- Title
- Decolonised, developmental Nepali social work: making it matter
- Creator
- Yadav, Raj Kumar
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This study sought to examine evolving social work practice in Nepal among those working in international non-government organisations (INGOs). It also sought to explore the extent to which Nepali social workers, employed in INGOs, perceived the relevance of their social work education to practice. It sought their views on culturally appropriate and contextually situated social work in Nepal. In brief, the study sought to examine what social work education and practice tailored to the Nepali context might look like based on the assumption that social work should be responsive to the socioeconomic, political, and cultural context in which it is practised. Given the paucity of knowledge about the practice of social work in Nepal, this study used a grounded theory approach to examine the perceived synergy between social work education and the practice of social work as it was emerging in INGOs. The resultant model of ‘decolonised, developmental Nepali social work’ reflects the contemporary narratives of social workers engaged in the development activities of INGOs in Nepal. While international and global stakeholders insist on the universalisation and globalisation of social work, this thesis details how, in the mid-1990s, a small landlocked nation, sandwiched between two giant superpowers, India and China, had Western social work thrust upon it, and how some social work graduates have been crafting a unique decolonised, development based social work model in their day-to-day practice. Their narratives affirmed that the uncritical importation of Western social work had resulted in disillusionment among Nepali social workers, due to the tensions between their Western-styled educational training and the competing and complex sociocultural and political processes of Nepali society. The respondents affirmed that the ‘Nepalisation’ of social work would entail an incremental building-block approach to decolonisation. This systematic process involved the integration of local Nepali worldviews in the social work and development discourses, a process that was far less glamourous than those writing enthusiastically about the global movement of social work would have us believe. In this way, the ‘Nepalisation’ of social work would have a permanent legacy of questioning the importation of social work into Nepal. The coming decades will act as a corrective to social work’s historical role in Nepal’s ongoing tumultuous history as Nepali social workers use their cultural and symbolic values, draw on their strengths and social capital, and transform borrowed western social work to fit local fields and spaces. ‘Decolonised, developmental Nepali social work’ reflected Nepali social workers’ creative energy in advocating an emancipatory mindset and interjecting greater autonomy, self-determination, and responsiveness to local social, cultural, and political dynamics. The social work respondents in this study collectively defined development in terms of the needs of the Nepali population and saw ‘Nepalisation’ as a right of Nepali social workers to honour the dignity and worth of Nepal’s multilingual and multiethnic populations with whom they worked. This qualitative research study applied constructivist grounded theory to allow the narrative of ‘decolonised, developmental Nepali social work’ to emerge from social workers at the coalface, while blending my interpretation to yield a co-constructed decolonised model for social work practice in Nepal. The research was conducted against the backdrop of divergent debates on globalisation-localisation, universalisation-contextualisation, outsider-insider perspectives, heteronomy-sovereignty, neoliberal capitalism-rights and justice-oriented social work, and above all, the colonisation-decolonisation of social work knowledge and practice. The study led to a model responsive to local sociocultural traditions (cultural focus), power and structural dynamics (structural focus), Nepali problems and issues (contextual focus), and poverty (development focus). The resultant model of ‘decolonised, developmental Nepali social work’ is thus unique to Nepal, a country that continues to negotiate the contemporary phase of sociocultural and political transition, yet enshrines a fresh notion of decolonisation coupled with development from which many like-minded social workers across the globe might draw meaning in their contexts.
- Subject
- Nepali social work; decolonisation of social work; developmental social work; 'Nepalisation' of social work
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1354330
- Identifier
- uon:31252
- Rights
- This thesis is currently under embargo and will be available from 04.12.19., Copyright 2017 Raj Kumar Yadav
- Language
- eng
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