Emancipatory Practice Research Articles

Confronting the politics of despair: Toward the reconstruction of progressive social work in a global economy and postmodern age

The emancipatory project of progressive social work as it was developed in the 1970s and early 1980s in Anglo-democracies has been brought into question on two fronts. First, the changing nature of capitalism from a post-war centralised form to a global decentralised form has rendered irrelevant much of the earlier analysis of capitalism which had been used by progressive social workers to develop emancipatory theories and practices at both the personal and political levels. Second, postmodern and poststructural thought have discredited many of the concepts (meta-narratives), ideals (universalisms) and discourses that underpinned the modernist development of progressive social work. This paper represents an attempt to contribute to the reformulation or reconstruction of a progressive form of social work that addresses both these challenges. The following elements of a reconstructed form of progressive social work are presented and discussed: bridging what is positive and liberating in the tradition of progressive social work with a postmodernist deconstruction of its problematic elements to the point where reconstruction is possible; identification of human needs that are universal and transcultural; new social movement theory; a revitalised public sector; anti-oppression as the framework for progressive social work; challenging and resisting the dominant order; and the constructive use of anger.

Social Work and the Security Issue in the Netherlands and Belgium

Over the past years security has become a central issue in political discussions both in the Netherlands and Belgium. This has led to the setting of new governmental schemes in urban areas that rely upon the commitment of social workers to a large extent. Besides that, a number of new professions linked to social intervention have appeared. The purpose of this article is to analyse the emergence of security as an issue and the effects of the new governmental schemes in the field of social work, and to compare the political and social backgrounds, how security is dealt with and the effects on social work in Belgium and the Netherlands. The general assumption is that the practice of social professions tends to a new balance between change and control, the two usual poles of social work, at the expense of emancipatory practices towards marginalised people. In other words, it is wondered whether the action of social workers is to put in place a system of control and risk prevention as a mix of social work and people policing. The article shows that the development in this direction in the two countries is similar, in spite of significant background differences.

The three Rs of action research methodology: reciprocity, reflexivity and reflection-on-reality

This article presents an exploration of the methodology of action research. It is a reflection on a study where an action research methodology used by the researcher to research and develop theory, became part of the model of professional development. In this way, the action research methodology permeated into the culture of the way people worked together. This article describes how a researcher can not only use action research methods to gather data on a development, but can also lead a group of action researchers towards a greater awareness of their own practice in their own institutions. A greater awareness of the bigger issues in education is also an outcome achieved by facilitating critical discussion on key issues. There can be action research for research purposes, action research for action purposes and action research communities that can lead to emancipatory practices in education. These are concurrent strands within action research communities.

Shifting Paradigms: Decentering the Discourse of Mass Communication Research

This essay addresses the decentering of "mass communication research" as a discursive formation by an alternative cultural discourse that challenges its dominant ideology with a return to communication as an emancipatory practice, guided by the subjective nature of theory, the centrality of human agency, and the permanent critique of social, political, and economic conditions of communication. The challenge coincides with the influence of complex modernist and postmodernist ideas related to notions of culture, ideology, and power, and the increasing relevance of the production of meaning in the study of social formations. Its success is based on the ability to reflect on the role of intellectuals vis-a-vis the instrumental rationality of an administrative or corporate discourse and to reconceptualize the relations of media, communication, and society.

Marxist Psychologists

Based on the ideological relationship between Marxism and psychology in the early 1950s, the contributions in the book Psychology and Society: Radical Theory and Practice are analyzed in terms of three questions: Are Marxist psychologists sensitive intellectuals? What is the relationship between Marxist psychology and truth? Do contemporary Marxist reflections provide insights into critical, emancipatory or liberating practices, accounting for the plurality of oppression? It is argued that the book not only meets the criteria, but also reveals multiple Marxisms as a vivid and active intellectual force, opening new horizons for how this framework might become a tool for analyzing contemporary psychological issues. However, it is suggested that the book does not sufficiently discuss the problems of psychology and Marxism in former socialist countries, or the psychology of cult-like Marxist groups.

Reflective Practice in Sport Management

Reflective practice has come to be recognised as a core element of professional expertise. Reflective practice can refer to the ability to analyse one's own practice, the incorporation of problem solving into learning by doing, or application of critical theory to the examination of professional practice. Each of these forms of reflective practice raises a number of significant issues for sport management practitioners, particularly in terms of the way they view their practice. This article explores the concept of reflection and considers its potential contributions to the management of sport. The paper identifies four focal dimensions: (1) the definition and theoretical traditions of reflection, (2) notions of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action, (3) principles that ought to underpin reflective practice in sport management, and (4) methodological issues requiring further research and examination. It is argued that all forms of reflection are vital to skilful sport management practice. It is suggested that critical reflection provides unique opportunities to understand the practitioner's world, and, in so doing, to provide opportunities for emancipatory practice.

Revised Review for Critical Issues: “Leap into the Boundless …”

Dear Author: You offer a wonderful, innovative lens for looking at literacy philosophies, teacher decision making, and instruction. I agree that educational literature written in English is grounded almost exclusively in western philosophy and a fresh is needed. Your work has the potential to generate this perspective because of its many strengths: lucid writing, clear organization, readability, a timely literature review, and wonderful citations from Taoist works that made me think deeply. Because of your novel approach, this was one of the most interesting manuscripts I have read for JLR and also one of the most difficult I have ever reviewed. Both in content and format, it did not fit neatly into a specific discourse pattern or communityand therein lies its greatest strength and weakness. On one hand, I found myself thinking about your text for days and discussing its ideas with colleagues. This shows me that you have many important thoughts to convey. I have studied Eastern philosophy at length and found the notion of applying Taoist tenets to literacy practices and my own emancipatory practices as a teacher educator tantalizingly relevant. On the other hand, because it is such a philosophical piece, I found myself frustrated by its contradictions, as well as its ethereal nature in many parts.

Diversity Management: Triple Loop Learning.

CONCLUSION. Diversity Management: Triple Loop Learning. DIVERISTY MANAGEMENT. Metatheory, Philosophy, and the History of Knowledge. Metatheory, Theory, and Methodology. Metatheory and Systems Thinking. Contours of Diversity Management. TRIPLE LOOP LEARNING. Typology of Power. Loop 1, Design Management: How? Loop 2, Debate Management: What? Loop 3, Might-Right Management: Why? Loop 3 Continued, Enhancing Emancipatory Practice. Contours of Triple Loop Learning. BEGINNING. Closing Remarks. References. Index.

Ethical skill development as an imperative for emancipatory practice

Total Systems Intervention (TSI) as a form of Critical Systems Thinking has been subject to criticism concerning the actual application of its emancipatory commitment. The emancipatory potentials of TSI or other systems-oriented change efforts may possibly be improved through their linkage to employee ethical skill development. Acknowledging a “strategic twist” in consulting efforts to encourage greater emancipatory practice and a more communicative ethic, an agenda for consultants is suggested to provide incremental emancipatory potentials for organizations with many apparently coercive characteristics.

Feminist assessment of emancipatory potential and Madonna's contradictory gender practices

The hallmark of Madonna's career has been her contradictory play with gender roles and images. While the analytic foci are varied, feminist evaluations of Madonna's contradictory gender play continue to employ binary models of assessing Madonna as either challenging or reinforcing gender roles. To move out of this binary model and to analyze instead how Madonna's contradictory practices both challenge and reinforce gender, new analytic tools must be employed. This essay proposes a collaboration between feminist rhetorical analysis and schizoanalysis as one route to meet this new need in feminist rhetorical criticism. A feminist‐schizoanaly tic perspective is applied to Madonna's The Immaculate Collection to illustrate the perspective's potential for developing criteria for evaluating the emancipatory potential contained in contradictory texts such as those of Madonna.

Human inquiry: Steps towards emancipatory practice

In this paper we explore the contribution of work in Human Inquiry to the debate about what might constitute authentic emancipatory practice and about how such an ideal might be approached. We beghin by considering some key values, issues, and commitments which characterise this work and distinguish it from other established research traditions. A number of distinct approaches to the practice of human inquiry have been articulated. These are referred to but it is not our purpose to review particular approaches in detail here. Rather our aim is to move from this overview of human inquiry to consider some important implications for practice. In particular, we look at Bateson's theory of levels of learning and explore ways in which both the intellectual and the more personal frameworks of participants can contribute to, and at times impede, the kinds of mutual learning with which human inquiries are concerned. We illustrate this discussion by drawing on examples from our own work in human inquiry. Here we aim to highlight particular implications and issues that might arise within human inquiries. One source of illustrations is Peter's work with general and complementary practitioners in a primary health care centre, the other is Anne's work with UWE student groups acting as consultants for local community organisations. In each case we consider some origins, forms, and expressions of power differences and show how empowerment can occur as participants learn within and across Bateson's levels as inquiries progress. We conclude by summarising the evidence of and opportunities for empowerment in each case and by showing how a deeper appreciation of Bateson's levels of learning can further understanding of the nature of emancipatory practice. Finally, we make more general suggestions about the role of approaches to Human Inquiry in future emancipatory practice.

Emancipatory practice through the Sky River Project

Timothy Kennedy went to an Eskimo village in Alaska as a VISTA volunteer to perform community service for 2 years. He remained through 11 years, building participatory community development projects. As he became accepted by the Eskimo villagers, he got them involved in using videotape technology to build community solidarity and then to communicate more effectively with government officials and politicians about the needs and wishes of their community. So as to make clear that this was not a documentary project directed by a professional film maker, Kennedy got villagers involved in all stages of the process of videotaping and also in determining who and how their tapes should be seen by authorities. The Sky River Project achieved three major changes in governmental policies for the Eskimos. As the videotapes were shown in other Eskimo villages, who shared the same needs and wishes, the process generated intervillage communication and collaboration on various projects.

Emancipatory practice: Some contributions from social theory and practice

Emancipatory practice: Some contributions from social theory and practice

The Psycho-Social Context of Career Counselling in South African Schools

In this article the author examines the role and relevance of career counselling in schools, as an aspect of the school psychological services. In particular, the psycho-social aspects of career counselling are studied against the background of education for democracy in a changing South African society. A major argument advanced in that the training programmes of school career counsellors should be made more relevant to the specific social and educational needs of disadvantaged pupils. This would mean effecting changes in some prevailing practices, and adopting different paradigmatic perspectives when viewing career counselling for a new South African society. In the movement away from rigid social control, mechanistic and behaviouristic tendencies towards emancipatory practices, both psychological as well as sociological perspectives will have to be taken into account. This will enable youngsters to discover their strengths and weaknesses and to be able to respond creatively to the prevailing socio-economic constraints which influence job choices.

Applying critical theories to nursing in communities.

Public health realities in the United States indicate that unsafe physical surroundings, oppressive social arrangements, economic impoverishment, and political disenfranchisement threaten the safety and well-being of countless aggregates. To affect change in health-damaging conditions, nurses are urged to join with vulnerable groups, working together to expose oppressive situations and take action. As a guide for such emancipatory practice, the use of critical theories as the conceptual basis for community health nursing is advocated.

Appropriating Bourdieu: Feminist Theory and Pierre Bourdieu's Sociology of Culture

EMINIST THEORY is critical theory; feminist is therefore necessarily political. In making this claim I draw on the Marxist concept of critique, succinctly summarized by Kate Soper as a theoretical exercise which, by explaining the source in reality of the cognitive shortcomings of the theory under attack, call[s] for changes in the reality itself (93). In this sense, Soper writes, feminist comes to echo critical theory as developed by the Frankfurt School with its emphasis on argued justification for concrete, emancipatory practice (93).1 This is clearly an ambitious aim, which would require me to situate Pierre Bourdieu's social theory in relation to the specific French social formation which produced it. Such analysis would require substantial empirical research: there is no space for such an undertaking in this context. I have therefore called this paper Appropriating Bourdieu. By appropriation I understand a critical assessment of a given theory formation with a view to taking it over and using it for feminist purposes.2 Appropriation, then, is theoretically somewhat more modest than a full-scale and has a relatively well-defined concrete purpose. Neither appropriation nor critique rely on the idea of a transcendental vantage point from which to scrutinize the theory formation in question. Unlike the Enlightenment concept of criticism, the concept of critique as used here is immanent and dialectical. My proposal of appropriation and critique as key feminist activities is intended to contest the idea that feminists are

Knowers, Knowing, Known: Feminist Theory and Claims of Truth

paper. 1 For general arguments against an excessive philosophical preoccupation with epistemology, see Jacques Derrida, Dissemination (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981); John Gunnell, Between Philosophy and Politics (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986); Mark Krupnick, ed., Displacement (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1983); Paul Kress, "Against Epistemology," Journal of Politics 41, no. 2 (May 1979): 526-42. For specific arguments against foundationalism, see Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979); Richard Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983); Don Herzog, Without Foundations: Justification in Political Theory (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985). It is worth noting the irony that even those most intent on repudiating epistemology on the grounds that traditional epistemological concerns involve claims altogether beyond the possibilities for human knowledge are themselves advancing epistemological claims.

Critical Pedagogy and Teacher Education

The authors offer their view of a normative basis for an approach to teacher education that contributes to the establishment of more critical and emancipatory practices in the public schools of the U.S. These ideas are then linked to the broader tradition of radicalism in teacher education. A variety of conceptual lenses and instructional strategies utilized by radically oriented teacher educators are discussed together with the possibilities for the realization of a radical agenda for teacher education. It is argued that teacher educators need to become much more politically involved in confronting the external conditions that limit the possibilities for reform in teacher education.

Remarks on emancipatory practices and industrial societies in crisis

La sociologie critique dont il s'agit ici ne se consacre pas settlement à la critique des sociétés existantes mais à l'avènement de celles qui pourraient et devraient naître. Aussi s'intéresse‐t‐elle plus aux pratiques qu'aux théories, plus aux ‘praxis’ qu'aux pratiques. Plus à l'instituant qu'à l'institué.L'article qu'on a traduit en anglais veut servir de cadre conceptuel à une étude de terrain; on peut en déduire des hypothèses qui peuvent être confirmées ou infirmées. L'article ne vise pas à l'érudition mais à l'énonciation de certaines propositions qui pourraient guider le chercheur dans la cueillette et l'interprétation de ses données.Trois monographies seront publiées bientôt et un cinquième volume fera l'autocritique du cadre conceptuel ainsi que son utilisation.Critical sociology, as discussed in this article, is not only devoted to the critique of existing societies, but also to the advent of those which could and should develop. In addition, it is more interested in practices than in theories, more in ‘praxis’ than in practices, more in the establisher than in the established. The article, which has been translated into English, is designed to serve as a conceptual framework for an empirical study; from it, one can deduce hypotheses which can be proved or disproved. The article does not aim at pure scholarship, but at formulating certain propositions which could guide the researcher in the collection and interpretation of data. Three monographs will be published shortly and a fifth publication will effect a critique, from the inside, of the conceptual framework as well as of its utilization.

The legal aspects of prisons and jails : Penelope D. Clute Charles C. Thomas (301–327 East Lawrence Avenue, Springfield, Illinois 62717), 1980, 226 pp., hardcover—$21.75, softcover —$14.95.

Virtual worlds can provide a safe place for social movements of marginal and oppressed groups such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT). When the virtual safe places are under threat, the inhabitants of a virtual world register protests, which have critical implications for the real-world issues. The nature of emancipatory practices such as virtual protests in the digital realm research remains somewhat under-explored. Specifically, it remains to be seen how the oppressed communities such as LGBT take radical actions in virtual worlds in order to restore the imbalance of power. We conducted a 35-month netnographic study of an LGBT social movement in World of Warcraft. The lead researcher joined the LGBT social movement and data was captured through participant observations, discussion forums, and chat logs. Drawing on the critical theory of Michel Foucault, we present empirical evidence that illuminates emancipatory social movement practices in an online virtual world. The findings suggest that there are complex power relations in a virtual world and, when power balance is disrupted, LGBT players form complex ways to register protests, which invoke strategies to restore order in the virtual fields.