Feminists and the Welfare State: Aboriginal Health Care Workers and U.S. Community Workers of Color

Abstract

This article centers on the standpoint of Aboriginal women in Australia and African American and Puerto Rican women employed by the welfare state to help explicate features of feminist social democratic praxis. By exploring the intersection of race, class culture, and gender in women's state-sponsored community work in different political contexts, we also demonstrate the interrelationship between social and political citizenship. We view the state as a resource for movement mobilization through its incorporation of movement participants in community-based and community-controlled programs and organizations. We simultaneously highlight the contradictions of the state's support of women of color and working-class women's community work and the limits of women's movements that fail to incorporate a multiracial, multicultural feminist political praxis. We conclude that African American, Puerto Rican, and Aboriginal community workers, along with others who are committed to participatory democracy, community caretaking, and a collective and intersectional approach to citizenship, have much to contribute to the development of a transnational feminist multicultural, multiracial social democratic praxis.