ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns social work practice where images are used for activism or advocacy. It describes the ways in which social workers can work towards a decolonisation of the humanitarian gaze. Human rights and Social Work have found a natural synergy in recent times, and so the chapter organizes human rights and post-colonial thinking, in order to decolonise the gaze. Decolonisation of the gaze can only take place once the features of its colonisation are recognised. Much of the humanitarian world is sustained by images and stories that configure geopolitical relations through a binary of disabled victims and enabled ennobled, saviours. The chapter provides a critical stance for social workers to take in relation to images related to others' troubles. Social Work has to contend with this set of power relations as we carry out our work, whenever we use images of suffering or injustice, whether in education, research, direct practice or activism.
