Social Work as “White Woman’s Burden”? Imperial Translations of the Profession between Germany and Latin America in the 1930s and 1940s – An Archival Study

Abstract

This article examines the transnational entanglements of social work between Germany and Latin America in the 1930s and 1940s through an archival study of German Catholic women social workers involved in founding social work schools in Chile, Uruguay, and Peru. Drawing on letters and reports preserved in German Catholic organizational archives, the authors analyze how these actors framed their activities as civilizing and Christian missions while reproducing Eurocentric knowledge orders. Using postcolonial feminist and women-of-color feminist perspectives, the article shows that these early forms of international social work were deeply embedded in colonial and racialized hierarchies and can be interpreted as a form of ‘white female saviorism’ or the ‘white woman’s burden.’ Methodologically, the study combines close archival reading with the approach of ‘reading against the grain’ to uncover both explicit and implicit colonial narratives within the documents. The article concludes by arguing for a critical historiography of social work that addresses colonial continuities within the profession and integrates marginalized perspectives into its collective memory.

Bibliographie: Cabral, Fallon Tiffany/Lau, Dayana: Social Work as “White Woman’s Burden”? Imperial Translations of the Profession between Germany and Latin America in the 1930s and 1940s – An Archival Study, Zeitschrift für erziehungswissenschaftliche Migrationsforschung (ZeM), 1-2026, S. 47-61.