For a postcolonial turn in career guidance : the dialectic between universalisms and localisms

Abstract

This paper draws on the fund of regional knowledge about career guidance that comparative research has generated in the “global South”. The goal of the paper is to add another voice to the challenge to the universalising language that characterises career guidance theory and practice, and to further highlight the serious attention that needs to be given to “localisms” and “particularisms” so that responses that are sensitive to context can emerge. While several authors make a case for attention to context, few explicitly link epistemological and ontological concerns to the issue of political power. In contrast, in this paper I argue that inductive theorising is more likely to not only generate relevant and useful knowledge and practices: it is also more likely to serve the interests of social justice.