Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Social Work Practice in Rural North East Nigeria: Towards an Afrocentric Framework

The persistent marginalisation of indigenous knowledge systems in Nigerian social work education and practice constitutes both an epistemological limitation and a practical constraint on culturally effective service delivery in rural communities. This doctoral study develops an Afrocentric social work framework grounded in indigenous knowledge systems in rural North East Nigeria, drawing on empirical data from communities in Borno, Gombe, and Adamawa States. An Afrocentric interpretive paradigm underpins the research, employing participatory action research methods including community knowledge forums, elder knowledge interviews, and collaborative framework development workshops with social workers and community knowledge holders. Forty-five community knowledge forums and 30 elder knowledge interviews are conducted, analysed through Afrocentric discourse analysis and collaborative framework construction procedures. The study's original contribution is the development of the Afrocentric Community Welfare Practice Framework, which integrates indigenous conflict resolution methods, communal solidarity networks, and spiritual healing practices with professional social work principles in a co-constructed, community-validated model. The epistemological contribution challenges scientific colonialism in social work knowledge production and proposes pluriversal knowledge integration as a methodological imperative for Nigerian social work research. Implications for university curricula, field practice supervision, and professional ethics are developed. Keywords: indigenous knowledge, Afrocentric framework, social work, North East Nigeria, epistemological decolonisation