Social Work, Genocide, and the Coloniality of Silence

Silence, passivity, and the cultivation of neutrality have defined the institutional response of Nordic social work to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Despite the profession’s ethical mandate to confront systemic injustice and advocate for human rights, discussions within the field have largely avoided political engagement. This article examines the coloniality of silence within higher education institutions in Finland and Sweden, drawing on the testimonios of three social work faculty members who reflect critically on their academic environments and institutions’ complicity with Western imperial power. We argue that silence around Gaza is not merely a lack of response, but a form of epistemic violence—a refusal to know and to act—enforced through institutional norms, managerial discourse, and the policing of speech. In such contexts, critical perspectives are pushed to the margins through what we term shadow talk. These shadows reflect the weight of institutional repression and the cost of speaking truth to power. Framing our analysis through the lens of coloniality of silence and shadow talk, we highlight how social work knowledge production becomes complicit in the erasure of Palestinian suffering and the reproduction of imperial ideologies. Ultimately, this article calls for a social work grounded in epistemic justice, abolitionism, ethical responsibility, and anti-imperialist solidarity.