GENERAL ORIENTATION OF THE STUDY
1.4 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Harmful cultural practices in Africa are overemphasised at the expense of helpful ones.
Western culture and ideology have indoctrinated Africans into believing that the West provides a universal panacea to most African problems. For centuries social science research in Africa has been informed by Eurocentric methods of inquiry. This has often led to wrong and misdirected treatment for the problems affecting indigenous African people. Eurocentric religious and spiritual hegemony has, for a long time, relegated African religion and spirituality to the margins. Afro-based methods of disease management which are grounded in African belief systems have thus been relegated to the periphery. It is against this backdrop that social work practice in Africa and Zimbabwe in particular has failed to be indigenised. Social work treatment methods which were imported to the continent during the colonial era are still in place decades after Zimbabwean independence.
In Zimbabwe, social workers have pushed Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) in social work practice to the periphery despite calls to indigenise it (Mupedziswa, 1993).
They have done so despite the recognition of African belief systems‘ importance in illness management in the health delivery systems of Zimbabwe (Gelfand, 1975;
Kazembe, 2009; Chavunduka, 2001; WHO, 2002). This is despite the fact that there is an increasing attention being paid to the relationship between social work practice, culture and indigeniety in some parts of the world (Hodge & Derezotes, 2008; Baskin, 2002). Makhubele (2011) also notes that in some countries such as South Africa and
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Zimbabwe, official propaganda depicts indigenous cultures and methodologies as backward and out of date and simultaneously promotes one national culture at the expense of minority cultures. However, social workers are encouraged to embrace many ways of knowing especially when working with indigenous peoples (Phillips, 2010).
Religion and spirituality play a crucial role in social work practice. Social work practitioners are encouraged to be religiously and spiritually sensitive when executing their duties. A lot has been written by historians, anthropologists, religionists and missiologists about the role of African traditional religion and spirituality among the Shona people of Zimbabwe (Mpofu, 2011; Shizha & Charema, 2012; Shoko & Burck, 2010; Machinga, 2011; Kazembe, 2009, Chavunduka, 1978; Gelfand, Mavis, Drummond & Ndemera, 1985), but little is known about it from a social work perspective. Despite the importance of aspects of religion and spirituality such as resilience and meditation in social work practice, it is an area which is hard-hit by academic amnesia among social work researchers and educators in Zimbabwe. Social work scholars in Zimbabwe have not devoted any effort to researching on religion and spirituality with the exception of the work of Mabvurira and Nyanguru (2013) and Mabvurira and Makhubele (2014).
For most black Africans, it is almost impossible to separate the material from the spiritual. Thus, spiritual issues are critical in the everyday lives of indigenous African people hence neglecting them in social work practice can have detrimental effects on intervention. Furman and Bensin (2006) aver that despite emerging interest in
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spirituality, social workers report little preparation for integrating religion and spirituality into practice. This is despite the fact that earlier studies have indicated that social work educators and students, in a number of countries, are willing to include religious and spiritual aspects in their curricula (Canda, 1998; Praglin, 2004; Csiernikn & Adams, 2002).
Many aspects of diversity such as cultural differences have been mentioned in social work education in Zimbabwe but issues which have to do with Indigenous Knowledge Systems, especially African traditional religion, have been left out. Unlike neighbouring South Africa with a comprehensive, Indigenous Knowledge Systems policy, IKS issues in Zimbabwe have not been given serious attention especially by most helping professions. As mentioned earlier, Sheridan (2002) notes that social work services that incorporate religion and spirituality may help clients deal with a sense of alienation, hopelessness, grief and a range of other issues. Social workers have been afraid of speaking about things spiritual with their clients for fear of crossing the line of self- determination. They have consequently neglected a large component of the person-in- the environment (Hunt, 2010). Worse still are issues which have to do with African traditional religion which is facing extinction.
The origin of social work is believed to have been motivated by religious and spiritual beliefs but with the passage of time, the two seem to have drifted apart. Sheridan (2010) declares that spirituality is soulful living and that social work has largely become disconnected from its spiritual roots. Since the early 1980s, there have been calls for a return to the spiritual roots of social work (Canda, 1999; Canda & Furman, 2010;
Lembke, 2012; Martin, 2003; Lindasy, 2002; Hodge, 2001), but this has not materialised
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in most African countries. Few social work scholars in Southern Africa have researched on religion and spirituality in social work (Thabede, 2005; Bhagwan, 2010a; Bhagwan, 2010b; Ross, 2010; Mabvurira & Nyanguru, 2013; Mabvurira & Makhubele, 2014).
All the three institutions (University of Zimbabwe, Bindura University of Science Education and Women‘s University in Africa) which are currently offering social work training in Zimbabwe do not offer any course on religion and spirituality in social work practice. Spirituality, as a protective factor for coping with chronic illnesses, has been understudied in Zimbabwe. Available literature is by scholars from developed world and they have written mostly in the context of Christian spirituality. Almost all humanity subscribes to a form of religion and is spiritual to a certain extent. People have always resorted to spirituality when faced with traumatic life events. They always find refuge in spirituality when they cannot explain certain life events. Given that a significant percentage of Zimbabweans are religious, there is, therefore, more to suggest that religion and spirituality are of considerable significance to most people in Zimbabwe.
Clients‘ spirituality, therefore, needs to be given serious attention by policy makers, social work educators and practitioners.
People diagnosed with life-threatening or chronic conditions such as HIV and AIDS and cancer have resorted to faith healing (Kazembe, 2009). Another point of interest is the fact that even some Christians in Zimbabwe turn to indigenous healing practices when faced with strange life circumstances (Chavunduka, 2011; Kazembe, 2009).
Furthermore, Viriri and Mungwini (2009) agree that in responding to problems, Shona
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people have developed a patch-work of solutions with ideas they draw from modern science, the Christians tradition and their own traditional metaphysics. Given this scenario, there is, therefore, a need for a subterranean understanding of the influence of African traditional religion and spirituality in comprehending chronic illnesses among the Shona people of Zimbabwe. The presumption is that religion and spirituality have been found to provide a protective measure against life-threatening conditions yet little has been explored from a social work perspective among the Shona people who constitute more than 70% of Zimbabwe‘s population (Kazembe, 2009).
Social work originated from religious movements especially Christian movements and as such a number of scholars such as Edward Richard Canda, Michael Sheridan have developed interest in the role of spirituality in social work practice. However, a research gap exists in identifying the role of African traditional religion and spirituality in chronic illness. An important question to be addressed is whether or not African spirituality has the same effect on chronic illnesses as other forms of spirituality especially among the Shona people of Zimbabwe. The understanding is that though disease is universal, illness is culturally constructed as factors surrounding it vary from society to society.
Sodi (2009) writes that in the mid-1970s, the World Health Organisation (WHO) called for the recognition of Traditional Medicine (TM) through appropriate training and research in an endeavour to facilitate collaboration with primary health care systems.
The African Union declared 2001 to 2010 as a decade of African traditional medicine and the World Health Organization recognises the role of traditional medicine in the
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health delivery systems of many developing nations. Life in Africa hinges on religion, and African traditional religion and medicine are inseparable. In Africa, the term
―indigenous‖ is synonymous with ―African‖ and ―anti-colonial‖ (Mohale, 2010). Social workers should explore ways of incorporating indigenous spirituality in their practice.