Cross-cultural practice and the indigenisation of African social work

This paper examines the issues involved in developing indigenous social work practice. Several African writers are making an interesting contribution to the important debate on indigenisation in the social work literature in Africa (Bar-On, 1998, 1999; Mupediswa, 1992, 1997; Osei-Hwedie, 1995). However, their work is at an exploratory stage in that they have introduced and probed questions relating to indigenisation but not developed fully the way in which Western social work differs from relevant indigenous social work practice in Africa. In this paper we view social work as a Western invention and a product of modernity, and indigenisation as a postmodern notion, a form of resistance to the cultural homogenising and universalising effects of globalisation. We argue that the difference between Western and African understanding of culture is an integral aspect of the indigenisation debate and that to progress the debate further, it is necessary to establish a framework for a clear and logical articulation of the values located in each set of cultures. We explore the notion of "indigenisation as cross-cultural practice" for, as the international literature on cultural diversity shows, there needs to be an extensive dialogue between cultural groups on principles, ethical norms and appropriate practice if a truly cross-cultural world is to take shape. A cross-cultural or intercultural dialogue needs to precede any ideas about cross-cultural practice. Thus there is still a long way to go in developing indigenous social work practice in Africa. The paper ends with suggestions as to how indigenous practice models might be developed. This paper examines the issues involved in developing indigenous social work practice and speculates about some of the reasons why this is of ongoing importance to African social work writers. Among other things, we argue (i) that social work is a Western invention and a product of modernity while indigenisation is a postmodern notion, (ii) that the difference between Western and African understanding of culture is an integral aspect of the indigenisation debate; and (iii) that an historical perspective is needed to understand both past and present influences like colonisation and globalisation respectively. In developing these arguments further, several themes are addressed, namely, the difference between Western and African values and the lasting impact of colonialism on Africa; the cultural basis of indigenisation and the notion that culture is more central than values (which simultaneously inforr4 flow from and mould culture); indigenisation as cross-cultural practice and the need for dialogical (postmodernist) rather than existing (modernist) models; and indigenisation as a form of resistance and a medium for transformation from externally imposed to locally developed models of practice and solutions. We begin with a brief introduction to the international literature on indigenisation and then present an overview of Southern African literature on the indigenisation debate, the source of most of the African indigenisation literature, before moving to our central thesis relating to indigenisation as cross-cultural practice. We end with several proposals as to how indigenous practice models in Africa might be developed.