Contextualizing international social work: Religion as a relevant factor

Abstract

The focus of this article is how can people’s religious practice be a resource in international social work? The question will be discussed in relation to pre-modern, modern and postmodern societies. The article will contain a description of religious activity in two different cases and related to international social work. The article concludes that from a postmodern view, international social work will profit from opening up and seeing religion as a contextual factor. What needs to be discussed further is whether a reason for the relative absence of religion and religious practice in international social work textbooks might be the lack of distinction between acknowledgement and acceptance of religion.