Social Work Education and the Tribal/Indigenous peoples of India’s northeast

Abstract

Social work as a profession has evolved out of contextualised human responses to social, political and economic questions that afflict human existence. Its education and practice in India, imported from the west as a part of the colonisation process, has remained stagnated, for long, with concepts and methods suited to respond to the ravages of industrial revolution in Europe. Thus, it has failed, in many ways than one, to position itself responsively to India’s contexts. The tribal/indigenous situation of India’s northeast, for instance, challenge social work education and practice to define programmes and strategies, respectively, suited to meet its unique needs. The present paper is an attempt to conceptualise a social work education framework suited to this context.