For women of colour in social work: black feminist self-care practice based on Audre Lorde’s radical pioneering principles

Abstract

This article offers women of colour in social work a black feminist self-care practice based on three principles from Audre Lorde’s work. The colonial situation of social work inevitably marginalises black feminist thinking and methods. In the context of chronic racist denigration, generic social work models of recovery, reparation and resilience equate to complicity with intersectional racism. Social work values and ethics alone are not enough. A material shift in power relations is required. Black feminist self-care practice responds to the physical, material and emotional impacts of silence, exhaustion and vilification of feeling that women of colour encounter in their living. In a call for women of colour in social work to gather together for mutual sharing of experience, this article affirms the power of collective dialogues as the primary strategy of black feminist self-care practice.