Dynamics Of Oppression Research Articles

From Vygotsky to Martín Baró: Dealing with Language and Liberation During the Supervision Process

The liberation psychology movement first began in the 1980's when Ignacio Martin Baro of Central America first coined the term. The principles of liberation psychology outline a series of action-oriented charges that have pragmatic use in supervision, particularly with regard to the use of language in the clinical supervision process. While the issue(s) of language and the supervision process have not been completely ignored, the studies are sparse, and those found rarely included the dynamics of oppression or the potential for imposition of values from supervisor to supervisee. This manuscript intends to re-introduce Vygotsky's model of supervision (Hess, 2008), as interpreted by Martin Baro (2005), with an emphasis on the use of language and language dynamics in the supervisory process. The manuscript will delineate the principles and urgent tasks of liberation psychology and the implications of language in an action-oriented supervisory process. Implications and conclusions are discussed.

The Politics of Data:Uncovering Whiteness in Conventional Social Policy and Social Work Research

The implementation of a robust community based participatory research (CBPR) study in Multnomah County, Oregon, has detailed broad and deep racial disparities across 27 institutions and systems. The process of this research has led to the identification of numerous practices that misrepresent and negate the experiences and very identity of communities of color. The research draws from engagement with numerous databases from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and various administrative databases. The core issues at hand are population undercounts, understudy of the unique characteristics of these communities, inaccuracies in how data are codified and analyzed, and data collection efforts that are infused with white centrism and a colorblindness that renders issues minimized and the experiences of communities of color obscured. Collectively, we analyze this experience to suggest that much conventional policy research while wrapped in a cloak of objectivity is in fact a reproduction of whiteness that renders communities of color invisible, marginalized and misunderstood. The impact of these practices is to extend whiteness into the arena of policy research, and correspondingly extend dynamics of oppression and white centrism. The paper profiles each area of the policy research process that reflects and reinscribes whiteness and concludes with an articulation the reach of such conventional practice and outlines an avenue to reduce the influence of whiteness.

Passage to citizenship and the nuances of agency: Latina Battered immigrants

Synopsis Agency has traditionally been equated with resistance and assumed to be universal. More recently, black and postcolonial feminist theories have emphasized contextualizing and differentiating agency with the end goal of uncovering the complex dynamics of oppression and subordination, particularly in matters related to violence against women. In this vein, I share the cases of fifteen Latina immigrant survivors of domestic violence in their search for nonviolence, autonomy, and citizenship at a US legal nonprofit organization in Texas. I show how both legislation and nonprofit organizations created to assist battered immigrants formally and informally frame survivors' agency, which is not only structurally and situationally constrained, but often compliant and unintended. By looking at the nuances of agency in this context, I reveal the ways in which some women are able to negotiate these constraints and complete their citizenship application process successfully, while others, often the most destitute ones, tend to be weeded out of this process.

Mapping Social Capital: A Critical Contextual Approach For Working With Low‐Status Families

Promoting justice in therapeutic work with families demands an analysis of contextual factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, and social class in relationship to societal systems of power, privilege, and oppression. A broad understanding of these dynamics, however, is inadequate to inform our work with families whose social capital severely limits available life choices, social influence, and material resources. In this article, we describe working from a critical contextual perspective to consider how families gain and/or lose social capital through participation in multiple contexts. We introduce a technique for mapping social capitol within and across multiple systems as well as suggestions for interventions aimed at increasing the social well-being of low-status families. These include considering the dynamics of boundary crossing, recognizing and optimizing resistance to oppressive dynamics, finding ways to limit constraints and optimize opportunities, and developing webs of allies to support family functioning and access to resources. We offer the example of 13-year-old Pepe as a case in point.

Lawyering for Social Change: The Power of the Narrative in Domestic Violence Law Reform

The role of the narrative or story in legal discourse has been explored and developed in legal scholarship over the last several years. The goals of the various calls for more storytelling in the legal context vary. They generally relate, however, to a desire to move away from exclusive reliance on abstract legal argumentation to persuade. The goals of ‘storytellers‘ are also linked to furthering an understanding of the dynamics of oppression based on race or gender, or both.The judicial and legislative processes have always included a narrative component. Clinical legal scholarship has also explored the critical role of narrative in client representation, particularly in interviewing and counseling. Recently, however, scholars seeking methods to make the law more responsive to those historically unrepresented in lawmaking have argued for a more explicit use of the narrative to highlight the human concerns in a given legal issue. Others have built upon the work of these scholars to explore the specific ways in which legal storytelling can accomplish law reform goals. Most recently, a related body of scholarship has begun to develop which seeks to critique the value of narratives in both clarifying legal issues and persuading legal decision-makers to reform the law. Can stories persuade legal decision-makers to act in a particular way by ‘creat(ing) a bridge across gaps in experience and thereby elicit empathic understanding(?)‘This Article seeks to respond to that question. It begins with a brief examination of the impact of law reform campaigns of the last twenty-five years aimed at eliminating race and gender discrimination. There is general consensus that many of the law reform efforts on behalf of women and people of color have failed to produce the full measure of positive change expected from the new laws. This Article suggests that the gap between goals and results may be explained in part by the deficiencies in the legal discourse surrounding the process of achieving legal change.This Article then examines the legal story's potential as a key element in social change strategy by exploring the specific role it has played in domestic violence law reform. Domestic violence is a particularly useful lens through which we may examine much broader questions about whether and how the law can affect social change. Issues surrounding domestic violence are critically linked to the oppression of women. Freedom and equality for women can never be achieved without freedom from violence. Domestic violence is also an issue where the legal system's failure to respond effectively seems directly linked to the inability of the predominately male decision- makers to understand the victim's need for protection. It is, therefore, an issue where legal storytelling can help create the kind of empathic understanding needed to produce meaningful reform.A case study analyzes a series of successful domestic violence law reform campaigns in one jurisdiction over the last decade. This ‘history of storytelling‘ gives an empirical backdrop to the theories advanced in recent scholarship about the power of the narrative in eliciting empathic understanding on the part of legal decision-makers. It provides a vivid example of a successful practical application of the theoretical work of feminist and critical race scholars. Advocates' decision to place greater and greater reliance on narratives from victims to persuade decision-makers played a significant role in achieving much-needed law reform. The lessons of this law reform campaign have value and application as strategies which can work in other law reform efforts. This analysis of these law reform campaigns also clarifies the ways in which narratives persuade and function in arguments for feminist or other legal change.

A Social Worker's Reflections on Power, Privilege, and Oppression

The pursuit of social justice is a core social work value (NASW, 2007). Social workers promote social justice by engaging in activities that promote equality of opportunity, challenge injustice, and advance social change, particularly on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed populations. This is easier said than done. Oppression and systems of power are extremely complex, multifaceted, and saturate our individual psyche and external environment. As social workers committed to social justice, how do we challenge and change these systems of power? How do we find a standpoint from which to act? Paulo Freire (1970) stated that a commitment to social justice requires a moral and ethical attitude toward equality and a belief in the capacity of people as agents who can transform their world. Furthermore, he stated that to create social change and to promote social justice, we must begin this process with ourselves--through a self-reflective process that examines the contradictions between our espoused values and our lived experience. We must believe that all people, both from dominant and targeted groups, have a critical role in dismantling oppression and generating a vision for a socially just future. For if only people from oppressed groups take on this responsibility, there is little hope that we will ever achieve our vision. As a social worker and an academic who identifies strongly with the profession of social work, I take these words of Freire and other scholars of social justice seriously. In 2001, I had the honor of participating in a presidential plenary panel at the Society for Social Work and Research Annual Conference. As part of this plenary, I presented an introduction that provided a reflection of who I am and how my social identities are affected by the dynamics of oppression and privilege. The speech was published later that year in Advances in Social Work (Spencer, 2001), and every year since I have taken the opportunity to further reflect on who I am at that particular moment in time. A lot has happened in the past seven years, and as my social identities have evolved and my understanding of them becomes increasingly complex, I find the need to contemplate again on the question, Who am I? My interests in issues of oppression, power, and privilege began with my own experiences as a person of color who has experienced racism. I identify primarily as Native Hawaiian, but I also identify as mixed race. As a person of color, I am often placed in a position in which I must process the disrespect I perceive or the assumptions that others make of me. For example, I know what it is like to be grabbed by the arm at a campus restaurant on my way to the restroom and be asked to bring people their drinks. I also know what it is like to seek the support of a friend following this incident and be told, That could have happened to anyone. The most painful thing about racism is its invalidation, even more so than the incident itself. I hope for reconciliation, but I recall that reconciliation requires truth. We are just beginning to learn about the truth of racism in this country and, thus, are still far from reconciliation. Among people of color, however, I have the privilege of light skin. I know this privilege has allowed me to be more trusted, accepted, and easily assimilated within the dominant culture. I have also been educated by the dominant culture and taught to think like the mainstream. I know how to speak properly. Growing up as a Native Hawaiian educated in Hawaii under the U.S. educational system, I never heard the word colonization. The spirituality of my ancestors was taught to me as mythology. Although I know there is much in my culture that I have lost, I still reap great benefits from my assimilation, including my ability to pursue higher education and ultimately my current employment at the University of Michigan. I was made palatable to the dominant culture. My education has moved me from my status as a child growing up in an impoverished neighborhood in Honolulu to a middle-class professional living in Ann Arbor. …

The Use of Narrative Therapy and Internal Family Systems with Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Historically, accounts of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) have been culturally and professionally dismissed. The emerging trend in society is one that facilitates healthier grieving and the ability to story the losses brought on by trauma. By examining the way in which CSA has been addressed in the past and reviewing the literature on grief and the dynamics of oppression, this paper seeks to address the need to better understand how to engage our clients in the therapeutic experiences of healing and the liberation of their subjugated stories. Informed by Narrative and Internal Family Systems theories, the authors propose unique interventions that better inform clinicians how to assist clients in making a meaning out of their losses related to CSA.

Not So Black and White

SUMMARY Racism is deeply entrenched in American culture and can be unintentionally perpetuated by the same social institutions that strive to help people overcome painful obstacles in their lives. Mental health professionals understand the need to address environmental and social forces when working with individuals and families. Unfortunately, the full meaning and impact of racism can be misunderstood or minimized by practitioners who are guided by “White-Centric” theories. The dynamics of oppression can inhibit the type of deep and honest discussion that can uncover racism embedded in the institution. This article explores the process of understanding and using an antiracist framework to inform staff team building in a domestic violence shelter in New York City.

Guest Editor's Introduction

Guest Editor's Introduction

Disrupting the dynamics of oppression in intercultural research and practice

In this special issue we focus on exploring the tensions, challenges and possibilities for working in contexts where relationships between groups are characterized by dominance and resistance. Some of the impetus lies in our own struggles and frustrations with models, guidelines and ‘recipes’ that have been developed to guide sensitive, competent and empowering research and practice across boundaries of ‘race’, ethnicity and culture. These models and guidelines are often framed as tools that will enable culturally competent transactions across these boundaries.

Confronting Oppression, Restoring Justice from Policy Analysis to Social Action, * Katherine Van Wormer (ed.), * Alexandria, USA, Council on Social work Education, 2004, pp. 254 + xvii, ISBN 0 87293 106 4, $23.95

The author indicates the book has four major tasks: the conceptual framework for understanding oppression, critical skills to confront oppression, successful stories, and the strategies of empowerment (Preface, p. xii). The book aims at meeting the requirements of the guidelines from the National Association of Social Work and the Council on Social Work Education for professional social work education (p. 1). Chapter One is perhaps the only theoretical chapter that attempts to provide some understanding of the dynamics of oppression and injustice both locally and internationally. The chapter provides a framework for the understanding of oppression and injustice by analysing several key concepts, such as: becoming an ally, oppression, injustice, social justice, restorative justice, policy and social policy and critical thinking (pp. 5–22). The author mentioned briefly that ‘anti-oppressive practice . . . is a term widely used in all the English-speaking countries of the world except for the United States’ (p. 9). She does not explain the reason for this situation, taking in consideration the highly socio-economic differential that characterizes the USA. She prefers to use the terms ‘confronting oppression, and restoring Justice’. She argues that both approaches aim to reduce the oppressive factors that affect marginalized populations.

The Dynamics of Oppression

Asian Indians arrived in South Africa in 1860 during the era of the British Empire. Three occupational groups were represented: indentured agricultural workers, business entrepreneurs and a few professionals. Their presence was not welcomed by White South Africa. The ideology of Apartheid (“separateness”) ushered in oppressive legislation for all Non-Whites from 1948 until the first democratic elections of 1994, a period of trauma, violence and pain for Non-White peoples. This report centres on traumatic personal experiences during Apartheid of 100 Asian Indians, 54 males and 46 females, professional and business people, Hindus, Muslims and Christians, living in segregated racial zones of metropolitan Durban, South Africa. These traumatic incidents yielded six basic themes identified by the technique of constant comparative analysis, a central qualitative analytical approach in grounded theory. Four themes related directly to Apartheid laws; two themes to interactions with the White public and police, invariably involving abuse. The experiences created emotional distress, powerlessness, anger and fear. Few risked protesting discriminatory laws as most were immobilised by fear. Forty-six % judged they adapted to the Apartheid system, and most were aware of its psychological effects. Illustrating with excerpts from the reported experiences, a psycho-socio-political analysis of the dynamics of oppression is presented in the context of the stages of conscientisation to empowerment (Prilleltensky & Gonick, 1996).

Imposition of virginity testing: a life-saver or a license to kill?

Little is known about medical and juridical (medicolegal) responses to sexual abuse in Palestinian society. Conventional wisdom posits that the actions of the medicolegal community help victims of sexual abuse and deter offenders. This study focuses on the prevailing practice of imposing a virginity test (IVT) on women in Palestinian society when questions of sexual abuse or perceived misconduct arise. We found that the continuing practice of uncritically collecting forensic reports and the refusal to closely examine the specific dynamics of oppression (medical, cultural, legal, political) in which the victims of sexual abuse are necessarily implicated actually increases the power of medicine and law to adversely function as tools of oppression. However, as I elaborate below, despite the localized factors in play, it is critically important not to view the process of virginity testing merely through the rubrics of “culture”—an approach that more often than not impedes understanding and fails to contextualize what we observe.

Enhancing critical consciousness in young African American men: A psychoeducational approach.

Critical thinking has long been a goal of schooling, but for young African American men critical thinking skills can also aid their sociopolitical development and the analysis of the everyday economic, social, and cultural challenges they face. Thus, critical thinking has the potential to be critical consciousness—a powerful strategy for understanding social forces and the dynamics of oppression. This article describes the Young Warriors program, which cultivates critical consciousness in young African American men through the use of the movies and rap videos about contemporary urban culture. The program shows how the thoughtful use of hip-hop can help young men to critically analyze their world and the messages in popular culture on gender, culture, race, and social class. This article describes the Young Warriors intervention and its effort to cultivate critical consciousness and sociopolitical development in young African American men residing in low-income urban neighborhoods. It is multidisciplinary, drawing on several related topics: critical thinking, media literacy, political socialization, and psychosocial development. Over the years, we have conducted the Young Warriors program weekly and semiweekly in several midwestern schools and youth development settings. These schools have acute problems with violence, maintenance of an effective learning environment, disruptive gang activity, and low academic performance. All participants were young African American males, ranging in age from 11 to 21 years. Sometimes students were part of specially selected “manhood” groups that required participants to maintain a “B” average, whereas other students were from groups labeled as management problems by staff and were referred in an effort to make them more tractable. The curriculum varied depending on these factors, age, and type of organization.

Cognitive Ableism and Disability Studies: Feminist Reflections on the History of Mental Retardation

This paper examines five groups of women that were instrumental in the emergence of the category of “feeblemindedness” in the United States. It analyzes the dynamics of oppression and power relations in the following five groups of women: “feebleminded” women, institutional caregivers, mothers, researchers, and reformists. Ultimately, I argue that a feminist analysis of the history of mental retardation is necessary to serve as a guide for future feminist work on cognitive disability.

Cognitive Ableism and Disability Studies: Feminist Reflections on the History of Mental Retardation

This paper examines five groups of women that were instrumental in the emergence of the category of “feeblemindedness” in the United States. It analyzes the dynamics of oppression and power relations in the following five groups of women: “feebleminded” women, institutional caregivers, mothers, researchers, and reformists. Ultimately, I argue that a feminist analysis of the history of mental retardation is necessary to serve as a guide for future feminist work on cognitive disability.

Cognitive Ableism and Disability Studies: Feminist Reflections on the History of Mental Retardation

This paper examines five groups of women that were instrumental in the emergence of the category of “feeblemindedness” in the United States. It analyzes the dynamics of oppression and power relations in the following five groups of women: “feebleminded” women, institutional caregivers, mothers, researchers, and reformists. Ultimately, I argue that a feminist analysis of the history of mental retardation is necessary to serve as a guide for future feminist work on cognitive disability.

Using an Interactive Website to Educate About Cultural Diversity and Societal Oppression

This article discusses challenges that educators face in attempting to develop culturally competent social workers who understand the dynamics of oppression and embrace a commitment to promoting social justice. An educational model is described, focusing on the use of an interactive Web forum aimed at providing a safe vehicle for student dialogue. Usage patterns of the website are summarized and data from student evaluations are analyzed. The authors provide recommendations based on evaluating the use of computer technology to meet the challenges inherent in teaching and learning processes related to combining cultural diversity and societal oppression content.

On the Margin: Power and Women's HIV Risk Reduction Strategies

HIV risk and prevention research has failed to investigate adequately the effects of gender-related factors such as relationship power, sexual communication, abuse, and gender roles on women's abilities to engage in protective actions. We propose that women's HIV risk from heterosexual transmission is embedded in the context of gender, race/ethnicity, and class oppression. This context has central implications for interpersonal relationship factors relevant to women's HIV risk. We suggest a framework for understanding women's HIV risk within the context of oppression and the role of power in intimate sexual relationships. Three common dynamics of oppression are considered: (1) Silencing, (2) Violence and Fear of Violence, and (3) Internalized Oppression. These dynamics are based on characteristics of oppression discussed in the work of Jean Baker Miller on gender, Hussain Bulhan on race, and Paulo Freire on class. These dynamics are discussed in the context of findings reported in this journal issue and those of other authors. Finally, the discussion identifies common patterns across studies, as well as areas of disagreement and directions for future research and public health prevention efforts.

Lesbian and Gay Lives

Social Work educators require effective teaching strategies to deliver Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) mandated content on lesbian and gay persons. Content must cover the dynamics of oppression and strategies to create social change. Simulations offer one useful approach in presenting such content. This article describes two simulations designed to teach about lesbian and gay persons and how to make social change efforts on their behalf. An analysis of the effectiveness of these simulations is discussed along with recommendations for their use.