Difference & Diversity: Anti oppressive practice

1. CONTEXT OF HUMAN SERVICES Difference & Diversity: Anti oppressive practice School of Social Sciences & Psychology

2. Assessment 3 • Change Proposal topic: Addressing Inequality in Australia • Building on your understanding of inequality from the unit content to date, please consider how an issue of inequality could be addressed in Australia. • The issue you choose to focus on can be a local, state, national or global issue. • Consider ways in which you could make a difference and assess the feasibility of your proposal in the current socio political context. • The proposal should specify the issue in need of change, the way it should be changed and the expected benefits the change will bring.

3. Difference & diversity • Culture represents “the social meanings and transmitted knowledge, values, beliefs and customs in a given society”(Sargent et al 1997) • Ethical human services practice requires respect for different cultural and linguistic backgrounds • Respect and knowledge of the culture and history of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people • Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people • People with disabilities • Young people, older people • Stigmatised groups – eg drug users, mentally ill, former prisoners

4. Issues related to difference • Migration and refugees – escaping torture/trauma • Loss of support systems and income • New language, difficulties in making social connections • Ethnocentrism = the tendency to perceive your culture as the norm • Cultural awareness and knowledge is important for workers in human services • Stigma leads to inequality in service delivery for disadvantaged groups

5. Indigenous Australians • Oppression and exploitation due to colonisation and subsequent genocide marginalisation, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence (Young 1990) • Leading to poverty, low employment, poor education outcomes, high rates of preventable diseases, high incidence of chronic diseases, low life expectancy, violence, and alcohol and drug abuse • The legacy of colonisation remains - on every social indicator, Indigenous Australians fall well below the national average (Briskman, 2003:94).

6. Focus on Indigenous Australians • Violence against Indigenous Australians is compounded by discrimination on grounds of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social status, class and age. Multiple discrimination further restricts choices and increases vulnerability to violence (Amnesty International, 2001) • The impact of personal, family and community disintegration in many Aboriginal societies, enacted by missions, statutes and regulations, and State and Commonwealth policies, is still being realised today • Continued by policies such as ” The Intervention” (NT Emergency Response), now “Stronger Futures” which involve coercive and disempowering policies such as income management

7. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research & Indigenous Peoples • Imperialism and colonialism brought complete disorder to colonised people, disconnecting them from their histories, their landscapes, their languages, their social relations and their own ways of thinking, feeling and interacting with the world....(Smith, 2005:28 quoting Fanon) • The negation of indigenous views of history was a critical part of asserting colonial ideology… mostly because they challenged and resisted colonization (Smith, 2005:29). • It is absolutely crucial that we are all aware of these processes and contest this version of history.

8. Framework ‘Indigenous people across the world have other stories to tell… an alternative story; the history of Western research through the eyes of the colonised’(Smith, 2005:2). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous 5 Steps) 1 Celebrating survival: “While most research has been intent on documenting the demise and cultural assimilation of indigenous peoples, celebrating survival accentuates not so much our demise but the degree to which indigenous peoples and communities have successfully retained cultural and spiritual values and authenticity” (Smith, 2005:145) 2 Remembering: “The remembering of people relates not so much to an idealised remembering of a golden past but more specifically to the remembering of a painful past and importantly, people’s responses to that pain…. This form of remembering is painful because it involves remembering not just what colonisation was about but what being dehumanised meant to our own cultural practices.” (Smith, 2005:146).

9. 3 Intervening: Intervening means literally the process of being proactive and of becoming involved as an interested worker for change (Smith, 2005:147) 4 Envisioning: ‘I have a dream’ (Martin Luther King). One of the strategies which indigenous people have employed effectively to bind people together politically is a strategy which asks that people imagine a future, that they rise above the present day situations which are generally depressing, dream a new dream and set a new vision (Smith, 2005:152) 5 Reframing: Occurs within the way indigenous people write or engage with theories and accounts of what it means to be indigenous… (Smith, 2005:145).

10. Principles of anti-oppressive practice • a) Consultation, social change, reflection • b) Participation, empowerment, intervention • c) Empowerment, working in partnerships, minimal intervention • d) Intervention, reflection, evaluation

11. Practice contexts • Anti-oppressive practice focuses on both individual and system changes to oppression • Empowerment; partnerships with clients; minimal intervention • Acknowledging and honouring people with lived experience

12. Practice Approaches • Ethno-sensitive practice • Awareness of generational problems and solutions, focus on present • Ethnicity and culture is a source of cohesion, identity and strength • Social class and context very important, avoidance of stigmatising language

13. Anti Oppressive Practice • ‘… Workers must address their lack of knowledge of the processes and experience of colonialism, and work conscientiously to counter the effects of colonialism, not practising from a colonialist perspective (Ife, 2001 quoted in Briskman, 2003:99). • Advocating a decolonising approach to practice requires workers in the community services sector to recognise their race privilege, to validate indigenous wisdom and to adopt a professional approach that acknowledges Indigenous rights (Briskman, 2003:92).

14. Conclusion Recognise and understand as much as you possibly can about how inequality and discrimination come about. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. 'Silence is the language of complicity... Speaking out is the language of change' (Betty Green (Quoted in McLellan, 2010:217)

15. References • Amnesty International, (2001) Broken Bodies Shattered Minds Torture and Ill Treatment of Women, Amnesty International Publications, London. • Bennett, B et al (2012) Our Voices: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Work Palgrave Macmillan • Briskman,L (2003) ‘Indigenous Australians: Towards postcolonial social work’, Chapter 6 in Allan,J, Pease,B and Briskman,L (eds) Critical Social Work: An Introduction to Theories and Practices, Allen and Unwin. • deVries,N, Macdonald,G, Mears,J, Nettheim,A (2012) One Life, Two Stories, University of Sydney Press. • Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, (1997) Bringing Them Home, HREOC, Canberra. • Memmott, P., Stacy, R., Chambers, C. & Keys, C. (2001), Violence in Indigenous Communities: Full Report, Crime Prevention Branch, Attorney-Generals Dept, Canberra. • Memmott, P, Chambers, C, Go-Sam,C, Thompson,L (2006) Good Practice in Indigenous Family Violence Prevention-Designing and Evaluating Successful Programs, Issues Paper 11 Australian Family and Domestic Violence Clearinghouse • Muller,L (2014) A Theory for Indigenous Australian Health and Human Service Work Connecting Indigenous knowledge and practice • Queensland Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy and Development (2000), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Task Force on Violence Report • Sargent,M, Nilan,P and Winter,G (1997) The New Sociology for Australians, Melbourne: Longman. • TuhiwaiSmith,L (2005) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, Zed Books and University of Otago Press, Dunedin.