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

ABSTRACT

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.