Doing Decolonizing, Anti-oppressive Social Work in Times Such as These
Donna Baines, Bindi Bennett, and Frank Wang
It is very hard to make sense of this new world order that is plagued by one crisis on top of another. It is very easy to feel demoralized and defeated.
- Where do we find the energy and focus to work on decolonization and anti-oppression?
- How do we continue to build on the successes we were starting to have on important aspects of social justice and equity?
I want to remind us of some of the successes we, as social justice social workers, have had in decolonization and anti-oppressive practice. I also want to suggest some paths forward, and identify practices that can be helpful in the coming cultural and economic struggles, and invite us to think about how to broaden and deepen agendas of healing, sustainability, decolonization and collective well being in times such as these.
SUCCESSES
- Anti-oppressive practice and decolonization are recognized as important to social work practice in many countries now, and by the International Federation of Social Workers.
If we take a closer look at the International Federation of Social Workers’ policies we see that they formally recognize the importance of decolonization in social work and have developed global standards for social work education that emphasize the need to recognize diversity and Indigenous knowledge.
This includes:
- Addressing Colonial Legacies: Decolonization in social work involves identifying and dismantling the ways in which colonial ideologies and practices have shaped social work theory, education, and practice, as well as how colonial structures have contributed to inequalities and marginalization.
- Recognizing Indigenous Knowledge: Decolonization also emphasizes the importance of incorporating Indigenous knowledge, perspectives, and practices into social work. This involves acknowledging the diverse experiences and wisdom of Indigenous peoples and valuing their contributions to the profession.
- Promoting Self-Determination: decolonization also involves supporting the self-determination of marginalized communities, including Indigenous peoples. This means empowering individuals and communities to make their own decisions about their lives and futures, free from colonial control.
SUCCESS #2
Anti-oppression and decolonizing practices are part of accreditation standards for many social work university programs in many countries around the globe. This means that if schools of social work fail to teach anti-oppression and decolonization, they risk having their accreditation removed and will certainly face criticism from the accreditation body and directives to make measurable and significant changes to their curriculum.
This also means we can hope that the next generations of social workers are well educated in decolonizing and anti-oppressive skills, analysis and approaches. This can give us hope that the profession is changing and getting better and stronger at social justice social work. This is a significant step forward.
I mention these two major successes because it is important to remind ourselves of our victories and of how far we have come. I also mention it because in times such as these, it is important to focus on our strengths and to keep hope alive.
Decolonizing, Anti-Oppressive Practice and Theory
For the last six years, we’ve been part of an international research project (in Canada, Australia and Taiwan) involving a dialogue between Indigenous and anti-oppressive practice. Drawing on our findings, we argue that diversity, equity and inclusion need to be based in social justice, because it is the pursuit of collective, collaborative social justice that underlies and feeds all decolonizing and anti-oppressive efforts. And it is social justice that ensures that we remain ethical and grounded in the real-life experience and needs of those harmed by larger colonial and oppressive systems, policies and practices.
Our research also points to practices that advance social justice in this turbulent era, and build decolonizing, anti-oppressive practice.
- Foreground the voices of Indigenous and other oppressed peoples, and remain humble in the face of lived experience. For those of us seeking to decolonize from an anti-oppressive perspective, it is tempting to try to rush forward and make rapid changes. To provide leadership where many current leaders seem unable or unwilling to act. However, it is more important to remain humble in the face of the lived-experience of Indigenous peoples and to foreground their knowledge and experience.
Our research project is trying to build a joint project between Indigenous and AOP approaches. We are not just adding Indigenous knowledge to colonial knowledge. Instead, we want to co-construct a new social justice engaged, decolonial knowledge. To challenge and disrupt the dominance of colonial thinking and practices, we consciously foreground the sovereignty, and often silenced voices of Indigenous and colonised people. This moved Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing to the centre of our project, and gives us an ethical basis for our research.
In social work practice, we should do the same. By foregrounding Indigenous voices, we provide space and legitimacy for the practices and knowledge of people who have often been silenced by the state and wider society. By foregrounding the voices of Indigenous peoples we demonstrate our deep respect for their rich experience and insights into how the colonized world works, and how to survive, and even thrive in it.
Listening closely to the voices of Indigenous peoples provides the opportunity to draw on the knowledge of those who have experienced the sharp end of unfair policies and practices within everyday life, and to draw on this expertise to collectively and respectfully form new decolonizing knowledge, theory, practices and policies.
An additional piece of this practice is to remain humble in the face of lived and living experience. This involves keeping an open mind, deep listening without interruption, and critically reflecting on our social positions as social workers and knowers in a complicated world.
- Cultural practice, cultural safety & humility – putting culture back in
Our research and the research done by other decolonizing and anti-oppressive researchers shows how important it is for organizations to explicitly recognize culture in social work organizations and to learn how to work with it. Most social work organizations would claim that they do not practice from a cultural perspective, but they do. They reflect and practice from the dominant culture but they just do not recognize it. In Canada and Australia, that is a white, Eurocentric culture and in Taiwan, it is Han Chinese.
Consciously and conscientiously putting cultural practice into social service organizations involves recognizing and celebrating the multiple ways of knowing, being and working. For Indigenous people, our research shows the importance of working in ways that respect Indigenous culture, and in particular Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing. This strengthens the organization and permits it to develop ways of working with Indigenous peoples that are culturally safer and extend social justice practices across the many issues and oppressions facing Indigenous peoples, and other systemically excluded populations.
The first step is to invite Indigenous service providers, service users and communities to share cultural understandings, practices and knowledges. The next step is to analyse the ways dominant ideas regulate and control access to resources and affirming identities for groups that have been sidelined and disrespected, particularly but not exclusively, Indigenous Peoples (Dutta, 2018). And the third step is to incorporate cultural practices and an awareness of the structural biases and constraints in policy, practice and further opportunities for two-way learning and the pursuit of social justice.
- Critical reflexivity
While many professions reflect on how to improve their practice, anti-oppressive and decolonizing social workers critically reflect on how to improve their practice as well as how improve their capacities to enact social justice and to challenge oppressive social relations.
We don’t just think about how to do everyday practice better, which is important, we also reflect on what shapes and limits our practice, what larger policies and structures harm our clients, and what we can do to enact change large and small.
In the context of state, social and institutional violence, colonialism and oppression, self-reflexive practice with one’s self, one’s colleagues, service users and communities can be a means through which social workers, and their allies can identify problems and work to change inequitable practices and policies in large and small ways. It can also be an important beginning step to building the analysis needed to advocate and mobilize others for social change.
- Capacity to advocate & mobilize others for social change
In these troubled times locally and globally, it is important for communities to join together to defend each other and to continue to fight for social justice and equity. We need to build on the successes I mentioned earlier and to further far-reaching changes. Advocacy, social policy change and community organizing (IFSW 2012) are central aspects of social work codes of ethics and are intended to be central aspects of social work practice. Though advocacy has been discouraged or diminished in neoliberalized social service workplaces (Maddison and Carson 2017), thus advocacy and mobilizing for social change are not merely an optional aspect of ethical social work practice. It is a core feature.
However, most social workers work within complex organizations that do not share our ethical commitments which makes the pursuit of social change more challenging, though not impossible. Social workers do not always feel confident in their capacities to undertake advocacy, to undertake social action, to motivate others to join them in social action, or to build the consensus necessary to mobilize for social change. In part this is because much of the education provided in social work schools currently focuses on individual, clinical practice rather than on policy and community change. As neoliberalism has deepened, schools of social work have increasingly focused on short-term, clinical practice rather than open-ended, social justice-engaged, participatory empowerment and capacity building (Baines 2017).
Like advocacy, the skills associated with mobilizing colleagues and communities fit with social work’s ethical commitment to social justice. Interestingly, mobilizing communities is something we actually do have the skills though the skill set is currently called clinical or group work, rather than community development and advocacy. For example, mobilizing colleagues and communities to defend the rights of oppressed and colonized people are spaces in which social workers can draw on our individual, clinical group work and communication skills to help individuals and communities to identify their strengths, re-story their lives and experiences in more positive and liberating ways, and to work together to create more compassionate and socially just futures. Indeed, many of our clinical skills can help people identify factors in their lives that are limiting or oppressive, and to gently help them to recognize their strengths and resilience, and to support them to jointly and individually challenge oppressive practices large and small.
Concluding Thoughts
In times such as the ones we now live in, it would be easy to feel that all we can do is survive and that it will be very difficult to make lasting social change. However, losing hope and energy is exactly plays into the hands of those who want to roll back human rights and social justice. To quote Che Guevara, “Be realistic, demand the impossible”. We love this idea. Demand the seemingly impossible and act like it is within reach. We can keep working in the midst of troubled times and multiple crises if we keep hope alive and keep demanding the seemingly impossible. And it will help to keep hope alive, if we stay compassionate and kind, and if we keep demanding serious decolonization and social justice from our governments, employers, and communities even in times such as these.
As social justice, anti-oppressive, decolonizing social workers, we can humanize ourselves, our communities and our work practices, liberate and politicize our workplaces, and transform our existence through the creative, collective and ongoing pursuit of peace, equity and social justice. I invite you all to enter this struggle with energy, enthusiasm, care for each other, and brilliant hope in our futures.
