A new book co-edited by a faculty member from New Mexico State University’s School of Social Work explores the challenges of international social work and human rights in a post-colonial world.


 
Mark Lusk, a college assistant professor of social work in NMSU’s College of Health, Education and Social Transformation, recently published “Decolonized Approaches to Human Rights and Social Work,” along with two collaborators, Marcin Boryczko and Melinda Madew. 


 
Madew is a professor at the Protestant University of Applied Sciences Ludwigsburg, Germany, and a research associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Boryczko is an associate professor at the University of Gdańsk, Poland.


 
The book covers decolonization theory and the history of civil rights and liberties through philosophy and legal theory. Chapters review the history and theory behind United Nations principles and international and regional conventions and declarations. The book concludes by looking forward as nations confront the rise in authoritarian nationalism.


 
Nicholas Natividad, a professor of criminal justice at NMSU, also contributed a chapter titled, “Understanding Human Rights along the U.S.-Mexico Border through a Decolonial Lens.”
 


Lusk said the book offers a more balanced global perspective on integrating post-colonial theory and decolonizing practices in human rights education in social work.


 
“The task of decolonizing social work as a human rights profession calls for the inclusion of contesting perspectives from social work activists, human rights advocates and educators whose critical standpoints are drawn from the historical context of Global North-South relations,” the authors write. “This book is essential given the many manifestations of global injustice, wars and climate catastrophes.”


 
Lusk joined NMSU’s School of Social Work in July. Before coming to NMSU, he was a professor emeritus of social work at the University of Texas at El Paso. 


 
Lusk was also a senior Fulbright scholar at the Catholic University of Peru in Lima and a Fulbright research scholar at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. He currently works with forced migrants and refugees from Central America and Mexico and related human rights issues. Lusk was the founding director of the School of Social Work at Boise State University in Idaho and previously served as an associate provost at the University of Georgia.  


 
For more information about Lusk’s new book, visit https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-33030-8 .


            
The full article can be seen at https://newsroom.nmsu.edu/news/nmsu-social-work-professor-publishes-book-on-decolonization--human-rights/s/881442cf-401c-4eb9-bf87-f616d9ab1d78