Resistance as a Foundational Commons: Intersectionality, Transfeminism, and the Future of Critical FeminismsDraper, Suzanne C.; Chapple, Reshawna
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231165788
The paradigms of academic and activist feminisms in the United States in the middle and later half of the 20th century were developed in part as critical explorations of exclusionary practices within feminist ideology. The strength of critical feminisms is their capacity to reimagine the limiting parameters of exclusion (e.g., of Black people and people of color, of butch lesbians, etc.) that are based in many of the same principles that bolster patriarchal definitions of gender and sexuality. Such patriarchal definitions include the pressure to express and experience gender and sexuality in a static manner that relegates all other expressions as Other or merely transitional. If the purpose of critical feminisms is to explore the “issues of power [and]…the ways that gender ideology… is produced, reproduced, resisted, and changed in and through the everyday experiences of” people, then the concepts that this paper explores should be of the utmost importance within critical feminisms. In doing so critical feminisms must examine the contributions and experiences of trans, non-binary, and queer people that help us to reimagine what it means to be a feminist in a world of free expression.
Normal Wasn’t Good: A Collaborative Autoethnography of the Intersectional Experiences of Academic Women of Color Mothering During the Dual PandemicsValdovinos, Miriam Georgina; Walton, Quenette L.; Oyewuwo, Olubunmi Basirat
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231176242
Research has shown that women within academia, particularly mothers, continue to endure challenges in their workplaces. For Women of Color (WOC) who are mothers, these demands are exacerbated when there are expectations to take on additional responsibilities related to antiracist practices. This article centers on the experiences of three WOC who are tenure-earning mothers in academia during two ongoing pandemics: COVID-19 and racial injustice. Informed by intersectionality and ecological theory, the following research question is addressed: What were the experiences of WOC who are mothers working in academia during the dual pandemics? A collaborative autoethnography was used to interpret the perspectives, assumptions, and subjectivity of multiple experiences to expand the understanding of this social phenomenon. The authors responded to journal prompts about defining moments during the dual pandemics as tenure-earning mothers of color. Four themes emerged: normal was not good, shifts are necessary, the personal is political, and moments of joy. Recommendations are provided for policies and strategies that social work programs can implement to support tenure-earning women of color who are mothers. Centering our experiences as a site of inquiry opens possibilities of what critical social work and critical feminisms can be in the future.
Precedents to Think About Social Work in Chile in the Current Uncertain Political Scenario: Reflections From Critical FeminismsMartínez Rubio, María Paz; Díaz Bórquez, Daniela; Calderón Orellana, Magdalena
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231193613
In this In Brief, the authors present an argument about the challenges for feminist social work in Chile, given the political transformation process occurring since 2019 in the country. Through an approach that addresses the history of social work in dialogue with important political events for Chile and their consequences for the feminist and social movements, the authors argue that—despite the progress achieved—the main challenge for feminist social work today continues to be a male privilege. This is exemplified by a critical view of two main social work development fields: social services and academia. Finally, referring to critical and feminist perspectives, the authors reflect on possibilities for change in social work practice and education, given the political uncertainty that Chile is facing, particularly after the failure of the first constitutional election.
“We Can Only Go So Far”: Employing Intersectionality in Research with Middle-Class Black Women and Black Muslim WomenOyewuwo, Olubunmi Basirat; Walton, Quenette L.
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231196565
How to engage and apply intersectionality is still a point of contention among scholars. In this conceptual paper, we use examples from our preliminary research on the experiences of middle-class Black women with depression and Black Muslim women who have experienced intimate partner violence to illustrate how we applied intersectionality as a framework and a method. We highlight the foundational literature that informed our applications. We then describe how we employed intersectionality in our respective studies. Through our reflections, we conclude that intersectionality was, and continues to be, a necessary frame for guiding our work due to its rendering visible for critique and intervention categories of privilege and oppression and our centering the experiences of Black women. We, however, note having felt limited in our ability to fully apply intersectionality in our preliminary research. We conclude that what was missing for us reflects critiques of a gap in social work feminist scholarship that is a central tenet of intersectionality: liberation. We posit ways of doing intersectional research that liberates by offering recommendations for research, education, and policy.
Expected to Work for Free: Social Work's Complicity in its Own DevaluationCarreon, Erin D.
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231185331
By reviewing the historical gender, race, and class-based devaluation of community and social service work, this in-brief article reveals how the profession of social work continues to contribute to this devaluation through expectations for unremunerated work. The profession communicates these expectations through the Code of Ethics, unpaid student field placements, and managerialist workplace stratification. Social work professional, educational, and employing organizations have a responsibility to demonstrate the value of social service workers and the communities they serve by eliminating expectations for unpaid labor, encouraging staff to track and report unpaid hours, and supporting the organizing efforts of the social service workforce.
“You Have to Take Care of Your Own Mental Status”: Incarcerated Women Seeking Care Within and Beyond Mental Health TreatmentFedock, Gina L.; Shankar, Sheila; Doria, Celina; Malcome, Marion
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231196223
Incarcerated women in the United States commonly experience prison-based mental health treatment. Feminist scholars stress the need to explore how incarcerated women exercise agency while navigating controlling treatment dynamics and how they experience these dynamics in relation to aspects of their selves (e.g., their thoughts and feelings). To explore these dynamics, we conducted semi-structured individual interviews with 42 incarcerated women in a Midwestern state prison and with life history calendars, elucidated women's treatment encounters over time. Through analysis of these interviews, we contend that women experienced dehumanizing dynamics within treatment, particularly curtailed communication from the staff that silenced women, created unfamiliar selves, and contributed to physical harm and psychological harm. Based on these findings, we conceptualize prison-based mental health treatment as health harm rather than health care. We also found that women responded to controlling dynamics with forms of self-preservation including strategies of treatment decision-making that affirmed their selves, active treatment refusal as self-protection, and forming meaningful connections with others that validated aspects of their selves. Based on women's care-based strategies, further feminist theorizing and practice directions are needed that align with, build upon, and are guided by incarcerated women's varied definitions of care to improve their mental health and well-being.
Sisterhood at a Distance: Doing Feminist Support Work OnlineBäckström Olofsson, Hanna; Goicolea, Isabel
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231181583
The aim of this study is to analyze the characteristics of feminist peer support in the context of online chat counseling. Based on 15 interviews with female lay supporters associated with a branch of the Swedish women's shelter movement targeting young women, we explore how the digital setting—characterized by distance and anonymity—affects the meaning and doing of feminist support. Our results show that core principles of feminist support—striving for equality and trust, the crafting of safe spaces, and sharing experiences—are all renegotiated and/or accentuated by the digital setting. The chat is experienced as enabling a more equal relationship and a high level of safety. The meaning of safety has largely shifted, however, from being associated with a feminist community to safety associated with solitude and distance. We further show a tension in the respondents’ understanding of shared experiences, stressing both the importance of situated knowledges and the value of not knowing who is seeking or offering support. By combining research and material on feminist support and online youth counseling, the article offers novel perspectives on feminist counseling and social work, the power dimensions of online counseling, and the virtual space as an arena for feminist activism.
Discipline, Erasure, and Silenced Subjectivities: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Florida's 2022 Parental Rights in Education ActFowler, Megan Marie; Mountz, Sarah
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231197164
This critical policy analysis is concerned with the discursive linguistic practices and social justice implications surrounding the passage of Florida's controversial “Parental Rights in Education Act” (PREA), which enacts limitations on classroom instruction involving topics related to gender and sexuality. Foregrounding this essay lays a call for social work scholarship to recognize the significance of the critical semiotic and post-structural turn in social science research, which evinces the importance of attending to the nuanced relationship between discourse, power, ideology, and identity formation. As a field espousing the tenets of social justice and commitments to the broader aims of social equality, social work holds an inherent investment in understanding the politics of language and, by extension, the language of emancipatory change. Informed by critical discourse analysis (CDA) and feminist post-structural thought, this analysis brings to the forefront the relevance of discourse, language, and semiotics as crucial objects of inquiry and seeks to examine what norms are in operation in the context of this legislation. What can discourse reveal about the nature of the social problem as postulated by PREA, and what discursive implications might it contain? Ultimately, this analysis contends that PREA represents a new threshold of educational and queer surveillance, best understood when bracketed by the ideologies of neoliberalism, cis-/heteropatriarchy, and the concomitant articulation of transphobia.
Entre Madres y Comadres: Trans Latina Immigrants Empowering Women Beyond MarianismoAlvarez-Hernandez, Luis R.; Bermudez, Judith Maria
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231190095
When social workers discuss the lives of Latinx individuals, it is often in the context of cultural values such as marianismo. Marianismo is linked to Catholicism and patriarchal values that reinforce traditional gender scripts for women. Although Latina feminists have challenged these values for decades, it continues to be paramount that social workers deepen their understanding of the lives of Chicanas and Latinas through critical theories. From this perspective, mujeristas and Chicana feminists who emphasize liberative work often use the term comadres, or comothers, to explore Latinas’ roles and relationships. The distinction between the traditional motherly role of marianismo and the collaborative and empowering role of comadres was evident in our feminist-informed study about the lived experiences of trans Latina immigrants who are activists and agents of change in their Southern U.S. communities. Our goal as Latina feminists is to include these women in the theoretical conversation as their experiences allowed us to expand our knowledge of these concepts. By reconceptualizing the mutually supportive role of Latinas in their communities, trans Latina immigrants and Latina feminists encourage us to see Latinas beyond the traditional and stereotypical gender script of marianismo.
The House That Deconstruction Built: Can Post-Structuralism Inform A Liberatory Social Work Praxis?Talarico, Giacinta
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231173081
Social work praxis has long been in conversation with feminist praxis and has more recently been informed by an anticolonial feminist praxis that aims to center theorizing, activism, and service delivery around individuals and communities considered “most marginalized.” While this “most marginalized” class may be deemed newly worthy social service consumers this framing reinforces extant settler colonial hierarchies of power and oppression by constituting new classes of “deserving” and “undeserving” social service recipients. This article explores how the feminist organizing, scholarship, and activism of the past decade—specifically around the #MeToo movement and trans-exclusionary radical feminism (TERF) wars—have impacted social work praxis and laid bare the dualistic binds of a post-structuralism that has been consumed and recast within neoliberalism as demobilized identity politics. By examining these limitations, questions are raised regarding next steps for a social work praxis concerned with justice, transformation, and liberation.
“One-by-One, TB Took Everything Away From Me”: A Photovoice Exploration of Stigma in Women with Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in MumbaiMahbub, Tahiya; Mathur, Taanya; Isaakidis, Petros; Daftary, Amrita
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231162582
Stigma related to drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB), one of the world's most severe infectious diseases, is a major barrier to TB elimination particularly for women living in settings of gender inequity. Drawing on the participatory action research (PAR) framework of photovoice, we explored lived experiences of DR-TB stigma among nine affected women in Mumbai, India. Consenting women took, shared, and contributed to the critical interpretation of 37 non-identifying images and associated narratives with one another and with PAR researchers. The study surfaced vivid, untold stories of trauma and life-altering encounters with enacted, anticipated, and internal stigma, that were characterized by loss (of self, voice, status, mobility), abuse (mental, social) and deep internal distress (shame, isolation, suffocation, peril). The study also revealed how stigmatized women found means to build resilience and resist the impacts of stigma. We further witnessed the building of their collective resilience through study participation. Photovoice proved to be a uniquely compelling method of data capture and interpretation, with potential to develop meaningful engagement and solidarity among women affected by DR-TB.
“If I Don’t Do It, No One Else Will” Narratives on the Well-Being of Sub-Saharan African Immigrant DaughtersBah, Fatoumata; Kagotho, Njeri
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231183667
Immigrant well-being sits at the intersections of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender. Cumulative migration stressors, poverty, and socio-cultural factors have made female immigrants of sub-Saharan African descent especially susceptible to poor psychological outcomes. Furthermore, family characteristics including birth order, family size, and interpersonal relationships are known correlates of physical and mental health functioning. And yet, African immigrants are often aggregated into larger groups, effectively masking the groups’ unique historical and cultural characteristics. This phenomenological study examined how the identity of “daughter,” birth order, and transnational experiences inform the well-being of young African women. Participants (N = 11) who self-identified as cis-gender females were invited for two cycles of in-depth interviews. These young women contextualize their identities around family and familial obligations. They struggle with the contradictions of the parent–child relationship and credit parenting strategies they sometimes view as problematic with their career and academic drive. Feelings of being overwhelmed by familial and social expectations are countered by excitement around their emerging liberated identities. These findings point to the need for inclusive spaces which consider the multiple identities they embody.
Unsettling Feminism in Social Work: Toward an Indigenous Decolonial FeminismBlackDeer, Autumn Asher
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231193617
Feminism and social work alike are complicit in historic colonial projects and further this agenda into the present day through the perpetuation of white supremacy. As social work moves to reckon with historic harms and decolonial feminist discourse proliferates, it remains to be seen how feminist social work will acknowledge or account for the legacy of systemic violence against Indigenous peoples and make meaningful changes going forward. The combination of close reading of the literature and the embodiment of experiential and cultural knowledge informs the development of the Indigenous decolonial feminist framework. Decolonial feminism in social work offers a pathway for Indigenous sovereignty – a collective liberation created and defined by Indigenous peoples for Indigenous peoples. Indigenous decolonial feminism requires a commitment to achieve social justice that is in direct alignment with the overall aim of social work. The present work will delineate an Indigenous decolonial feminism, situate this work within the current feminist social work landscape, and call for the field to engage in critical strategizing for social change and embodied decolonization.
Fostering Change: Black Women's Motivations for Participating in Intimate Partner Violence ResearchDuhaney, Patrina
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231187861
This qualitative study was informed by critical race feminism and sought to examine Canadian Black women's motivations for participating in the research study that explored their experiences with the police in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV), and the key factors that complicated their decisions. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 25 self-identified women over the age of 18. Findings indicated that Black women's experiences of anti-Black racism and various forms of systemic barriers influenced their decisions to disclose their experiences of IPV. Key themes included the invisibility of Black women's narratives, fostering political change, and the impact of racialized and gendered insider positionality. Given these findings, positioning Black women's narratives at the centre of IPV research creates opportunities for Black women to share their experiences of IPV, recognizes them as experts of their own experiences, identifies their differential experiences accessing services and supports and the barriers that impact their participation in research studies. The study provides strategies on how to increase Black women's participation and engagement in IPV research.
“It was Like a Volcano Erupted”: Community-Based Advocates’ Observations of Intimate Partner Violence and Intimate Femicide in Alabama During COVID-19Sutton, Amber
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231199443
This study examines how community-based advocates describe their observations of women in Alabama experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) during COVID-19 and the impacts on their roles as service providers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten participants from six agencies covering 22 counties in Alabama, to investigate contributing factors of IPV during the initial phases of the coronavirus pandemic and to share their experiences in providing services to survivors during this historic time. Along with existing barriers, COVID-19 introduced new and exacerbating factors for women experiencing violence and for those attempting to provide services. Advocates observed that pandemic-influenced circumstances such as confinement, isolation, and economic instability exacerbated certain types of violence and that Black women, immigrant women, and women in rural areas faced heightened barriers. Advocates also revealed a relationship between these heightened barriers brought on by COVID-19 and their own experiences of isolation, grief, and a yearning for connection. These findings reveal the pertinent needs of survivors and advocates as we move through, forward, and beyond this global pandemic.
Too Muslim to Be a Feminist and Too Feminist to Be a Muslim? Locating Lived Experiences of Feminism and Muslimness in Social Work AcademeBaksh, Amilah; Khan, Maryam
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231188732
In this paper, two authors seize space as Muslim women feminist social work educators and researchers. We challenge and hopefully silence homogenizing, essentialist and Islamophobic constructions. The first author is a hijabi, Indo-Caribbean, able-bodied cis-heterosexual Muslim feminist; the second author is a disabled, queer Muslim of South Asian heritage. We identify as racialized and firmly rooted in intersectional critical feminist perspectives. Using an autoethnographic, conversation-based approach, we share our narratives (lived experiences) in social work academe. Navigating feminisms, Muslimness, strategic essentialism and Islamophobia while engaging in a critical praxis, we attempt to bring together contradictory discourses for critical examination. We engage with the following questions: How do Muslim women fit (or not fit!) in social work academe? How do Muslim women fit (or not fit!) in critical social work feminist spheres? And what do Muslim feminist futures look like in social work academe? Our lived experiences as racialized Muslim feminists are standpoint perspectives which offer situated knowledges that disempower dominant social work discourses. Social work can no longer be reactionary and preserve the status quo; it must move forward with foresight and be an active player in dismantling inequities.
Becoming Black Womxn Through Embodied Inquiryalexander, e
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231180163
In this conceptual piece, I use a framework of embodiment to argue for approaches to inquiry that are better suited to engage and amplify Black womxn's knowledges in social work than are more popular social sciences methods. I also relate embodiment to several epistemic frames, and warn against disembodiment through more popular methods. Finally, I present three embodied research approaches that align with feminist social work principles. Throughout the piece, I reference works that explore feminist and embodied practices while centering Black womxn. I also frame discussion through my own embodiment as a Black femme scholar and practitioner, and embodiment and its potential in inquiries through a Black feminist tradition. Embodiment has been a framework of feminist scholarship for decades, broadly defined as living out knowledge through the body and/or in its environments through a process of becoming. Scholars in this school of thought account for their and participants’ emotions and dispositions as part of how knowledge is lived, while treating the body as a text to be read.
Fat Liberation: How Social Workers Can Incorporate Fat Activism to Promote Care and JusticeSorensen, Brianna L.; Krings, Amy
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231183672
Despite serious health and mental health problems associated with weight stigma and dieting, many health providers consider intentional weight loss to be a positive pro-health intervention. Alternatively, the fat activist movement challenges weight prejudice and advocates for the equitable treatment of individuals with diverse body types. Inspired by the work of fat activists, this article encourages social work educators and practitioners to critically deconstruct anti-fat social norms and to integrate body-positive interventions within micro, mezzo, and macro practice. Fat activism complements critical feminist, queer, and disability justice frameworks that are relevant to this special issue on critical feminist inquiry.
‘Disability Is an Art. It's an Ingenious Way to Live.’: Integrating Disability Justice Principles and Critical Feminisms in Social Work to Promote Inclusion and Anti-Ableism in Professional PraxisGoulden, Ami; Kattari, Shanna K.; Slayter, Elspeth M.; Norris, Sarah E.
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231188733
Disability communities engaged with social work recognize how critical feminist inquiry and disability justice principles often overlap to promote anti-ableist theorizing, research, practice, and education. Both the feminist scholarship and the disability justice movement center the voices and perspectives of those most excluded, reflecting the intersectional experiences of disability communities in social work. In this brief, we draw on significant events, such as the impact of climate change and criminal legal systems on disabled people, to map connections between critical feminisms, disability justice principles, and social work values. In re-imagining disability justice as a form of critical feminism, we highlight parallels in their guiding principles and explore how their multi-issue frameworks interrogate the same systems of power and oppression. Through this re-envisioning, we build upon the knowledge offered by intersectional disability communities that center interdependence as practices of survival and resistance. The authors suggest that social workers engaged with principles of disability justice and critical feminisms would do well to consider interdependence, collective care, and mutual aid as pathways toward inclusive and anti-ableist professional praxis.
Revisiting Empowerment Through Critical Praxis: Perspectives of Front-Line Workers Supporting Refugee Women Experiencing Gendered Violence in AustraliaMaturi, Jenny
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231186199
This article revisits the concept of empowerment that has underpinned the global movement to address gendered violence. Using a critical praxis lens, the article explores different understandings of empowerment that arose in interviews with front-line domestic violence workers who support refugee and migrant women experiencing gendered violence in Queensland, Australia. Two-thirds of the participants are from refugee and migrant backgrounds themselves. The findings reflect the shift in the service sector from more macro understandings of empowerment, grounded in feminist activism, to more micro understandings. In a context of neoliberal, bureaucratic service delivery, and limited means to address gendered violence that focus on women leaving and legal interventions, empowerment is sometimes viewed in individualistic, therapeutic terms of self-help. There is evidence that domestic violence services, founded on theories of empowerment, are now implicated in the surveillance and risk tracking role of social work as a profession, which has implications for survivor centeredness, agency, and equal participation. However, there is also evidence that front-line workers are aware of structural failings and questioning individualistic conceptions of empowerment amid broader concerns of social justice. Empowerment is viewed as transformative, with possibilities for more collective models aimed at addressing social justice. Outlining implications for feminist scholarship and practice, I suggest empowerment might be revisited by considering the differences between and within groups; structural violence and the consequences of interventions for marginalized groups; collective strategies aimed at broader structural change, such as poverty and race; and by strengthening the capacity of communities to respond to violence.
Black Women's Physical, Mental, and Sexual Health in the Criminal Legal System: Influences of Victimization, Healthcare Access, and Living ConditionsBagwell-Gray, Meredith E.; Garcia-Hallett, Janet; Lee, Jaehoon; Kepple, Nancy J.; Sisson, Michelle; Comfort, Megan; Ramaswamy, Megha
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231160184
This study examines pathways from gender-based, racialized violence to health outcomes among formerly incarcerated Black women. We frame violence as gender-based and racialized, with a theoretical stance that we live in a male-dominated society characterized by historic and contemporary race-based oppression. This secondary analysis focused on a subsample of Black women (N = 288) from three U.S. cities (Oakland, CA; Kansas City, KS, MO; and Birmingham, AL) from March 2019 to June 2020 for the Tri-City Cervical Cancer Prevention Study among Women in the Justice System. Confirmatory factor analysis evaluated psychometric properties of hypothesized latent variables—violence victimization, living conditions, and healthcare access—and their observed indicators. Structural equation modeling estimated their relationships with physical, mental, and sexual health, controlling for sampling location. Violence victimization was associated with mental (β = 0.37, p = .000) and sexual health concerns (β = 0.31, p = .000). Healthcare access was associated with physical health concerns (β = 0.45, p = .004). Although there were no direct relationships between living conditions and health concerns, mediation analysis indicated worse living conditions were associated with more violence victimization and less healthcare access, with violence victimization fully mediating a relationship with mental and physical health concerns. Regarding control variables, women in Kansas City reported more sexual health concerns (β = 0.19, p = .005). Findings have important implications for treatment and care for Black women with incarceration and violence victimization histories.
“Did I Hear That Right?”: A CRT Analysis of Racial Microaggressions in K-12 SchoolsDaftary, Ashley-Marie Hanna; Ortega, Debora; Samimi, Ceema; Ball, Annahita
2023 Affilia
doi: 10.1177/08861099231192079
Microaggressions are well-documented in education literature, yet they are typically explored on the interpersonal level and less often contextualized within a broader educational context. In this study, we used a critical qualitative approach, pairing a Critical Race Theory framework with a feminist critique, to explore K-12 faculty and staff perceptions of racial microaggressions in U.S. public schools. Twenty-five faculty and staff with anti-oppressive orientations shared their perceptions of pathologizing cultural values or communication styles, a specific type of microaggression. A flexible coding approach, including three coding cycles, was used to analyze the data. Participant narratives indicated how Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students, families, faculty, and staff are regularly pathologized in the K-12 education setting. Findings highlight how microaggressions are a form of institutionalized racism that negatively impacts the educational environment, thus norming and reenforcing the dehumanization of People of Color. Implications for future research and social work practice are discussed.