Abstract
[Excerpt] The region of Latin America and the Caribbean has been profoundly marked by a history of colonization and violence, the consequences of which continue for the people and communities of Latin America in the form of coloniality. One strategy which continues to support coloniality in Latin America and the Caribbean has been through the Western-European creation of “expert” academic knowledge that has been imported to the region, a practice of cultural imperialism. Iris Marion Young (2018) explains that cultural imperialism occurs when western knowledge and know-how is believed to be more important than local knowledge, which is often seen as “behind” and “backwards.” Riddled with years of economic and political struggle, many countries in Latin America have endured brutal dictatorships (such as Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay) as well as guerrilla and civil warfare (for example: Colombia, Peru, El Salvador, among others). Social work has been one of the disciplines that has endured state violence, particularly because of its commitment to and advocacy for vulnerable and oppressed populations. Social work has often been the target of structural oppression through the closure of social work faculties as well as the political torture and disappearance of faculty members, students, and colleagues because of their commitment to social justice. Political state violence shaped the identity of social workers by reducing the entire discipline to a form of paternalistic welfare work. Until recently, most Latin American countries have had little opportunity to develop clinical social work, and social workers have had to defend themselves not only from explicit and implicit forms of government structural violence but also from other disciplines who see an expansion of clinical social work as a threat to their own professional livelihood.