Social Work as an Unwitting Enabler of Oppression and Disenfranchisement of the Masses: A Freirean Analysis of Social Workers' Perspectives on the Government of Zimbabwe's COVID-19 Response

Social workers have been actively involved as part of multi-disciplinary teams responding to the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. In Zimbabwe, a WhatsApp platform with more than 200 social workers was set up to serve as a learning and sharing platform and to coordinate social work interventions. On this platform, varied perspectives and group dynamics are apparent. The prevailing discourse on the platform around how the government is responding to the crisis offers interesting lenses through which to understand the role of social work in the post-colonial developmental let-down. This chapter analyses the views of social workers as reflected in the WhatsApp conversations. Using a Freirean lens, we locate social workers' perspectives as being reflective of the active role that social work has played over the years as a tool in the hands of government that enables continued oppression and disenfranchisement of the masses through social work practice, which is reflective of false generosity, placatory practice, and activism devoid of transformative praxis. Rather than being true to its social justice mission, we argue that in Zimbabwe, just as is prevailing in the global sphere, social work is failing its social justice mission, which should focus on challenging structural and institutional sources of oppression and disenfranchisement. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

A Social Work and Social Development Perspective on the Need to Decolonise African Economies in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons for Africa

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the world more than any other crisis in the twentieth century. Although the pandemic is global, countries in Africa have been left more vulnerable and exposed. The structural and institutional economic deficiencies that characterise the continent have been laid bare. The health fatalities have been minimal, but millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa face an even more lethal ‘poverty virus.' The greatest lesson from the current pandemic for Africa centres not only on the need for better preparedness in anticipating future potential disasters, but in building socioeconomic systems that can withstand major shocks such as the current one. This crisis has demonstrated an urgent need for African countries to rethink the neo-liberal economic trajectories currently obtaining. The total collapse of the global village mantra because of shutdowns has exposed the dangers of blindly subscribing to the neo-liberal hegemony for many African countries. The pandemic has exposed how Africa remains the most socially and economically vulnerable continent within the global arrangements of capitalism through the exploitative umbilical code of globalisation. Drawing on a social work and a social development perspective, this chapter discusses the critical lessons that African countries should derive from the COVID-19 pandemic to build resilient and people-centred economies that guarantee social protection and secure livelihoods for the most vulnerable. The author posits that a strategic delink from the current global socioeconomic and political order is necessary. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.