Decolonising Social Work Research with Families Experiencing Intergenerational Trauma

Decolonising Social Work Research with Families Experiencing Intergenerational Trauma

Social work with families--South Africa--Western Cape

Shanaaz Hoosain

Southern African Journal of Social Work and Social Development

Vol. 30

No. 1

2018

UNISA Press

Journal article

English

27089355

Western Cape, South Africa

Open Access

This article focuses on social work research with displaced families in the Western Cape, South Africa, who have experienced both the historical trauma of their slave past and the trauma of displacement during apartheid. In a similar context, aboriginal academic writers have found that initial studies of intergenerational trauma did not take into account the historical ordeal of colonialism which they believe has left its mark on aboriginal communities today. Intergenerational trauma has also been based on research with holocaust survivors. For this research paper, a postcolonial indigenous research paradigm was implemented owing to the colonial history of Cape Town. Collective narrative practice and participatory learning action techniques were used to decolonise the theoretical and methodological approach. Foucault’s counter-memories and counter-histories were applied to critically engage with the research findings to include the “unofficial” stories of slave descendants in social work discourse where these stories have largely been ignored.

Haley Lesemann