World Social Work Day 2024—Buen Vivir: A Shared Future for Transformative Change Requires Expansive Self-Care

by Erlene Grise-Owens, EdD, LCSW, MSW, MRE, and Laura E. Escobar-Ratliff, DSW

    World Social Work Day is the third Tuesday of March each year. This year’s theme is Buen Vivir: Shared Future for Transformative Change, which is the 2024 Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development Theme 4. This essay articulates how expansive self-care is necessary to achieve this agenda.

Buen Vivir Worldview

     As described in the Global Agenda Statement (linked above), Buen Vivir is an Indigenous worldview rooted in Latin American beliefs that humans are integrally connected with natural and social environments. Core aspects of Buen Vivir include:

• Relationality—Interconnection between all elements of the whole;
• Reciprocity—Reciprocal relationship between human beings and nature, i.e., co-participation;
• Correspondence—Elements of reality correspond to each other in a harmonious way;
• Complementarity—Opposites can be complementary; nothing is superfluous. (Para. 5)

Transformative Change Requires Expansive Frameworks

     Viewed through a dominant lens, the Buen Vivir worldview may initially seem counter to self-care. However, through expansive framework perspectives, they’re inextricably linked. Expansive frameworks counter the paradigms of dominance and exclusion. They also reject the equally problematic inclusion frameworks, which still retain the dominant centers of power. Expansive frameworks do not conform to these problematic paradigms. Instead, they transform!

     Buen Vivir counters the dominant damaging paradigms of commodification, consumerism, colonization, casteism, and patriarchy. As such, it can be viewed as an expansive framework. Likewise, expansive self-care debunks damaging myths perpetuated by these dominant paradigms about self-care. As one of myriad examples: Expansive self-care counters the consumeristic myth that self-care is a privilege. Instead, like Buen Vivir, expansive self-care emphasizes the human right of all to healthy flourishing.

     Notably, worldviews that espouse “community, not self” can reinforce damaging messages for historically marginalized communities. For example, Latinx communities can be harmed by this dangerous dissonance. Writing this piece during women’s her-story month, it’s particularly pertinent to note that, when focus is on “community, not self,” women are often disproportionately relegated to support roles. Who typically cooks, cleans, and nurtures in these communities/movements? Who typically assumes leadership roles? Even in leadership, women frequently do double-duty of leadership and support roles, contributing to their burnout. Expansive self-care counters this dynamic.

Congruence of Buen Vivir and Expansive Self-Care

     Here, we connect the core aspects of Buen Vivir—i.e., relationality, reciprocity, correspondence, and complementarity—with key components of expansive self-care. As depicted through dotted lines and reciprocal arrows in the visual below, expansive self-care opens up and connects self-care in ways that are integrally congruent with Buen Vivir. The following narrative explicates this congruence. Embedded links further explain these components.

Relationality and Reciprocity

     Interconnection is a basic component of expansive self-care. Comparable to Buen Vivir, the Ubuntu worldview—I am because we are—engages interdependence. Notably, the “we” is comprised of a bunch of “I”s! The quality of interconnection in “we” depends on the well-being of the “I.” Thus, engaging in one’s own self-care is necessary for contributing to a healthy, caring collective.

     Similarly, expansive self-care is wholistic. It engages all facets of being human—physical, social, spiritual, emotional, and so forth. Expansive self-care is a human right. Like Buen Vivir, expansive self-care encompasses reciprocal connections between human beings and nature, as co-participants. Care of one’s self as a human being is inextricably connected with care of community and planet, reciprocally and relationally.

     In dominant paradigms, hegemonic reification presents “hierarchy” as “reality”—when, it’s merely constructed by exclusionists as a way to maintain disproportionate power. Like Buen Vivir, expansive self-care rejects that framework. Thus, by caring for myself, I do not “put myself first,” in a hierarchy. Rather, I’m being ethically and lovingly responsible for my own well-being, as part of my commitment to the whole. I simultaneously understand my self-care is—in and of itself—valuable, and it’s wholistically connected with the well-being of others.

Correspondence and Complementarity

     Thus, self-care is not selfish, nor is it self-lessness—it is self-fullness! As such, expansive self-care fully accesses all forms of power—not just hierarchical power over—for synergistic empowerment. In a Buen Vivir way, this expansive perspective counters dominant paradigms that foster divisive dysfunction and, instead, promotes empowering, harmonious relationships between elements of reality.

     The dominant frame of either/or is another significant barrier. The false dichotomy of individual versus community/organizational responsibility for human well-being perpetuates unproductive, harmful dissonance. Expansive self-care reframes this either/or as AND! Expansive self-care conceptualizes community care, organizational wellness, and self-care as complementary.

     Rather than expending energy on the dominant framing of oppositional either/or, expansive self-care embraces the wholistic AND! Mirroring the complementarity of Buen Vivir, and using a systems perspective, self-care is the entry point of change where individuals can engage with some of the most impact. Expansive self-care conceptualizes self-care as integral to and complementary with larger systems change.  

     In summary, expansive self-care is necessary for the transformative fulfillment of Buen Vivir. Self-care isn’t contrary to Buen Vivr—it’s essential for it.

Erlene Grise-Owens, EdD, LCSW, MSW, MRE, is a Partner in The Wellness Group, ETC.  This LLC provides evaluation, training, and consultation for organizational wellness and practitioner well-being. Dr. Grise-Owens is lead editor of The A-to-Z Self-Care Handbook for Social Workers and Other Helping Professionals.  As a former faculty member and graduate program director, she and a small (but mighty!) group of colleagues implemented an initiative to promote self-care as part of the social work education curriculum. Previously, she served in clinical and administrative roles. She has experience with navigating toxicity and dysfunction, up-close and personal! Likewise, as an educator, she saw students enter the field and quickly burn out. As a dedicated social worker, she believes the well-being of practitioners is a matter of social justice and human rights. Thus, she is on a mission to promote self-care and wellness!

Laura E. Escobar-Ratliff, DSW, is Clinical Assistant Professor and Doctor of Social Work (DSW) Program Director at the University of Kentucky College of Social Work. Dr. Escobar-Ratliff has more than two decades of direct care, clinical, and administrative experience, as well as more than 10 years of experience in social work education.