘allowing other voices to be heard’. Stepping aside without condition or caveat.
• Fall behind: allow others to lead while you listen and learn.
• Walk beside in solidarity.

Question 12

What is missing in Western Social Work Knowledge?… (8)

Answer 12

1. The collective
2. Language
3. Metaphor
4. Story
5. History
6. Art, music, dance, theatre
7. The non-human world
8. Love