Social work indigenization in Mainland China: Towards a state-led decolonizing framework.

Summary: The tension between indigenizing versus internationalizing social work knowledge, resulting from local-specific sensitivity, has been a contemporary dispute in the Global South where there are diverse geo-historical backgrounds. This is the case in China, where the mainstream international narrative surrounding social work development has been configured by the normative values and knowledge of a Euromodern origin. Such misrepresentation rarely reflects indigenous voices from the local social work academy. Informed by Foucault's thesis of power/knowledge, this article first compares the model of state social work in China and the world. Then, as a decolonizing project, a narrative review of 26 Chinese language articles was conducted. Findings: Distinctive service and policy practices in the Chinese traditional helping system were identified to illustrate how western social work was ethnocentrically repositioned in the "post-socialist" China. These initiatives include micro-level "Civil Affairs" services, meso-level "mass work" practice, and macro-level "Minsheng" State and crossregional Pairing Aid Programs, which are rooted in the cultural (Confucianism), economical (socialist market economy), and political (Marxism) ecosystem in China. Applications: Through an indigenized epistemological stance, a state-led anti-colonial framework is presented to unveil the making of social work indigenization and social welfare development that de-centers Eurocentric hegemony. To reorient social work knowledge apart from persistent neo-colonialism in the form of academic imperialism, social work development should be tailored into a locally responsive and geopolitically appropriate models in the non-western world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]