Role of Cultural Humility and Spirituality in Advancing Human Rights and Social Development Globally

Overview: This presentation is grounded in the belief that ‘cultural humility’ and being attentive to ‘spirituality’ will help to advance human rights and social development globally. We will discuss moving away from the notion that human rights and social development are other-centered and will explore avenues for decolonizing knowledge and practice.Proposal text: With the articulation of this APM’s theme to “Lead Critical Conversations: Human Rights are Global Rights,” this presentation examines the role of cultural humility and spirituality as fundamental components in advancing human rights and social development globally. Historically, in the field of development, nations/societies were viewed from a deficit perspective opposed to a strength perspective (Author(s), 2016). Societies were classified as developed, under-developed, and least-developed; or first world, second world, and third world. However, there is a need to rethink categorizing nation states in value-laden terms that devalue whole groups of people. This is true when we categorize groups of people living in a particular human condition. Classification of “Third World,” for example, was based on chosen indicators and a political decision was arrived at by leaving out other indicators (Author(s), 1999; 2004) (e.g., using gross national product (GNP), yet leaving aside per capita deaths from domestic violence or gun violence and excluding the unpaid contributions of millions of women across the globe working in informal labor markets). Such classification could be attributed to latent neo-colonial tendencies among policies of some advanced economies, encouraging social technology flow from a unidirectional trajectory that is directed from advanced economies to developing economies. This presentation seeks to challenge unidirectional flow and is grounded in the belief that ‘cultural humility’ and being attentive to ‘spirituality’ will help us to be more inclusive, and advance human rights and social development globally – including advancement of nations in the global north. Doing so would help us to move away from the notion that human rights and social development are other-centered or only for nations in the global south, and aid in decolonizing knowledge.

A primary emphasis of this presentation is to hold critical conversations around the relevance of achieving this shift and to explore actionable strategies for doing so in social work curricula, research, and practice. In 2014, a committee appointed by the National Association of Social Work to promote diversity and inclusion of racial minorities introduced the importance of cultural humility and spirituality as important ingredients (NASW, 2015). Principles of cultural humility are to commit to compassionate inquiry, to be open and teachable, and to consider social systems that assign power and privilege to some over others (Azzopardi & McNeill, 2016; Fisher-Borne et al., 2015). These tenets and the role of cultural humility and spirituality in societies across the globe will be examined to offer critical learning opportunities for advancing human rights, whether it is gaining of women’s right to own their own property; abolishing of slavery in the U.S.; independence, as in the instance of India; civil rights in the U.S, or human rights in Latin America. The inner spirits of people were invoked by Susan B Anthony, Gandhiji, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mothers de Plaza de Mayo, and thousands of indigenous people in their respective societies and help illuminate how the contexts of cultural humility and spirituality interplay with human rights and development to produce an impact that is long lasting.