Representations of Central American women and the colonial knowledge base of social work

Colonial representations of Salvadorian, Guatemalan, Honduran and Nicaraguan women have long shaped global perceptions of the region, particularly in development, humanitarianism and social work. This article reflects on how these portrayals sustain archetypes of white womanhood embedded in foundational understandings of gender-based violence within social work. Drawing on a collaborative project involving Canada, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua that co-created knowing using the Testimonio methodology, and thinking about activism and resistance, we analyse how colonial ideologies continue to underpin Western imaginaries of Central America. Using the framework of the coloniality of gender, we show how social work enacts saviourism through tropes that cast Central American women as servants or enemies in need of rescue or containment. These racialised, gendered images erase colonial histories and legitimise the West’s ongoing role as moral authority and saviour. Despite decolonial and anti-oppressive shifts, social work practice remains entangled with these colonial forms of ‘helping’.