Experiences Of Oppression Research Articles

Graduate students’ agency and resistance after oppressive experiences

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore how graduate students demonstrated agency after having oppressive or invalidating experiences based on their socially constructed identities during graduate school and the effects of leveraging agency. Design/methodology/approach This study used critical constructivist qualitative methods (i.e. interviews and visual methods) to explore how 44 graduate students across an array of disciplines and fields at two public research institutions in the USA demonstrated agency after having oppressive or invalidating experiences targeting one or more of their socially constructed identities. Findings In response to oppressive or invalidating experiences related to their socially constructed identity, participants engaged in self-advocacy, sought/created support via community, conserved their psychological and emotional energy and constructed space for identity-conscious scholarship and practice. Although participants leveraged their agency, the strategies they used were often geared toward surviving environments that were not designed to affirm their identities or support their success. Research limitations/implications This study highlights the need for additional research to complicate educators’ understandings of how graduate students respond to oppressive or invalidating experiences and the nature of bi-directional socialization processes. Practical implications The findings of this study reinforce the need to foster equitable and inclusive graduate education experiences where students may use their agency to thrive rather than to survive. Originality/value Few studies examine graduate students’ agency during their socialization to their disciplines and fields. This study adds complexity to researchers’ understandings of bi-directional socialization processes in the context of graduate education.

Advocacy-in-Action: Case Portrait of a Helping Professional Pursuing Positive Social Change for Transgender and Gender-Expansive Youth

Transgender and gender-expansive youth experience discrimination and marginalization in the healthcare setting, school environment, their communities, and families. These experiences of rejection and adversity are correlated with higher rates of suicidality, depression, and other mental health concerns. Helping professionals play an essential role in mitigating experiences of oppression by advocating for positive social change for their transgender and gender-expansive clientele. Through the provision of a single case portrait, this article explores the advocacy-in-action of Craig, a helping professional and advocate, as he pursues positive social change for transgender and gender-expansive youth. Merriam’s (1988) interpretive case study was used to guide data collection and findings. Emergent themes provided concrete examples of how the American Counseling Association (ACA) endorsed an advocacy model, and the Association for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues in Counseling Competencies for Counseling Transgender Clients apply to this population. Including the concepts of intrapersonal and interpersonal advocacy to the current advocacy model is critical to advancing the health of transgender and gender-expansive youth. Implications for counselors and counselors in training will also be discussed.

Radical Scaffolding Against Critique Fatigue

When using critical pedagogy in college classrooms, college students can sometimes experience critique fatigue -- a despondency that results from a saturation of analysis about experiences of oppression that they experience directly. This is especially the case when there is no creative outlet for political, emotional, or practical response to the critical course material built into the classroom activities. In this essay, I exlpore the idea of using scaffolding, a pedagogical technique where students help one another perform the tasks of the course "authonomously", as a way to mitigate critique fatigue. To get around the ableism and white supremacy of its more traditional iteration, though, I propose a "radical" form of scaffolding that supports students in setting and reaching their own learning goals through creative projects that engage topics most relevant to them.

OPPRESSIVE EXPERIENCES AMONG DEAF DIVERSE SENIOR CITIZENS

None of the limited literature on deaf seniors focuses on their experiences of oppression. There is an article that demonstrates that not many mental health professionals have the skills to work with deaf seniors. Obstacles have been noted in the literature among deaf people in general terms of being oppressed with employment, doctors, education, family discrimination, stereotyping, stigmas and cultural conflicts because they are deaf. The obstacles facing deaf seniors had not been specifically explored before this research. The shift attention to deaf seniors is needed in order to make their experiences known and at the same time their lives, values, and strengths need to be understood and recognized. Ninety-one deaf seniors from five states aged between 50 years and 93 years were interviewed to describe their recent experience on oppression. They shared their common experiences on oppression such as lack of communication with their doctors, hearing co-workers, and family members, struggling to get promoted at work, and being left out in the neighborhood. According to the deaf seniors, the community did not acknowledge or accommodate the special needs they had as deaf seniors. Their detailed descriptions provide consistent evidence that supports the importance of cultural awareness for medical and mental health professionals. The professionals are to enhance better understanding of experiences among deaf seniors. This lack of awareness highlights the need for research about deaf seniors’ experiences of oppression and for research on what professionals should know about the special needs of this population.

“Bury Your Heart”: Charlotte Mew and the Limits of Empathy

Charlotte Mew’s strikingly original and passionate poetry remains under-examined by modernist critics, yet it holds great importance in presenting an alternative version of modernism that foregrounds issues surrounding gender, sexuality and otherness. Mew’s work explores key modernist themes such as alienation, fragmentation and psychological disruption from the perspectives of those on the margins of society, and in doing so challenges narrow definitions of the movement by highlighting the multiplicity and plurality of voices and concerns within it. Whilst Mew’s decentred position often informs painful reflections on shame, exclusion and powerlessness, the culmination of so many marginalised voices in the poems and Mew’s overriding compassion for the vulnerable creates a powerful challenge to the centre that contests traditional accounts of modernism as defined by white, European men. This article will explore how female experience informs Mew’s exploration of empathy between the marginalised and how personal experience of gender-based oppression inspires compassion for other vulnerable groups who suffer under similar power dynamics or social prejudices. It will consider how female experience shapes both the content of the poems and her choice of poetic forms that allow for concealment of self against the fear of exposure. It will also draw upon contemporary feminist readings of modernist literature and emotion to examine the ways in which gender informs Charlotte Mew’s treatment of key modernist themes and how this challenges conventional understanding of the movement.

Youth participatory action research, trauma, and the arts: designing youthspaces for equity and healing

Coming of age in an urban setting presents both opportunities and challenges for development and learning. In this paper, I illustrate the importance of understanding the ways in which marginalized young people respond to, resist, and are shaped by complex traumas stemming from structural oppression as a result of ongoing colonial and racial violence. I offer “youthspaces” as a framework that centers those with direct experiences of oppression as trauma as experts and cultural producers to envision a more socially just future-world and imagine things as though they could be otherwise. Five guiding principles and a living curriculum are offered for co-creating humanizing spaces with youth grounded in radical imagining, belonging, and collective creative inquiry. This work provides researchers, youth workers, young people, community organizers, activists, and educators a toolkit for conceptualizing, designing, and implementing praxis for critical consciousness and more effective, culturally sustaining programming, services and policies.

Taking a wider view

PurposeResponding to the call for an extension of social marketing scope and application, this paper aims to outline implementation of a multi-stream, multi-method formative research approach to understanding human trafficking in the global South context of Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachData were collected using a multi-method, multi-stream research design. The study used alternative methods allowing a critical perspective to be taken.FindingsContradictions between upstream discourses and the lived experiences of trafficked individuals emerged. Specifically, moral and rational agency ideology, which conflates human trafficking with prostitution, unintentionally promotes human trafficking and underrepresents other forms of trafficking was evident. Experiences of socioeconomic oppression, traditional practices and an aspirational culture fuels positive attitudes towards human trafficking. The lived experience of human trafficking survivors while varied was underpinned by the common theme of job seeking. Participants perceived human traffickers as benevolent users rather than oppressors, and their rescue as oppressive and disempowering.Research limitations/implicationsApplication of a multi-stream approach is limited by research context, sample size, time and cost constraints. Future research extending the multi-stream research approach to other research contexts and groups is recommended.Practical implicationsMulti-stream formative research design assisted to yield wider insights, which informed the design of a multilevel pilot intervention to combat human trafficking in Nigeria.Originality/valueExtending understanding beyond individual, myopic approaches that have dominated social marketing formative research.

Integrating youth participation and ecosocial work: New possibilities to advance environmental and social justice

ABSTRACTThis article reveals possibilities to expand the role of youth within ecosocial work practice. The Where I Stand Youth Summit held in Chicago, Illinois, provided a safe space for young people to reflect upon their understanding of, and roles within, social and environmental justice movements. Drawing upon critical youth empowerment theory and participant observation, we note that youth shared experiences of oppression across unique social identities, while displaying authentic communication, acceptance, and desire for solidarity. Re-defining what knowledge matters, along with intention and self-restoration, also emerged as critical to building young people’s agency and power to effect social change.

Culturally informed research design issues in a study for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for posttraumatic stress disorder

Recent research suggests that psychedelic drugs can be powerful agents of change when utilized in conjunction with psychotherapy. Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-assisted psychotherapy has been studied as a means of helping people overcome posttraumatic stress disorder, believed to work by reducing fear of traumatic memories and increasing feelings of trust and compassion toward others, without inhibiting access to difficult emotions. However, research studies for psychedelic psychotherapies have largely excluded people of color, leaving important questions unaddressed for these populations. At the University of Connecticut, we participated as a study site in a MAPS-sponsored, FDA-reviewed Phase 2 open-label multisite study, with a focus on providing culturally informed care to people of color. We discuss the development of a study site focused on the ethnic minority trauma experience, including assessment of racial trauma, design of informed consent documents to improve understanding and acceptability to people of color, diversification of the treatment team, ongoing training for team members, validation of participant experiences of racial oppression at a cultural and individual level, examination of the setting and music used during sessions for cultural congruence, training for the independent rater pool, community outreach, and institutional resistance. We also discuss next steps in ensuring that access to culturally informed care is prioritized as MDMA and other psychedelics move into late phase trials, including the importance of diverse sites and training focused on therapy providers of color.

Surviving and thriving: Voices of Latina/o engineering students at a Hispanic serving institution.

This study examined factors that played a role in Latina/o undergraduate students' persistence in engineering at a Hispanic serving institution (HSI; N = 10) using the consensual qualitative research method (CQR; Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997). Data analyses resulted in five domains: institutional conditions, additive intersectional burdens, personal and cultural wealth, coping skills, and engineering identity. Participants described how they persisted in the face of stressors, citing specific coping skills they developed over time as well as general personal and cultural strengths they carried with them into their pursuit of engineering. Although the structures of the students' institution were generally described as supportive, Latina participants reported experiences with gendered racism that created added barriers to their persistence in engineering. Supportive institutional conditions, personal and cultural assets, and adaptive coping strategies appeared to facilitate the development of a strong engineering identity, which helped to solidify students' sense of belonging, pride, and commitment to complete their degree. Results highlight the need to address intersecting experiences of privilege and oppression to promote access and equity for Latinas/os in engineering. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Veiled Muslim women's strategies in response to Islamophobia in Paris

This paper explores the spatial and embodied effects of Islamophobia in Paris by focusing on victims' use and adoption of specific strategies in order to avert potential situations of discrimination. We draw upon thirty-three qualitative interviews highlighting the main victims of Islamophobia – young women who wear a headscarf – and present an analysis of their spatial strategies. First, experiences of oppression restrict and limit mobility as veiled women avoid spaces in central, privileged and crowded districts especially when they are alone or with their children. Instead, they use familiar places where they feel comfortable and welcome (such as their neighbourhood or community restaurants and cafés). Second, experiences of oppression have also changed the embodied strategies of veiled women who either feel the need to be strong and integrated, or more discreet and less visible, especially through their clothes. Finally, veiled Muslim women reinvent new mobility and embodied practices in response to geopolitical events; these activist strategies highlight the sophisticated responses of Muslim women in the context of feminist geopolitics and politicisation of their religious faith. This paper hereby contributes to the political and feminist geographies of Muslim women and their multiple negotiations of ‘Muslimness’ in response to anti-Muslim acts.

“We have to do a lot of healing”: LGBTQ migrant Latinas resisting and healing from systemic violence

Using narratives from oral histories of LGBTQ migrant Latinas in Los Angeles, California, and Mexico City, Mexico, this article argues that, despite experiences of oppression, the narrators practice resistance in their daily lives. The article first addresses how the narrators confront conditions of detainability and deportability, making survival a constant struggle. It then presents different ways in which the narrators engage in resistance, from survival to community building and activism. Finally, it argues that healing is a key factor in the narrators’ resistance—healing functions as both a tool for and outcome of resistance.

“When I Take Off My EPA Hat”: Using Intersectional Theories to Examine Environmental Justice Governance

Environmental justice governance is affected not just by the political context within which it is executed but also by the choices made by the individuals who are responsible for implementing, enacting, and enforcing policies. In this article, I examine the experiences of seven African American women at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to argue that their lived experiences of oppression affect their approach to environmental justice governance. Using an intersectional environmental justice framework and drawing on semistructured interviews, I contend that these women believe that they have to go above and beyond for the environmental justice communities they serve because they are their communities. One way they do this is by drawing on the networks they have due to their positionality as EPA employees to connect communities to resources to which they might not otherwise have access. In this way, they help communities while still staying within the confines of the regulatory framework imposed on them. In conclusion, I contend that it is necessary to examine the mechanism of environmental justice governance and to do that we must pay attention to the intersectional identities of the people who enact these policies. Key Words: black geographies, environmental governance, environmental justice, Environmental Protection Agency, intersectionality.

"Like Opening Up Old Wounds": Conceptualizing Intersectional Trauma Among Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence.

Despite increasing acknowledgment of intimate partner violence (IPV) as a potentially traumatic experience, there is a gap in research investigating women's perspectives of trauma related to their experiences of IPV from an intersectional lens. Intersectionality, which illuminates interconnected inequalities due to constructions of race, gender, sexuality, class, and culture, is particularly important for exploring the broader contexts of women's experiences of IPV and trauma. In response to this dearth in research, this paper presents qualitative findings from a constructivist grounded theory study of 15 women's experiences of IPV and trauma. To conceptualize IPV-related trauma from an intersectional lens, this study addressed the following research questions: (a) How do women who have experienced IPV understand and view trauma? (b) What do women who have experienced IPV indicate are experiences of trauma? and (c) How do women's differing identities, experiences of oppression, or other hardships or adversities relate to their experiences of IPV? Through analysis, six distinct themes were identified: (a) changing perceptions of trauma; (b) the pain of trauma; (c) fear, anxiety, and triggers; (d) lasting impact of trauma; (e) struggle for acceptance; and (f) growth and insight. Implications from these findings illustrate the pervasiveness of IPV and other forms of trauma among women who have been abused by a partner, the long-lasting traumatic impacts of IPV, and the multiple experiences of being blamed and not believed that many women have experienced. These findings represent first steps in understanding the relationship between IPV and trauma from the perspectives of women who have survived IPV, offering an important contribution to previous knowledge on IPV. As well, this study provides first steps in understanding the interacting, intersectional effects of multiple forms of adversity, oppression, and IPV, and their relationships to trauma.

A Tribute to Ibrahim Baba Farajajé: An Intersectional Perspective on Sexual Violence, Decolonization, and Standing Rock

Ibrahim Baba Farajajé embodied intersectionality and the sacred inseparability of the political and the spiritual. This piece uses intersectional perspectives of decolonizing sexuality, indigenous rights, gender politics, counteroppressive resistance, environmental justice, and sacred practice as taught by Ibrahim to examine the perpetuation of violence inside of liberation movements and the need for systems of accountability. By acknowledging the interwoven complexity and interplay of these themes, we are more prepared for the level of nuance needed in forms of resistance to hegemonic and oppressive power. This is a non-Native reflection on an experience at Standing Rock that uses intersectional frameworks to examine experiences of sexism and oppression while participating in an indigenous-led and indigenous-centered movement. This reflection was written during the Standing Rock resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2017. This writing is a prayer for collective liberation, decolonization and the many scales and nuanced ways through which these struggles continue. May this serve the indigenous environmental movement's central prayer to stop pipelines like the Dakota Access Pipeline and other environmentally devastating industry, honor sacred relationship to land, and stand for indigenous rights. Let it empower us to be more vigilant and present in all of the ways we engage with resistance to empirical power.

Microaggressions and social support among sexual minorities with physical disabilities.

Prejudice and discrimination have been associated with mental and physical health disparities among people with disabilities (Emerson, 2010) and sexual minorities (American Psychological Association [APA], 2012b). Subtle everyday communications of prejudice, known as microaggressions, are one form of oppressive experience that contribute to minority stress among these groups. As sexual minority people with disabilities (SMPWDs) embody at least two marginalized statuses, they may face unique levels of risk. While social support has been posited to buffer against the negative effects of minority stress (Meyer, 2003), the relationship between microaggressions and perceived social support is currently unknown. This study is among the first to explore the relationship between microaggressions and social support in a multiply marginalized community. One-hundred and 92 sexual minority (i.e., bisexual, gay, lesbian, pansexual, queer, questioning, same-sex/gender attracted) participants with physical disabilities completed measures related to microaggressions, social support, and mental health via an online survey. Results suggest that for SMPWDs, greater ableist microaggressions within sexual minority communities were associated with lower satisfaction with LGBTQ social supports. In addition, ableist and homonegative microaggressions within sexual minority and disability communities, respectively, were related to greater depressive symptoms. Social support was not found to moderate the relationship between microaggressions and mental health. Implications for practice, training, advocacy, and future research are discussed, such as raising critical consciousness about microaggressions and mental health, using an intersectional framework when working with SMPWDs, engaging in inclusive advocacy toward policy change, and future studies on microaggressions and social support using diverse samples. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The Framework of Historical Oppression, Resilience and Transcendence to Understand Disparities in Depression Amongst Indigenous Peoples.

Given chronic experiences of historical oppression, Indigenous peoples tend to experience much higher rates of depression than the general US population, which then, drives disproportionately high rates of suicide and other health disparities. The purpose of this research was to examine the core components of the culturally grounded Framework of Historical Oppression, Resilience, and Transcendence as they relate to depressive symptoms experienced by Indigenous peoples. As part of a larger convergent mixed-methods study, in this quantitative survey component, we utilised data from a sample of 127 Indigenous adults across two Southeastern US tribes. Regression analysis results signified support for the framework, indicating that historical oppression and proximal stress (daily stressors and lower incomes) were risk factors, whereas family resilience and life satisfaction (a measure of transcendence) were protective factors related to depressive symptoms. The results provide a foundation for future research to build upon in identifying culturally relevant risk and protective factors to ameliorate depression and other health disparities.

Kenotic Gestures

Christians sometimes take Christ's ken?sis, or self-emptying, as the pattern for Christian love of God and neighbor. Feminist critics suspect that this model reinforces unhealthy gender norms and oppressive power structures and contest the nature and extent of this template. Interreligious study can shed light on the debate. The Gau??ya Vai??ava tradition employs the categories of Indian aesthetic theory to explain how types of loving devotion (bhakti rasa) toward Krishna are evoked and expressed. The subordinate and peaceful modes of love for Krishna can serve as a heuristic for understanding Sarah Coakley's and Cynthia Bourgeault's retrievals of ken?sis in spiritual practice. A comparative reading suggests that objections to Coakley's version, which resembles the subordinate love of God, are more intractable due to the rootedness of its aesthetic in oppressive human experiences, while Bourgeault's reclamation of ken?sis aligns with a peaceful or meditative mode of love that feminists may more readily appreciate.

Black on Red: Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth-Century New World Black Interpretative Uses of Native American Political Experience

AbstractIn an effort to address the dearth of literature regarding how African American political theorists have historically interpreted the meaning of Native political experience to make sense of their own, we chart what four influential New World Black writers, from the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, say about Native Americans. While there is some diversity among the particular interpretive foci of these historical works, each generally invokes Native Americans as having a shared experience of oppression with Blacks that warrants resistance; being crushed by circumstances in which African-descended people have survived and thrived; exemplifying oppression that has no redemptive power; providing evidence of the ongoing possibility of Black extinction; and as racially inferior to Blacks and thus in need of Black ladies’ supposedly civilizing qualities. This paper uses these historical Africana perspectives on Indigenous and Black relations to explore the political implications of forging individual and shared identities at the intersection of race and gender.

Promoting gender responsive support for women inmates: a case study from inside a prison.

Most women who serve time in prison will eventually be released and expected to reintegrate back into society. To maximize the chances of success, careful support is usually required. An example of this support work was the Healthy Relationships Program (HRP, 2016) offered to women inmates of the Adelaide Women's Prison (South Australia) pre-release. The content of the HRP was influenced by a gender-responsive framework and constructed as a social work program. The purpose of this paper is to report on a small qualitative study that used semi-structured interviews pre- and post-program to explore women participants' expectations, perceptions and experiences of the program. In this paper, the focus is on the women inmates' interview transcripts where a thematic analysis was conducted. Two main research questions drove this analysis. First: How did the women experience the HRP? Second: What does their reported experience reveal about the ongoing need for gender-responsive support? The key findings are that domestic violence and relationships with children are strong motivators for participation in programs; therefore, gender-responsive support is still required in prison programs. However, the paper also advocates that future iterations of gender-responsive support and social work interventions become more consciously intersectional feminist in orientation. A qualitative design was used to explore what women thought the HRP taught them. Individual face-to-face interviews were used to explore women's perceptions, ideas and experiences of healthy relationships. Thematic analysis was used to draw out the themes across interviews. The key arguments made are that gender-responsive support is still required but that future iterations of gender-responsive support become more consciously intersectional feminist in orientation. The researchers experienced strict time restrictions to conduct interviews and therefore depth was somewhat compromised. To try and compensate for this restriction, the researchers visited potential participants as part of program recruitment and information sharing to help enable and build general rapport before the interviews. Time restrictions and prison security protocols did not allow for researchers to check transcripts with the women. Reporting on this case study also showed that social work practice can influence relationships with institutions, such as prisons, that perpetrate marginalization and therefore enable a setting that facilitates safe participation in programs. Gender-responsive frameworks provide the much needed validation of gender differences, but also require a feminist intersectional lens to more consciously aid in the conceptualization and evaluation of future programs for women in prison. It is this intersectional lens that is more likely to bring multiple experiences of oppression into focus so that personal issues and problems can be analyzed in a richer wider social context, particularly intersections between gender, class and/ethnicity race. This paper has reported on women's expectations and experiences of a health relationships program and provides insight and learnings for future practitioners intending to run similar programs. Overall, the women participants were able to articulate their own personal learnings about interpersonal relationships and were able to acknowledge the impacts of abuse and violence in their lives in the program.