internationalize the agenda of research into spirituality and social work. The first is ... psychiatry, sociology, and women's studies (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 1996b, 1997a,. 1999a, b, d ... in journals that are American/Northern in scope. Table 1 ... India. New Zealand. The United Kingdom. The United States of America. Total. 1. 1.
spirituality and Social Work: A Call for an International Focus of Research John R. Graham This article argues that the best way for the social work profession in North America to respond properly to a spiritual imperative is to move beyond its own geographically bound anchors and to understand spirituality in international terms. Indeed, spirituality is a viable source of engaging with a recently rejuvenated movement to render social work relevant to the international communities in which it occurs: to localize social work's knowledge base. American social work journals therefore could usefully move beyond the topic of spirituality in strictly American terms and work on those things that might encourage scholars in the Global South to publish in American journals on spirituality topics from a Global South perspective. However, the ultimate decision over the means to these ends —and whether in fact these ends are even desirable — should rest with those in the Global South.
The following pages set out to elaborate that the best way for the social work profession in North America to respond properly to a spiritual imperative is to move outside of its own geographically bound anchors and to understand spirituality in international terms. Moreover, spirituality is a viable, and potentially effective, source of engaging with the recently rejuvenated movement to render social work relevant to the international communities in which it occurs: to indigenize, or (my preferred term) localize, social work's knowledge base. American social work journals could usefully progress beyond the topic of spirituality in strictly American and/or Global North terms. Like much terminology, the terms "Global North" and "Global South" obscure and neglect as much as they explain and illuminate. I therefore use them reluctantly, even though they are prevalent in development literatures and are meant to replace earlier (and perhaps even more troubling) nomenclature such as "developing/developed" and (from the Cold War) "First, Second, and Third Worlds." By Global North, I mean those advanced industrialized countries, many (but not all) of which are in the Northern hemisphere, including the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe; by Global South, I mean those countries in Asia, Africa, Central and South America, and elsewhere, that tend to be less industrialized and economically wealthy, and are more likely to be in the Southern than the Northern hemisphere. As the article elaborates, addressing spirituality not just in Northern terms could be useful because of American journals' importance (and commensurate need to be relevant) to social work knowledge throughout the world and because of the increasingly reciprocal interchange of diverse people in and out of countries such as the U.S. As the article's conclusion points out, we in the Global North might think of Arete, Vol. 30(1), 63-77 © 2006 University of South Carolina 63
ways to encourage scholars in the Global South to publish spirituality topics in Global North journals. Global South communities and scholars need to bear power in these processes, and at their invitation, there also may be circumstances in which scholars in the Global North are invited to collaborate with colleagues in the South on publishing in Northern journals spirituality topics from a Global South perspective. The following pages are infused with seven assumptions regarding how best to internationalize the agenda of research into spirituality and social work. The first is that spirituality is a superb venue for social work's continued effort at being significant to the world's diverse peoples. Second, and relatedly, is spirituality's potential to engage multiple perspectives, within and outside formal faith traditions, in dialogue. Turning to a third assumption, a useful means for undertaking the first two points is through participation that is international in focus and allied with efforts at localizing the knowledge base. This leads to a fourth assumption: that all of this best occurs in a context of knowledge production that is mutually respectful, is nonhierarchical, and that aligns itself to long-established principles of cooperative or participatory inquiry (Heron, 1996; Heron & Reason, 2001; Park, 2001). Fifth, and perhaps most importantly, I am making an argument for Northern journals to create the conditions that could lead to greater emphasis, in journals situated in the U.S., for content on and authorship from the Global South. In no way is this to diminish other, complementary imperatives: publishing in journals and other venues situated in the Global South; reading, appreciating, and better integrating into knowledge bases (in the North and South) from these Southern sources; and appreciating multiple means of knowledge production, of which journal articles are merely one, albeit important form. Further writings, beyond the parameters of the present article, could rightly elaborate on these other, very vital matters. Nor should the present article imply that I am representing or speaking on behalf of the Global South. I am from a Northern country, born and raised, but I have been asked to write an article for a special issue on spirituality, in an American journal. So the pitch I am making is to American journal editors and scholars in particular; and beyond the U.S., it is to scholars, practitioners, and students throughout the Global North and the Global South. Sixth, and related, as Yan and Cheung (in press) point out, the process of recontextualization, or "bringing together" discourses "for selective transmission and acquisition," poses an essential question in understanding knowledge: who has power over processes? In my view, the answer ought to be scholars and others in the Global South. All the present article seeks to do is to outline some ways in which those in the Global North might think of a course of action that could pave the way for greater inclusion of voices from the South in Northern journals. However, ultimate decision over the means to these ends —and whether in fact these ends are even desirable — ought to rest with those in the South. If nothing else, the present article is an argument from one person in the Global North and is intended to stimulate dialogue within a Northern-based journal. Seventh, as is pointed out, it is entirely plausible that in some instances communities or scholars in the Global South may invite scholars in the North to be involved in research in the Global South. It is fair to say that the reverse relationship (Global South scholars writing on topics in the North) could certainly contribute greatly to social work scholarship as well. This last matter could merit a future
64
journal article; beyond some concluding comments on modes of research, limits of space preclude further consideration of it here. Here I introduce a further proviso: because I have been working in the field of spirituality and social work for the past 15 years, some of the preceding assumptions and proceeding arguments are highly personal, if not idiosyncratically related to my work. A lot of my early scholarship with long-standing collaborator and friend Professor Alean Al-Krenawi looked at various ways of understanding traditional healing in the Middle East (among Dervish, Koranic healers, and others) in relation to professional disciplines such as social work (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 1996a, b, 1997a, b, 1999b, c; Graham & Al-Krenawi, 1996). This research was strongly indebted to epistemologies other than our own, and indeed it appeared not only in social work journals but also in such disciplinary venues as anthropology, area studies, bereavement studies, family therapy, health sciences, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and women's studies (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 1996b, 1997a, 1999a, b, d, 2003a, 2004, 2005; Al-Krenawi, Graham, & Sehwail, 2002; Al-Krenawi, Graham, & Slonim-Nevo, 2002). Later we moved into understanding Islam as a force in social work writ large (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 2000, 2003a). Our research was wonderfully collaborative with Muslim communities in the Arab Middle East: the Bedouin-Arab of the Negev, communities in Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and other parts of the Muslim world (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 2004, 2005, 2006; Al-Krenawi, Graham, Dean, & El-Thabet, 2004; Al-Krenawi, Graham, & Sehwail, 2002, 2004). However, disseminating this scholarship within social work, particularly in the early 1990s, was a hard slog. I recall 15 years ago receiving letters from editors of American journals that I would not expect to receive today. Most could be paraphrased as follows: "thank you for your submission; it is analytically and methodologically sound and makes a contribution to the literature; but it is of insufficient interest to our readership, and so we regretfully decline the submission." How strange, it seemed to me then (as now), that professional journals —the ones in which we wanted to publish—appeared so fundamentally resistant to research on spirituality. Or was it resistant to spirituality as a topic outside of America? Undoubtedly, Edward Canda's seminal work from the mid-1980s to the present has provided a renewed interest in what has been a strong historical thread to our profession (see Canda, 1983,1988; Canda & Furman, 1999). But for what will always be (to me at least) peculiar historical circumstances: from the profession's founding until the mid-1980s, much social work writing was permeated by an aloof disregard for religion and spirituality—an inference, almost by omission, that neither mattered to the profession nor to its clients. How divergent this was from the aspirations of many of the profession's clients and from those of many of its practitioners (myself included), whose spiritualities compelled them to enter, and stay within, the profession. As well, how contrary to the religiously expressed values of many charitable personnel in the 19th century and centuries before then, whose activities eventually led to the emergence of a secular, professional, and university-accredited profession of social work in the 20th century (Graham, 1992; Leiby, 1984). We in social work circles therefore will always be indebted to Ed Canda's leadership in initiating spirituality's renaissance (partly because he used this term, rather than "religion") in the written/published record of our profession and to his insistence upon looking at spirituality as a valid, and empirically relevant, category 65
of analysis. A very strong legacy is emerging, throughout the North American academy in particular (Cadell, 1996; Coates, 2003; Coates & McKay, 1995; Coholic, 2003; Csiernik & Adams, 2003; Damianakis, 2001; Henerey, 2003; Hodge, 1998, 2005; Russel, 1998; Sheridan, 2004; Todd, 2004; Zapf, 2005). Spirituality often (but not always) allies with faith traditions, and between both there is a tremendous, cosmopolitan potential, perhaps more so than among many of social work's other units of analysis. Ed Canda's work, as an example, is deeply sensitive to the frequently non-Northern origins of many spiritual traditions and the way in which spiritual understandings from the South and the North are mutually enriching. In these respects alone, spirituality is a tremendous catalyst to greater dialogue between the North and the South. This is not to claim, though, that spirituality as a topic of social work research since its mid-1980s renaissance has not had strong analytic and contextual anchors to the Global North. Indeed, and as elaborated in Tables 1-4, like so much of the profession's scholarship (Greif, 2004), most of the first authors of spiritual topics have been from the Global North (particularly the U.S.), and most have written about matters relating to (and/or involving clients in) the Global North (again, especially the U.S.). A few rejoinders accompany these assertions. Tables 1 and 2 are based on an early 2006 keyword search in Social Work Abstracts (searching "spirituality" in "abstracts," revealing 227 hits). This database, in turn, is affiliated with the (American) National Association of Social Workers and has probably had a particular interest, therefore, in journals that are American/Northern in scope.
Social Work Abstracts
Table 1 Database, First Author Affiliation
Author Affiliation
Number of Articles
Australia
16
Canada
5
H o n g Kong
2
India
1
N e w Zealand
1
The United Kingdom
4
The United States of America
198
Total
227^
Social Work Abstracts
Topic Area
Table 2 Database, Topic Areas of Abstracts
Number of Articles
Australia
Global South Data „ or Perspectives
16
0
Canada
4
0
H o n g Kong
2
2
66
1
India New Zealand The United Kingdom The United States of America Total
1 0 0 12 15
1 4 199 227
Tables 3 and 4 are based on an early 2006 keyword search in Social Service Abstracts (searching "spirituality" in "abstracts," revealing 354 hits). This database, like the other, is American-based but has always struck me as more international in focus. It is probable that not all journals from the Global South are included in either database —particularly those that are not English-language. As well, because neither database provides the information, I am unable to comment on the geographic affiliations of second and subsequent authors. In addition, for both databases we are attempting to use abstracts to determine the articles' geographic topic areas and whether data/perspectives from the Global South are included therein. I think we have done a good job here; but it is possible that further, more labor-intensive examination of all 581 articles in their entirety may reveal an occasional instance that we got wrong. Table 3 Social Service Abstracts Database, First Author Affiliation Author Affiliation Australia Belgium Botswana Canada Hong Kong India Israel Latvia New Zealand Norway South Africa Switzerland The United Kingdom The United States of America Total
Number of Articles 4 1 1 17 2 2 2 1 2 2 4 1 8 307 354
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Table 4 Social Service Abstracts Database, Topic Areas of Abstracts
Topic Area
Number of Articles
Australia Belgium Botswana Canada Caribbean Himalayas Hong Kong India Israel Japan Kenya Kosovo Latvia New Zealand Norway South Africa The United Kingdom The United States of America Various Global South Total
Includes Data or Perspectives from the Global South
4
0
1
0
1
1
18
2
1
1
1
1
3
3
3
3
2
3
1
0
1
1
1
1
1
0
2
0
2
0
4
4
7
2
300
21
1
1
354
44
However, the point does bear emphasis: there could be more attention paid to spirituality outside the Global North. As multiple scholars have pointed out, much of social work's written, English-language knowledge base continues to be produced in the Global North, particularly its English-language countries, but is consumed in the Global North and South (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 2003a; Lyons, 1999). Social work, after all, emerged in the Global North and was transplanted to the Global South during the interwar period as a product of what has been described (accurately, in my view) as "academic colonialization" (Atal, 1981). After World War II, schools of social work in the Global South proliferated, with cultural assumptions and with the predominance of professional writing, originating in the North, profoundly influencing teaching, research, and practice in the Global South (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 2003a, b; Healey, 1999, 2001; Midgley, 1981). Many scholars in the Global South are clear on their commitment to disengaging from this colonial web. An article in the recently inaugurated Caribbean Journal of Social Work discusses the region's oldest English-language school of social
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work, established in the 1940s in the aftermath of technical consultations from Great Britain and strongly indebted to British social work training traditions. "Both lecturers and students are critical of the programme, especially the practice methodology area, for being too dependent on models derived predominantly from the United States and to a lesser extent from Britain and Canada" (Maxwell, Williams, Ring, & Cambridge, 2003, p. 24). Similar echoes are heard in a recent evaluation of social work education in Pakistan, which was established in the mid-1950s and, unlike the previous example, owed more to the United Nations Technical Assistance Administration than to a British colonial heritage (which it nonetheless shared with the English-speaking Caribbean). To one observer, the originators of social work in Pakistan had always intended that practices would develop in such a way that they would become "appropriate for training of social workers in the cultural and social environment of Pakistan" (Rehmatullah, 2002, p. 176). Likewise, "the teaching of Western-based methodologies of social work was to be discouraged and replaced by indigenous methods evolved from practice in Pakistan." To that end, "the task of developing Pakistani methods of social work, and producing Pakistani literature would be undertaken and introduced in the universities in Pakistan." The objectives of social work's founding mothers and fathers, however, have "never been done" (p. 177). Indeed, "very little social work literature has been produced, and social work methodology of 'group work' and 'case work' are still being taught in the same manner as in 1954." Some readers in the South and/or who have journeyed internationally could probably recollect similar stories from other parts of the Global South. I can think of many, from my travels in Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, and Malaysia, among other countries. Most readers would probably be deeply concerned that there are instances in the Global South where social work's knowledge base is problemridden, needing to overcome a lot of its past and present limitations. This is not to suggest uniformity throughout the Global South; there are numerous examples of hope, such as in Latin America and its commitment to "reconceptualization" and "conscientization" of knowledge (Walton & Abo-El-Nasr, 1988). However, the potential for social work innovations to be shared between the North and the South and for knowledge development to be truly reciprocal and emancipatory has always been, in my view, stunted. The humble argument I am asserting, and have asserted with Alean Al-Krenawi for 15 years, is that spirituality is a perfectly viable place to carry out this agenda (I would like to say continue it, but I am skeptical of our success, to date). This is not solely of immediate relevance to communities and social workers in the Global South, although were it so, this would be sufficient imperative, as far as I am concerned. It also directly bears upon the Global North, which is becoming increasingly diverse, and whose knowledge productions need to reflect accordingly (and have very poorly done so) its growing diversities and reciprocal demographic networks with the Global South. Within the South the question has been appropriately raised: How might social work provide any currency to the people it serves? Here, the literature has introduced the awkward neologisms "indigenization," "localization," and "authentization" to describe those processes of adapting knowledge to the local circumstances of culture, community, and values (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 2001;
69
Antweiler, 1998; Bar-On, 2003; Gray & Allegritti, 2002; Ragab, 1995; Walton & AboEl-Nasr, 1988). Without delving into theoretical distinctions between these terms, I will stick to the word "localization." Some, within this localization movement, call for a social work knowledge base that is fundamentally different one culture to the next, insisting on a profession that is, for example, variously African (Osei, 1996), Indian (Nagpaul, 1996), or other. But how, in more precise terms, does this localization play out? In one part of the Global South, "a distinctive African brand of social work already exists among field-level practitioners" (Bar-On, 2003, p. 299). Scholars situated in the Caribbean comment on similar processes in the classroom. Yet in many known instances in the South, as some have argued, there is a weak translation of practice, or teaching, to writing (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 2003a; Maxwell et al., 2003; Rehmatullah, 2002). As authors in the Caribbean summarize the matter: "The fact that attempts at modification or adaptation" of social work's Northern biases "are seldom documented beyond the individual lecturer's instruction materials leaves a situation that is still far too open to short-term creative initiatives rather than being remedied for posterity in published form" (Maxwell et al., 2003, p. 24). And so if localization is to occur at all, spirituality, I argue, is fundamental in at least three respects. In some instances spirituality may be attached to particular faith traditions, which are, in turn, intrinsic to individual and community identity. Take Islam as an example. Writing on social work education in Bangladesh, Hakim Saker and AhmaduUah (1995) insist on an infusion of Islam into social work, such that the profession is no longer a "simple transplantation" from North to South (p. 373). One Egyptian social work scholar calls for an "Islamic reorientation of social work" throughout the Arab world, describing it as "the ultimate indigenisation stance ... to correct the traditional bias against religion in the social work profession" (Ragab, 1995, pp. 282-283). Ragab thinks that in order to localize social work within Muslim communities, Islamic theology and worldviews should be integrated with "the best of behavioural/social sciences" and "rigorously verified observations and generalizations" (p. 291). For our part, Al-Krenawi and I have argued that social work knowledge needs to make space for traditional knowledge, and that traditional healers within Bedouin-Arab communities in the Middle East may profitably utilize certain rites — anchored to Islam—concurrently or in succession with some forms of mental health and social service intervention (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 1996ab, 1997b). In another publication we maintain that community elders — here, too, possessors of profound spirituality — may effectively collaborate with social workers in the delivery of certain types of child welfare interventions (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 2001). However, to do so requires a modification of social work knowledge, including different principles of community involvement, from that found in mainstream social work thinking (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 2001). In these and other circumstances the knowledge base, and not just modified worker behavior, comes to the fore. In other instances, spirituality may be a wonderful vehicle for reciprocal dialogue among different faith communities, and social work practitioners of different faiths. One of the most moving professional experiences I have ever witnessed occurred at the Second Annual Canadian Conference on Spirituality and Social Work, Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia, in June 2003. Conference
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organizers set up a panel entitled "Spiritual Connections: Religion and Social Justice," at which representatives of different religious traditions explained how their faith impelled them to become agents of social justice in their societies. Panelists were speaking to the broadest possible constituency of spiritually minded social work practitioners, scholars, and students: of both sexes, of all ages, from multiple ethno-racial backgrounds, and hailing from many regions of the country. Some followed a particular faith tradition; others were avowedly secular, but spiritual; above all, the group was diverse, conveying depth, nuance, and a thousand shades of gray to any one way of categorizing people. The panelists represented social service personnel and/or scholars with perspectives in Aboriginal spirituality. Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The result, described by the eminent theologian Gregory Baum (2003), was quite profoundly "an exercise in religious renewal" (p. 1). As Baum explains, not only did participants provide (the all-important) knowledge about their faith traditions; they also "created a spiritual bond among the participants and members of the audience. A religiously-based yearning for social justice and a vision of a reconciled society united speakers and listeners." Here we are into the possibility of knowledge generation: of renewing each person's assumptions about her/his faith and (I mean the following in secular terms) profession. In so doing, participants had the opportunity to collaborate, moving social work's epistemology to a hitherto unachieved inclusive, and more integrated, level. What if commensurate dialogues were international in focus; what would be the result of such activities within a still richer divergence of national- , faith-, and other identity-based pluralities, and over longer periods of time? Leaving the matter of faith and religion, let us move to spirituality in and of itself as an important means of localizing social work knowledge. It is no coincidence that one of the earlier editions of the Caribbean Journai of Sociai Worii contains an entire manuscript titled "A Caribbean Perspective on Spirituality in Social Work Practice" (Tan, Bowie, & Orpilla, 2004). Those calling for greater sensitivity to communities in the Global South often cite spirituality as an essential cultural identifier that does not find its way in the assumptions or content of much mainstream (Northern) writing, either at all or in the ways that a particular Southern community may understand it (Al-Krenawi & Graham, 2000; Chow, 1996; Ragab, 1990,1995; Rehmatullah, 2002). I like very much Ragab's (1990,1995) interest in retaining the best of social work (in its historic and contemporary senses) with the best that local communities might provide to a renewed knowledge base. I agree with many scholars that the imperative to render a knowledge base locally and globally accessible is not mutually incompatible, for both may be, at this stage in our profession's history, "necessary for understanding the complex articulation of global processes with local or regional conditions" (Smart, 1994, p. 149). Many scholars in the Global South consciously, and wisely, avoid wholesale rejection of knowledge from the North (Alatas, 1995; Al-Krenawi & Graham, 1996 to 2006). The key, in my view, is to have those centers of power in the North come together with communities (scholars, the public, civil society, and social service communities) in the South in a way that is nonhegemonic and mutually enriching to participants and to the discipline's knowledge. Processes that are mutually respectful, and nonhierarchical, nicely align themselves to long-established principles that embrace cooperative or participatory inquiry (Heron, 1996; Heron & Reason, 2001; Park, 2001). 71
Research in nursing and allied disciplines is conclusive regarding the reciprocal knowledge base that occurs when students in one country learn from those in another (Ekstrom & Sigurdsson, 2002). Scholars not just in social work but in other disciplines as well rightly point out the anger and resentment toward the North that can occur when a lack of international insight is clearly evident in a knowledge base (Jakubec & Campbell, 2003). Most significantly of all. Global South scholars, such as Friere (1970) in participatory research or Gutierrez (1971) in liberation theology, have been profoundly transformative of methodologies and analytical assumptions in the Global North and South. Both, it needs to be emphasized (and not coincidentally), are highly relevant to the present agenda of internationalizing the topic of spirituality and social work. How, in practical terms, might such an agenda for Global South scholarship and perspectives occur? Future research could usefully elucidate the answer. A good way of envisioning some possibilities could begin with sociologist Peter Park's distinction between three forms of knowledge: representational, relational, and reflective. Representational knowledge may be functional — comprising the portrayal of a thing, a person, an event, or an experience as related as a variable or variables to other variables. "The methodological procedures for generating this species of knowledge prescribe, in principle, strict separation of the researcher as the knower from the object of inquiry" (Park, 2001, p. 83). Think of social work's long history of scholarship that is correlational or causal (Graham, Al-Krenawi, & Bradshaw, 2000). A second subcategory of representational knowledge is interpretive; here, there are hermeneutics or other forms of (what we understand in social work as qualitative) research "that requires the knower come as close to the to-be-known as possible" (Park, 2001, p. 83). There is, secondly, relational knowledge: "when applied to human situations [it] has the potential for bringing people together in empathy and making it possible for them to know one another as human beings affectively, as well as cognitively" (Park, 2001, p. 83). Reflective knowledge, in turn, goes beyond understanding the world to changing it. With this approach, and with the help of critical theory, we move to forms of participatory research: to knowledge generated by and with people, capturing unique synergies that would never be present in the absence of combined forces. Reflective knowledge has a particularly strong Global South tradition, as elaborated by Friere (1970) and others. Because it is participatory, social workers are uniquely supplied with knowledge, skills, and aptitudes. If I had to place my lot with any of Park's three typologies, it would be with his third; and I state this conviction not to score an academic point for "the team" (for I am hardpressed to see myself as a cheerleader for any sole approach). My own experiences in international, spirituality-based research led me to conclude that all three modes of knowledge production are viable, but that they require reciprocal communication, and in most instances money. On the latter-most point, I am not overwhelmed with optimism. My home country, to take one Northern nation as an example, possesses an excellent Canadian International Development Agency, which funds development projects that would probably not be construed as relevant to the agenda I have put forth. A second source, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Institute, has made useful strides in encouraging funded, international research; the Canadian Institute for Health Research is in this (and as far as I am concerned, others) respect not as innovative. In addition, a fourth form of potential funding, the International 72
Development Research Centre (IDRC), has the highly laudable mandate to fund research in the Global South. However, as one of its employees told me several years ago, the Centre employs few, if any, social workers. I totally doubt social work scholars' capacities to influence IDRC mandates, let alone obtain funding for the work I am proposing. Moreover, and relatedly, I frankly contest some of the IDRC's approaches. The organization has always struck me as aloof to capitalizing on the thousands of active, collaborative relationships that are occurring between Canadian and Global South scholars, and which are the genesis of creative ideas that are the proper purview of university-based scholars. Sadly, the IDRC does not, as it should, adequately broker funds and resources for ideas that result in synergies arising between Global North and Global South scholars. Instead, it has always seemed to me as committed to keeping these two spheres separate, and to having a Canadian IDRC bureaucracy divining and overseeing whatever it declares to be desirable research in the Global South. Perhaps the funding situation is more hopeful in other Northern countries; I would like to think so. But press on we must—not just for our own purpose, nor for the sake of a professional discipline whose period in history may one day come to an end, perhaps in the lifetime of some readers of this article. Our focus must remain on an imperative that has everything to do with a manifest imbalance of power between the South and the North, and our great potential, in response, to commit to another level and type of social justice. Precisely because they are so important to the international community of social work instructors, students, and practitioners, I would like to see American social work journals move beyond the topic of spirituality in strictly Northern and/or American terms and to do those things that might create greater opportunity for those in the Global South to write on spirituality in Northern journals. Those who believe that the world is globalizing lay equal claim to the increasing extent and importance of the rapid movement of ideas, people, and the commensurate flattening of geographic boundaries (Friedman, 2005; Lyons, 1999; Saul, 2005). Ideally, a great deal of writing could occur in and from the Global South. There may be circumstances in which those in the Global South seek collaborative relationships with Global North writers. In all respects, the goal is for Global South scholars and communities to be involved in the creation of spiritually grounded dissemination from a Global South perspective, and to exercise power in decision making over these arrangements (including whether or not the objective I am proposing is worthy). (Future research on methods of carrying out this agenda could elaborate on dialogical processes between scholars/practitioners/others in the North and the South, allied together in effort. Here, we have the prospect of shared collaboration along Park's third level of knowledge creation, leading to something that may be neither strictly Northern nor Southern.) To me at least, it feels a little too clever, if not a little too cheeky, to put forth the imperatives I have asserted in these pages as "spiritual." However, the opposites of these imperatives, in my view, may be contrary to what I, at least, equate to spirituality. The world is a huge place. Like it or not, scholarship that is disseminated in Global North venues is too important to be left only to people in the North and to concerns situated in the North. Greater insight into other people's ways of understanding spirituality and social work will, in itself, create increased insight into the North's ways of understanding these; and reciprocal knowledge 73
production will lead to something much better, and richer, than what might occur in the limited hands of scholars and journals oriented too much to the Global North.
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John R. Graham, PhD, RSW, is Murray Fraser Professor of Community Economic Development and a member of the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Calgary, Canada. Sincere thanks are extended to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for providing invaluable funding toward this article's authorship. Thanks also to Katelyn Harker, BA, Sarah Meagher, BSW, and Cathryn Bradshaw, MSW, RSW, who each provided very helpful research assistantship.
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