African philosophy: The center of African-centered social work

ABSTRACT

Social work is an applied science of the best approaches and practices to populations that have been systemically dispossessed of themselves, their humanity, and the philosophical constructs that reflect their psychological and cultural processes. There is a fundamental need for social workers to learn the importance of philosophy in theory and practice, so that interventions are based out of relevant frameworks in a people’s long history. African personhood is a viable philosophical framework with applicable tenants in best practices with the African diasporic community, in areas of employment, education, marriage-family development, spiritual reconciliation, and other aspects of life and living, that, without a philosophical application, renders people without important concepts of being, which is tantamount to living as moral, ethical, and spiritual agents. This article explores the importance of social work, advancing its philosophy discourse, while introducing African personhood as a construct of healing and human transformative dialogical enterprise. Cultural competency is for naught if enlightenment and moral/spiritual/ethical issues are not addressed when people are recovering from human tragedies of abuse, divorce, incarceration, homelessness, foster care, substance abuse, and underemployment. Cultural competency is not only practice acumen, but philosophical alignment with constructs that unravel our attendance to how people conceptualize and understand themselves.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work
• philosophy
• African philosophy
• African personhood
• African-centered social work
• cultural competence
• practice conceptualization