ABSTRACT
I have chosen Mekada Graham to end this section on knowledge and values because her writing adds further confirmation to the idea that knowledge and values are always partial and unfinished; moreover, knowledge is, as Foucault (1976) argues, created through power. Graham is a black British social work academic now working in the United States. She argues that until recent years, social work knowledge and values have been built on largely white, Eurocentric ways of thinking, just as feminists have argued that social sciences knowledge has been built on the assumption of men as ‘the norm’ and women as ‘other’ (see Harding 1991). Julie Fish (2006) makes a similar point in relation to the implicit heterosexism in social work. In the following extract, Graham offers an African-centred worldview which challenges and unsettles conventional perspectives (see also Linda Tuhiwai Smith on researching indigenous peoples).
From Social Work and African-centred Worldviews, Birmingham: Venture Press (2001): 63–74.
