Social Oppression Research Articles

Looking in the mirror held up by North Carolina slave narratives: White folks confronting the psychosocial legacy of slavery

AbstractU.S. citizens are debating whether slavery and white supremacy are core constituents of the United States, whether white children should be troubled by learning the brutalities of slavery and life under Jim Crow laws, and whether racial reparations are due to African Americans for the centuries of economic, political, and social oppression they have endured. While many white folks prefer to ignore or demean calls for reparations, others have turned to reparative genealogy. They are inquiring deeply into their ancestors' relationships to chattel slavery and white supremacy, committed to reckoning with their own and their ancestors' racial debts. They seek to develop what sociologist W. E. Du Bois called “double consciousness.” In order to protect themselves, African Americans had to try and see through the eyes of white people, as well as their own. But white folks too rarely attempt to see themselves through the eyes of Black people. During slavery, how were whites seen by Blacks? Philosopher George Yancy urges white people to engage in the work of developing double consciousness so they can see, as most people of color do, the pernicious white and class advantages that haunt us. My ancestors were enslavers in North Carolina. I turned to slave narratives from Black North Carolinians to distill what they observed about white people. Their descriptions point to individual and cultural pathologies: dehumanizing, pathological narcissism, authoritarian character, greed, cruelty, sadism, the policing of racial borders, paranoia, absence of deserved shame and moral injury. These understandings underline some of the psychosocial tasks before us as white people.

Creation of Inclusive Spaces: Impact of Minority Stress and LGBTQ College Climate on Quality of Life of Queer Students

In India, 17% of individuals identify as non-heterosexual according to the LGBT+ Pride Global Survey Report. Discrimination and stigma against the LGBTQ community remain pervasive even after Section 377 was decriminalised. Being a minority and dealing with heterosexism and other types of social and cultural oppression adds up as minority stress, making them more vulnerable to poor mental health outcomes and social marginalisation. Majority of young people' time is spent in academic settings. The college setting is critical to the mental health of LGBTQ students. During these pivotal developmental phases, inclusion can reduce minority stress and enhance wellbeing. Against this backdrop, the research sought to answer the pressing question: How can we create inclusive spaces for LGBTQ university students? The present research aims to explore the impact of minority stress and perception of campus climate on quality of life of Indian queer students. The methodology involved a cross sectional quantitative research. Questionnaires were filled by LGBTQ college students aged between 18-28 years. (N=200). For statistical analysis correlation and multiple linear regression was conducted. Findings revealed that minority stress and college climate were negatively associated with quality of life. Furthermore, minority stress and perception of LGBTQ campus climate significantly predicted quality of life. The research underscores the importance of diversity and inclusion to counter systemic oppression. The study's implication includes the requirement for queer inclusive interventions to be implemented in Indian educational institutions. It demands that other social institutions address the psychological stressors that members of sexual and gender minorities face

Meritocracy, the Reproduction of Inequality, and the Academic Scandal in Indonesia: Philosophical Perspective of Michael Sandel

The practice of academic cheating is one of the biggest scandals in the educational process at various universities throughout Indonesia. This study aims to elaborate on the issue from Michael Sandel's philosophical criticism of the tyranny of meritocracy and the reproduction ofeducational inequality. The research uses the literature review research method, which is carried out by identifying, analyzing, and interpreting Sandel's works critically, especially his book, The Tyranny of Merit: What Becomes the Common Good? The results of this study indicate that academic cheating in university is not only the result of personal academic incompetence or degradation of personal moral integrity but mainly the result of the educational system and paradigm that exalts and adores meritocracy. Under the tyranny of meritocracy, the academicians concentrate on pursuing academic titles and individual pride rather than being an organic and humanistic intellectual. It can be concluded that under meritocracy, the education system fails to implement its humanistic and liberating role and instead reproduces the new social inequality and oppression. This research has implications for the revitalization of education’s role as an agent of liberation, equality, and justice in Indonesia.

Carrie Mae Weems’ Intersectional Tropes: Engaging Black Feminism Within Arts Teacher Education

ABSTRACT In this article, we approach the visual tropes in Carrie Mae Weems’ bodies from an intersectional perspective through mobilising critical arts and black feminist studies for art pedagogies. A constant in Weems’ trajectory are the intersectional tropes that emerge in her artworks, which are collapsed with bodies, defying racial, gender, age, and social class stereotypes, stratification, and oppression. Aiming to engage black feminism with pedagogies, we revisit a critical art project that connects different spaces: the exhibition “Carrie Mae Weems: A Great Turn in the Possible”; and, a pre-service art teacher education course - “Childhoods: Inclusive narratives through art” - where narrative is a mode of decolonising pedagogy through contemporary art. First, we will examine the topics and strategies practised by five students’ micro-groups dealing with the critical and dialogical analysis of the intersectional tropes in Weems’ series. Second, we will reconstruct the process that has been conducted to transform and transfer that knowledge into educational spaces and resources designed to perform a feminist, intercultural, and social justice-oriented art education. Finally, the article discusses how critical pedagogy merges with critical arts to train future art educators while experimenting with a black feminist curriculum.

Feasibility and acceptability of measuring prenatal stress in daily life using smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment and wearable physiological monitors.

High levels of stress during pregnancy can have lasting effects on maternal and offspring health, which disproportionately impacts families facing financial strain, systemic racism, and other forms of social oppression. Developing ways to monitor daily life stress during pregnancy is important for reducing stress-related health disparities. We evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of using mobile health (mHealth) technology (i.e., wearable biosensors, smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment) to measure prenatal stress in daily life. Fifty pregnant women (67% receiving public assistance; 70% Black, 6% Multiracial, 24% White) completed 10 days of ambulatory assessment, in which they answered smartphone-based surveys six times a day and wore a chest-band device (movisens EcgMove4) to monitor their heart rate, heart rate variability, and activity level. Feasibility and acceptability were evaluated using behavioral meta-data and participant feedback. Findings supported the feasibility and acceptability of mHealth methods: Participants answered approximately 75% of the surveys per day and wore the device for approximately 10hours per day. Perceived burden was low. Notably, participants with higher reported stressors and financial strain reported lower burden associated with the protocol than participants with fewer life stressors, highlighting the feasibility of mHealth technology for monitoring prenatal stress among pregnant populations living with higher levels of contextual stressors. Findings support the use of mHealth technology to measure prenatal stress in real-world, daily life settings, which shows promise for informing scalable, technology-assisted interventions that may help to reduce health disparities by enabling more accessible and comprehensive care during pregnancy.

“Together, We Empower. Together, We Are Enough”: Radical Healing Among Pinay Scholar-Activists

Filipinas face barriers to psychological wellbeing that stem from interlocking oppressive systems, like racism, sexism, capitalism, and colonialism. This article explores how Pinay scholar-activists cultivate radical healing through an intergenerational mentorship program for Filipina/x/o youth in Southern California. We apply a critical collaborative autoethnography drawing from the Psychological Framework for Radical Healing (French et al., 2020) and Pinayism, the theoretical framework to conceptualize the social, political, and economic oppression and struggle for growth faced by Pinays (Tintiangco-Cubales & Sacramento, 2022). We explore how Pinay scholar-activists heal from oppression by fostering loving relationships with the self and community and critically reflecting on and acting against oppression and toward social change. We conclude with considerations for radical healing through feminist community development and ethnic studies education.

Anxious solidarities against the mental health crisis: connecting personal struggles to wider social and economic injustices

Rates of anxiety have been steadily increasing over the past 20 years, prompting commentators to warn that we are in the throes of a global mental health crisis that is ruining well-being, threatening lives and damaging the economy. By highlighting how a person’s mental health, while nuanced and distinct, is always situated in a larger socio-emotional context or ‘structure of feeling’, this article argues that the issue of rising anxiety is a direct consequence of a biomedical model of treatment and care beholden to a neoliberal economic system that objectifies and isolates people. Through a framework termed ‘liberation health modelling’, it explores the progressive potential of ‘anxious solidarities’ as a way to reframe the problem of anxiety by connecting personal struggles to wider social and economic injustices. At a time when it is becoming impossible to deny the collective and widespread nature of people’s anxieties, the point of anxious solidarity is not simply to recount pain and suffering but to ‘make sense’ of it in relation to overarching structures of social oppression – calling into question the status quo in solidarity with other subjugated groups. Since struggles with anxiety have the advantage of being familiar to most, anyone can be a potential provocateur so long as they disavow an entirely personalised framing of their mental health.

Systemic Silencing Mechanisms in Autism/Autistic Advocacy in Ontario, Canada

This article reveals how systemic ableism operates within grassroots organizations in Ontario, formulating a normative standard for being an autistic person. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 50 participants in the years 2021 and 2022, triangulated with document analysis from 2018 and 2022. The study participants consisted of autistic adults, parents, disability advocates, organizers of grassroots organizations, social workers, policy insiders, and academics. The findings show that most autistic adults are pressured to choose sides, either to join autism advocacy that is parent‐led or expert‐led or to become self‐advocates in autistic advocacy. This article offers an original finding that the value policy of pro/anti‐ABA of two grassroots organizations in the field of autism/autistic advocacy contributes to identity politics. Ableism operates through Pierre Bourdieu’s symbolic power, excluding autistic adults who do not fit into these two main categories of advocacy. Social oppression becomes multi‐directional as identity politics takes the stage and diverts from the original goals of social inclusion in advocacy. The concept of a grey area is introduced in theory building, to trouble the essentialist categories of autism/autistic advocacy and invite readers to commit to disability solidarity by moving beyond the dichotomy of sameness and difference.

Justice Views in Social Work Project: Examining Views on Race and Justice

ABSTRACT Advocacy for social justice is a core duty of the social work profession. Social injustice, oppression, and marginalization in the United States demand that social workers critically evaluate and address systemic oppression, in the profession, society, and social work education. This study sought to explore the attitudes of social work students in institutions of higher education in one Midwestern state concerning social justice, systemic racism, race relations, and policing to measure the impact of social work educational programming on promoting anti-oppressive and anti-racist practice. Survey responses from undergraduate and graduate students (n = 74) from two universities in an upper, Midwestern state were analyzed to assess attitude and beliefs on social justice, policing, and racial relations. Results indicate the majority of students endorsed an understanding of injustice in the world and high perceptions of themselves as advocates and agents of social change. Alternatively, students’ responses to items regarding a general belief in the world as providing just rewards and punishments were neutral. These results suggest the need for increased examination of the implicit and explicit curriculum. The use of Critical Race Theory, decolonization practices for higher education which includes diversifying perspectives in course materials and learning activities among other practices, and modeling of the positionality of self by social work instructors is examined.

Humanizing the Lived Experiences of Muslim, Immigrant-Origin, Women Doctoral Students, and Black Women Faculty: A Photovoice Study

Abstract: Using the frameworks of Critical Race Feminism (CRF) and Representational Intersectionality, we employ photovoice as a form of Participatory Action Research (PAR) method to illustrate the lived experiences and voices of Muslim, immigrant-origin, women doctoral students, and Black faculty in predominantly and historically white institutions (PHWIs) within the United States (U.S.). The findings illustrate how we make meaning of our academic experiences, and challenge grand narratives that are rooted in anti-Blackness, anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, sexism, classism, racism, and other forms of social oppressions in order to provide and develop humanizing approaches to be seen and valued within higher education. This study expands on strategies to support and empower graduate and faculty women of color in the Academy as they navigate and find humanizing approaches to succeed in PHWIs.

A Critical Understanding of Inclusion in Oral Microbiome Research through the Lens of Racial Capitalism.

There are important calls for greater inclusion of Indigenous and racialised communities in oral microbiome research. This paper uses the concept of racial capitalism (the extractive continuity of colonialism) to critically examine this inclusion agenda. Racial capitalism explicitly links capitalist exploitations with wider social oppressions e.g., racisms, sexism, ableism. It is not confined to the commercial sector but pervades white institutions, including universities. By using the lens of racial capitalism, we find inclusion agendas allow white institutions to extract social and economic value from relations of race. Racially inclusive research is perceived as a social good, therefore, it attracts funding. Knowledge and treatments developed from research create immense value for universities and pharmaceutical companies with limited benefits for the communities themselves. Moreover, microbiome research tends to drift from conceptualisations that recognise it as something that is shaped by the social, including racisms, to one that is determined genetically and biologically. This location of problems within racialised bodies reinforces racial oppressions and allows companies to further profit from raciality. Inclusion in oral microbiome research must consider ways to mitigate racial capitalism. Researchers can be less extractive by using an anti-racism praxis framework. This includes working with communities to co-design studies, create safer spaces, giving marginalised communities the power to set and frame agendas, sharing research knowledges and treatments through accessible knowledge distributions, open publications, and open health technologies. Most importantly, inclusion agendas must not displace ambitions of the deeper anti-oppression social reforms needed to tackle health inequalities and create meaningful inclusion.

Emergency Preparedness for Guests with Mobility Impairments and Frequency of Visits in Five-Star Hotels in Nairobi City County, Kenya

The purpose of this study was therefore to establish the influence of emergency preparedness on the frequency of visits to five-star hotels in Nairobi City County, Kenya. The specific goals of this research were: to record the types of hazards encountered by five-star hotels in Nairobi City County; to identify the areas of those hotels where emergencies occur; to learn about the barriers to emergency response services for guests with mobility impairments in those hotels; and to identify the factors in emergency response systems that significantly influence visit by guests with mobility impairments. The study was informed by two theories; the theory of time constraints on leisure activities and the theory of social oppression. Ten five-star hotels in Nairobi County served as the sample for this census-style investigation. The sample size was determined by a systematic sampling procedure. The data was gathered through the use of semi-structured questionnaires that were administered by the researcher. Data was coded and analyzed in SPSS using both descriptive and inferential statistical methods. Relationships between the independent variable and the dependent variables were determined using multiple regressions. Tables, charts, and bars were used to show the study's findings. The findings showed that the majority of the five-star hotels had not frequently encountered several types of emergencies. The study found that employee training for emergency preparedness was positively and significantly related to the frequency of visits by guests with mobility impairments to five-star hotels in Nairobi City County, Kenya at (β=0.595, p˂.001). The study concludes that while most sections of these five-star hotels, like kitchens and swimming pools, are perceived as safe zones with minimal emergencies, the parking area emerges as a potential concern. The hotels' commitment to staff training in emergency preparedness is evident, especially in hazard identification and spill response. The study thus recommends that the management of five-star hotels in Nairobi City County should conduct thorough risk assessments, considering both high and low-frequency hazards. Emergency protocols should also be in place not only for situations like terrorist threats but also for seemingly less immediate threats like floods and utility failures. Keywords: Emergency preparedness, Risk assessment, Five-Star Hotels, Mobility impairments, Nairobi City County

When We See Us: An Endarkened Autoethnographic Approach to Excavating the Extraordinary Literacies of Black Women

A frequent question amongst Black scholars and practitioners is how to succeed in institutions that thrive on our cultural erasure. How to unmask and survive. For Black women these questions are doubly significant. The questions we answer in our collaborative Blackgirl autoethnography have implications for how Black women scholars, and others navigating multiple social oppressions, must ritually turn inward to understand the rhetorical, spiritual, ancestral, and cognitive tools that we use to hold onto important parts of ourselves. Additionally, the field of qualitative research in education, steeped in its own complex settler colonial, and racially exclusive ideologies, has had little opportunity to be shaped by the extraordinary inner worlds of Black women. At the nexus of our orientations as Black and women, we utilize a collaborative approach to Blackgirl autoethnography, an endarkened feminist epistemological methodology, which insists on the epistemic shifts available to us when methodology is grounded in Blackgirl ways of knowing. Our autoethnographic excavation revealed the ways that our inner worlds offer blueprints for the kinds of social and pedagogical change necessary to agitate the colonial and carceral logics that mark the lives of Black women and girls in education.

Du Bois, Marx, and the Jewish Question Reconsidered

ABSTRACT W. E. B. Du Bois’s groundbreaking scholarship on race and racial prejudice was inseparable from his lifelong struggle for racial justice, Black liberation, and against social and political oppression. Both in his theoretical and in his historical-political work, Du Bois substantially and critically engaged with the “Jewish question”: with Jewish life, history, and politics, with the experiential perspective of an oppressed minority, and with the fight against prejudice and racial hatred. Throughout in life, and in particular in later years, Du Bois was influenced by Karl Marx’s critical analysis of social and economic life; Marx’s own discussion of the “Jewish question,” concerning the difference between political equality and human emancipation, proved substantial to his argument on civil rights and racial justice. In this article, I argue that Du Bois did not only draw from the Jewish experience and from Marx’s work on the “Jewish question” in his work on African American history and politics, but also that he, in fact, reconsidered the “Jewish question” from an African American perspective, offering his own reading and understanding of the “Jewish question,” thus applying his concept of double consciousness for rethinking it as a question of racial identity and racial consciousness, and as relevant and applicable to Black liberation and the fight against racism.

A linguistic picture of the world: conceptualization of the human body in the poetry of Emily Dickinson

The paper focuses on the linguistic picture of the body in the poetry of Emily Dickinson, a 19th-Century American poet. The aim is to provide a coherent linguistic picture of the body of Dickinson’s lyric subject and to reconstruct the way she conceptualized and portrayed its physical appearance with regard to the artist’s perception of the self. This research is focused on cognitive ethnolinguistics, the methodology utilizes analytic and interpretative techniques with emphasis on the cognitive definition reconstruction and facet parametrization. The research sample consists of the selected poems in which the poet refers to the body of her lyric subject. This research has allowed for the identification of the following facets into which the conceptualization of Dickinson’s perception of the body can be categorized: 1) the perspective of the body as a spirit-encompassing vessel; 2) the body as a reflection of the social oppression experienced by women in the nineteenth century; 3) the facet of the body size, and 4) the ephemerality of the physical body. The identified facets overlap to some extent, but together they form a unified picture which reveals certain aspects of cognitive metaphor theory, such as the conceptual metaphor of a container. This unified picture also reveals literary and linguistic reflections of socio-cultural aspects of the 19th-Century America such as the tendency to diminish the female lyric subject.

The Influence of Confucian Cultural Values on the Social Roles of Contemporary Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Women

The background of the research is based on the problems and dilemmas faced by women in modern East Asian society. The research investigated how Confuciuss thoughts put social constraints on women in China, Japan, and South Korea because of their gender through the content of the books and the derived meaning of folk while looking at the ideological transformation of women in society to resist these regulations. People in those societies are often disciplined by thousands of years of traditional etiquette, hence the conflict between self-consciousness and cultural oppression brought about by Confucianism becomes an important topic among East Asian scholars. The paper aims to show how the Confucius norms build on the fixed gender role in different ways and analyze the social oppression of East Asian women, with the resistance and struggle that women are making in these countries. Hence a better understanding of the progress of women's rights in East Asian countries and the role of women in society. The significance of the paper is that it makes up the research gap on how Confucian culture oppresses women's social status and uses realistic scenes while demonstrating the transformation of women's self-consciousness under these regulations in a chronological sequence.

Kurdish gender politics: Funeral ceremonies of female fighters

AbstractThe funeral ceremonies of female fighters are a relatively recent phenomenon that gained popularity in Kurdish politics in Turkey in the early 2000s and after the 2011 uprisings in Syria. As a sociocultural rite, these funerals have become a spectacular site, a political means, and a symbolic investment serving an intersectional agenda pursuing Kurdish national and gender‐egalitarian aspirations simultaneously. The funerals provide a ground for mobilizing women to claim symbolic authority in public and inscribe women as nation builders to the notion of nation. Women undertaking this intersectional task through national discourse garnered significant academic interest in the national dimension of the ceremonies. However, the emphasis on the national aspect overshadowed the gendered strategy the ceremonies signify. This article investigates the gender aspect of funerals to draw attention to the use of national discourse to subvert patriarchal dynamics within society, highlighting the role of national struggle in women's pursuit of liberation from social oppression. Therefore, it speaks to the scholarship focused on gender in nationalist endeavors and revisits the discussions on gender‐nation relations by focusing on national discourse instrumentalization serving the gender agenda. The analysis reveals the intricate dynamics between gender and nation and how they intersect in pursuing women's liberation.

ДВІ ШЛЯХТИ, ДВІ ДОЛІ: СТАНОВИЩЕ ПОЛЬСЬКОГО ДВОРЯНСТВА НА ПОДІЛЛІ НАПРИКІНЦІ XVIII–XIX ст.

The existence of the Polish nobility on the territory of Podilia can be conventionally divided into two periods. During the first period, which related to 1795–1830, the policy of St. Petersburg in relation to the strata remained relatively loyal. The gentry was transferred to noble status, representatives of the group could apply for positions in the civil service, freedom of religion was preserved. The situation changed radically after The November Uprising of 1830–1831, after which the Russian empire took a course to limit the freedoms of the Polish nobility. The rentier gentry will experience a great collapse. The courtiers, who remained tax-free strata and didn’t hurry to swear allegiance to the emperor, were an obstacle for the Russian empire. In addition, St. Petersburg saw a potential danger in the political activity of the group that had a hand in the uprising. Over time, the rentier gentry were equalized in rights with the Ukrainian peasantry. The great gentry also experienced social and economic oppression, against which the government initiated demonstrative punitive trials. The educational and cultural policy of the anti-Polish direction included the persecution of church clergy and trials of students, the closing of churches and religious schools, the elimination of Greek Catholicism, etc. The Russian government was aware that the fight against culture is an effective tool that will help Poles to forget their ethnicity, so it spared no effort and no money. The initial attitude of the government officials of the Romanov state towards the nobility was the usual deception. The Polish uprisings of 1830–1831 and 1863–1864 were only a pretext for starting a repressive policy against a group that came from Russia’s hated rival, the Rzeczpospolita. The further attitude of the imperial ideologues was aimed at humiliating and subjugating the nobility, turning it into a second-rate figure of the state hierarchy and an obedient tool in the hands of St. Petersburg. A variety of tools were used: discriminatory legislation, humiliating trials, exile to a katorga, transfer of peasants to the rank of peasants in the case of the rentier gentry. However, the Russian Empire remained powerless, because Polish landowners continued to prevail in Podilia and retain strong influence.

Социальное благополучие как критерий развития наций (к вопросу о методологии оценивания)

Human well-being as a criterion of progress is usually measured by indices of standard of living, quality of life, and human development. These indices are based on methodological individualism and consider human development as an increase in individuals’ prosperity, comfort, freedom, and self-realization. While comparing countries or regions, the object of consideration are aggregated individuals, rather than nations, peoples and territorial communities within which the species Homo sapiens exists. Due to their conceptual scope, the accepted indices do not see an obvious paradox: the maximization of what is considered well-being – standard of living and personal selfexpression – exacerbates the anthropological crisis, namely the destruction of sociality in all historically established forms, the rapid destruction of a family institution and refusal of human individuals to continue the human race. The authors of the article propose a new index to measure human well-being, which is a social production of life and a social order that reduces human suffering. The viability of human community requires population reproduction which is the first condition for social development. But society is not identical to the population, and social well-being presupposes the reproduction of an institutional balance between communal and personal principles. The key to social and population reproduction is the preservation of family as the basic structure of society. Reducing human suffering means minimizing threats to human life and eliminating extreme forms of social oppression. The minimization of threats to human life and safety of social environment are verified by reduction in mortality from external causes and an increase in average life expectancy. To avoid the extremes of social oppression, it is necessary to eliminate poverty and ensure universal education for children. Thus, social well-being, which is being understood and achieved, is a necessary basis for the sustainable development of nations.

“Prove Yourself”: Exploring Epistemological Values in Mathematics Department Support and Oppression of Black Women Faculty

Black women faculty members face challenges in higher education, including limited identity-affirming mentorship and under-­recognition of their scholarship. However, little is known about their experiences in mathematics departments, where Black women are more severely underrepresented and disciplinary ideologies of neutrality mask social oppression. We interrogate the role of mathematics epistemological values (MEVs) in shaping departmental racialized–gendered oppression experienced by six Black women. Our findings illustrate that (a) quantification practices underpinning faculty evaluation disregard Black women’s achievements; and (b) notions of proving as a solitary endeavor justify neglecting Black women’s faculty development. We highlight departmental practices that support Black women faculty members, reframe MEVs to promote equity, and discuss implications for mathematics faculty and administrators working to advance equity.