Chair: Liz Beddoe
Poulamee Guha
Can Intersectionality be Hybrid and multidirectional?’ Embedding Reflexive and critical narrative methodologies in feminist multicultural social work research in the context of post-colonial transnational migration.
Globalisation has resulted in large-scale high-skilled migration of Indian professionals over the last few decades. The gendered dimension of the phenomenon is less explored and the female spouses in this process of migration remain largely invisible. The ‘Trailing spouses’ occupy a contradictory, gendered positioning within the Indian diaspora, creating complex intersectionality. I have argued in my thesis that gender structures within the family, diaspora community and state policy create an invisible vulnerability for the female trailing spouses. As neoliberal discourse shapes our social work service systems, the need for critical social work practices seems urgent. Critical social work approaches in social work are diverse but share a common commitment to both personal and structural change.
A qualitative transnational study employing in-depth interviews and narrative methods for data collection has been conducted as part of my PhD Thesis in New Zealand, Australia, the USA and the UAE to explore this phenomenon. The study analysed narratives of trailing wives via a critical feminist epistemological framework. My findings indicated complex Intersectional subjectivities experienced by the women in their gender, class, ethnic and national identities. Using intersectional post-colonial and transnational theories within social work, I have presented my theories, to open debates about the conceptualization of gender. The use of a critical feminist perspective for this study has allowed me to focus on the subtle nuances and detailed descriptions that are necessary to understand gender ideologies and practices in the everyday interactions of families. the relevance of social constructionism as a perspective within the overarching paradigm of intersectional feminism holds meaning in my research. I focused on developing methodological processes that support giving significant attention to subjective, socially situated, and multi-faceted experiences. As a critical narrative inquirer whose research design is premised on the values of social constructionism and feminism, my personal, academic, and professional history are inseparable from my identity as a researcher, and, correspondingly, my identity as researcher informs my engagement with participants and my analysis of the data.
My thesis emphasizes that social work increasingly encompassing multicultural practice in the context of culture and mental health, should adopt a focus on gender that occurs within various settings. My research has guided my recommendations for future research and action on the issues addressed in my thesis, including gender-sensitive visa policies, further organizational support for spouses of skilled migrants, evolved and active role of diaspora communities and further research through specific and cross-comparative feminist studies to comprehensively understand the challenges and pathways to change. The transnational nature of the profession demands greater accountability regarding inclusion, sustainability, safety and discrimination.
Soma Chatterjee and Virginia Stammers
Pedagogy of crossings: Reflections on teaching for mobility justice in social work
A prevalent practice in social work is to teach about migration under the instrumental and managerial framework of social work for immigrants and refugees. In contrast to this project of training professionals to work with immigrants and refugees, this presentation advocates for reorienting social work pedagogy to ‘mobility justice’. A heuristic device, ‘mobility justice’ is our conceptual framework to place social work teaching at the crossroads where migrant and Indigenous lives and struggles meet, dialogue and diverge. This, we argue, will shift our disciplinary (mis)understanding of justice for immigrants from the tedious rhetoric of settlement and integration, and instead, allow ‘mobility’ to stand for ‘sovereignty’ and ‘freedom.’ Most crucially, such a framework will help develop and deepen social work understanding of migration in conjunction with, not in separation from, Indigenous, place-based justice. This presentation will build on a comprehensive review of social work literature, specifically its fault lines in regard to migration, and our own teaching/learning experience in schools of social work in Canada. We will draw from a series of experiential education activities conducted in the city of Toronto, a place of contact and crossings for migrant and Indigenous peoples, albeit globally known only for its mobile andmulticultural diaspora. We will end with an invitation to our educator colleagues across settler colonial sites to join in conversation about teaching for mobility justice.
Rebeccah Nelems
Challenging Individualist Approaches to Youth Gang Prevention: The Case of Victoria, BC, Canada
This paper explores a Canadian case study in which it is argued that the individualist structure of institutional approaches to youth resilience and youth programming are directly contributing to the failure to address surging rates of youth gang exploitation in BC’s capital. Although local actors have collaborated across agencies, jurisdictions and geographies for ten+ years to deliver cost-efficient, effective (88% success rate), wraparound youth gang prevention programming, funding is being reduced as youth gang exploitation reaches an all-time high, compounded by the growing epidemics of opioids, homelessness, youth mental health, sexual and online youth exploitation. Whilst the literature argues that youth gang prevention programs across the country are challenged by the chronic lack of funding, this research explores the ways in which this scarcity is generated by the fundamental misalignment between individualist institutional approaches to youth resilience and programming, and the relational, youth-centred approaches that a social ecology approach entails. Drawing on relational and critical sociological theory, I present the initial stages of a community-based, inter-agency research project that uses relational, decolonizing methodologies to bring community actors and agencies together, to transform individualist institutional approaches and funding practices towards advancing youth-centred, social ecology approaches to the youth gang exploitation crisis.
