Internationalizing professional practices: The place of social work in the international arena

Internationalizing practices are seldom explicitly considered in social work theory, practice and education. This article examines internationalizing practices, using both historical materials and empirical data recently obtained through a project involving humanitarian aid in a disaster to demonstrate that when people want help in such situations, they prefer locality-specific, culturally-relevant forms of interventions under their own control. Responding to their wishes means that social work educators and practitioners from overseas have to interrogate their internationalism to ensure that they do not damage the people they aim to help further, but work with them in local empowering partnerships that they control.