McGibbon, E. (2000). The “Situated Knowledge” of Helpers.

Study Notes: (IRS-I, 5 C’s, Situated Practice/Knowledge)

Situated Knowledge and Situated Practice

 What is “situated knowledge”?
 What is “situated practice? (to situate identity in practice) “I am not a racist” –
working with African Canadian clients.
 How does your identity situate you in your cohort? In your neighbourhood? In
the larger student body of Ryerson? How does you’re your social identity
position you when working with others (i.e. white woman with woman of
colour)?
 What are dominant ideologies?
 What happens when a client’s identity does not match that of the helper?
 What things are presented as “truth”? (common knowledge) (i.e. psychiatric
diagnosis, what constitutes child abuse?, what is democracy?) – whose truth?

Hierarchy of Situated Knowledge (IRS-I)

 Societal level: powers for dominance maintained according to preferred identities
 Institutional/systemic level: ideology of practice environment
 Relationship level: how identity situates when working with clients
 Individual level: social location

5 C’s
 Cross-cultural Practice – C-cP
 Client Socio-economic Status – CS-eS
 Culturally Sensitive Care – CSC
 Client/Patient Environment – C/PE
 Client/Patient Culture – C/PC

“Situated Practice”
Where we sit in the society, with our own social identity, and how we use this
knowledge, and social identity, in our practice.
Using your knowledge/awareness or your social identity within the practice by
being aware of the biases you carry.

“Situated Knowledge”
knowing or being aware of where you stand with your social identity.

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McKee, M. (2003). Excavating our frames of mind: The key to dialogue and
collaboration

Study Notes: (Nurse Story of Social Identity, frames of discrimination, Reflexivity)

Reflexivity:
“Continual consideration of how values, social differences and power alter
interactions between individuals.”

Social Identification:
What you are identified within the structure of the dominant culture of society
(ex. White, male, middle class, Euro-centric, Christian, etc.).

Frames:
We choose information selectively to build an ideological picture of how things
within the society.

Premise:
 What we see might not be everything.
 We choose to ignore change because it doesn’t fit our Frame & ideology.
 We choose facts selectively.
 Acknowledge your Social Identity.
 Be conscious about your particular beliefs, values, morals, etc.

Questions for critically reflexive practice:

 What assumptions am I making?

 What values (professional or personal) orient me?
 Is my understanding being framed by values and interests that are not really my
own, that I have assimilated uncritically?
 What feelings am I aware of in this situation?
 Does this situation remind me of one in my past?
 Are my feelings constraining my perception in this situation?
 How might someone whose gender, social location, or culture is different from
mine look at this?
 Is there an opposite way of looking at this or a way that I immediately respond to
negatively?
 Why do I feel threatened that I am challenged on this issue?
 What values or assumptions are being shaken?

“What we see when we see a case or problem is a product of our own ways of
looking.”

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Challenges
 May not want to see what we cannot see
 Easier to distort our own perceptions than change
 Preserve stability of our world (preserve privilege)
 Avoid sacrificing rewards of current arrangements

“Shifting frames”
 Suspend judgement
 Suspend ways of looking that orient us to our own world

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Sakamoto, I., & Pitner, R. O. (2005). Use of Critical Consciousness In Anti-
Oppressive Social Work Practice: Disentangling Power Dynamics at Personal and
Structural Levels

Definition: “Critical Consciousness is the process of continuously reflecting upon and

examining how our own biases, assumptions and cultural worldviews affect the ways we
perceive difference and power differences” (Pitner and Sakamoto)

Objective: to critically examine our own biases and prejudices to prevent imposing them
on others (service users)
–What are some ways this objective can be accomplished?

Critical Consciousness: reflect on your own biases in your practice in order to prevent
discrimination.

Yee Article

Whiteness

When the dominant culture is imposed on to the general public and institutions,
more broadly, the society, where it imposes euro-centrism to the point where we come to
see through the frames of the dominant culture.
[Whiteness (Euro-centric) Frames- this is how Social Workers shouldn’t look at
the society, people, and the world; because of its narrow minded, universal, perception of
the world.]

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Henry Article

Forms of Racism (Theoretical Perspective of Racism)

Individual:
“Individual racism has been defined as the attitude, belief, or opinion that one’s
own racial group has superior values, customs, and norms and, conversely, that other
racial groups possess inferior traits and attributes.” For example, ethnocentrism.
Racist attitudes remain as thoughts or behaviours.

Everyday Racism:
The small ways that racism is experienced by people of colour in their everyday
interaction with the dominant White group. This can be seen in glances, gestures, forms
of speech, and physical movements; unconscious or consciously manifested by the
dominant White group but felt by the person of colour. Example of this can be the empty
seat next to a person of colour, which is last to be occupied in a crowded bus; the slight
movement away from a person of colour in an elevator the inability to make direct eye
contact with a person of colour; the racist joke told at a meeting; and the ever-present,
inescapable question “Where are you from?”
Passive Racism: complicity with someone else’s racism. Laughing at a
humiliating joke… and “not hearing” others’ racist comments are passively racist acts.
Active Racism: all acts–consciously or unconsciously–emerge directly from the
motivation to exclude or to inferiorize Blacks (or other racial groups) because they are
Black (or a racial monority).

Institutional (Collectives & Organizations):

Institutional racism… is the policies, practices, and procedures of various
institutions, which may, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously/ unwittingly,
promote, sustain, or entrench differential advantage, power, or privilege people of certain
races. An Example can be the common practice of “word-of-mouth recruitment,” which
generally excludes racial minorities from the process.

Systemic:
Refers… to the laws, rules, and norms, woven into social systems that result in an
unequal distribution of economic, political, and social resources and rewards among
various racial groups. For example, Ghettoization of certain areas (for both institutional
and systemic racism).

Policies & practices Intentionally/unintentionally discriminatory

Woven into social systems

Cultural/Ideological

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 “Racism formulated as a set of values and ideas by socialization through cultural,
religious, institutional, systemic, mass mediated, or historical connotations. For example,
Anti Semitism.
Cultural Symbols
“Cultural Racism” (collective/mass beliefs woven into fabric of dominant culture)

Racism is embedded in our language, our writing, our speech, and within our culture.

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Williams Article

Racism – Implications for Social Services

•Indifference to impact culture (ethnicity, language, race)

•Popularising racism speak doesn’t consider historical context to understand present
situations
•4 processes of systemic racism in Mental Health Services
•Reduced, limited, or no access to care
•Inadequate care received
•Improper/inappropriate care (misdiagnosed, institutionalised) (perceived intellectual
inferiority)
•Assimilation required of clients to receive care (Language of service: English)

Racial and Ethnic Minorities More likely to receive improper and inappropriate care

• Stereotyping and misunderstanding

• More likely to be misdiagnosed
• More like to be institutionalized
• More dissatisfactaion of care (leading to drop-out) more distrust of system

• More negative evaluations of people of colour

• Asumptions of intellectual or psychological inferriority
• Pressumption

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AWID Article (Advocating for social justice through an active agenda)

Intersectionality

Different sets of identities impact on access to rights and opportunities…

Gender, race, skin colour, age, ethnicity, language, ancestry, sexual orientation, religion,
socio-economic class, ability, culture, geographic location, and status as a migrant,
indigenous person, refugee, internally displaced person, child, or a person living with
HIV/AIDS, in a conflict zone or under foreign occupation, combine to determine one’s
social location.

Intersectionality is an analytical tool for studying, understanding and responding to

the ways in which gender intersects with other identities and how these intersections
contribute to unique experiences of oppression and privilege.

People live multiple, layered identities derived from social relations, history and the
operation of structures of power.

People are members of more than one community at the same time, and can
simultaneously experience oppression and privilege (e.g. a woman may be a respected
medical professional yet suffer domestic violence in her home).

Intersectional analysis aims to reveal multiple identities, exposing the different types
of discrimination and disadvantage that occur as a consequence of the combination
of identities.

The experience of being lesbian, old, disabled, poor, Northern-based, and/or any number
of other identities, are unique and distinct identities and experiences.

Our objective is to understand and assess the impact of these converging

identities on opportunities and access to rights, and to see how policies, programs,
services and laws that impact on one aspect of our lives are inextricably linked to
others.

Women are sometimes excluded from jobs deemed more appropriate for men because of
their sex, and women may be excluded from jobs considered ‘women’s jobs’ because of
their race.

African-American women [and men] are subjected to racial discrimination in the U.S.A.
A middle class African-American university professor, however, does not experience the
same discrimination as a poor African-American woman/[man] who works as a cleaner in

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a nonunionized hotel.

Bograd Article, 1999

Intersectionality (the causes of domestic violence and family therapy)

“We exist in social contexts created by the intersections of systems of power (e.g. race,
class, gender and sexual orientation) and oppression (prejudice, class stratification,
gender, inequality, and heterosexist bias).” And because we exist in different contexts
and layers as well as belong to different communities and groups, we experience
intersectionality in many different ways. This means that domestic violence happens
because of many intersectional forces of discrimination on an individual or group, which
latter causes injury or harm to others because of the forces subverted on the individual or
group.

Challenging Despair - Jocelyn A. Hollander (2005)

The author talks about how the subject of violence and women, made all her
students feel down, pessimistic, and helpless about the reality and gravity of the situation.
She said that one in three women or 90% of women have gone through some type of
assault or violence. Though, giving all this information on violence against women

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issues, that is suppose to strengthen the feminist cause–in making people aware of the
critical reality of the situation–simply disempowers those they hope to empower; by
making women’s real strengths, and not the victims, invisible. But as she realized the
pros of the situation, she found that 75% women resist assault; showing the strength and
power women do have despite societies belief that women are vulnerable and won’t fight
back.
She also argues that resistance comes about, not only through physical means, but
also psychological measures as well. Victimization disempowers and only provides a
partial view of the reality of violence in women’s lives.

Integrating the Resistance theme (Definitions of Violence)

“Resistance is most obvious when it is physical, such as yelling, kicking, or
running away. But it can also be cognitive (as when women think about alternatives and
strategize how to stay safe) or emotional (as when women protect some core part of
themselves even if they choose to submit to an attack to protect themselves from injury)”
(Hollander, 2005, p. 779).

Guest Speaker
Philosophy of feminist self-defense: that women have the right to be safe and free,
that women are capable of protecting themselves, and that the heart of self-defense is the
belief that one is worth defending.
There are verbal self-defense techniques and physical self-defense techniques.
Self-defense involves a variety of strategies: emotional, verbal, and physical.
Physical defense is not always the best choice for self-defense.

The Role of the State – G. E. Galabuzi (2006)

• “Otherness” provides the dominant White culture with

unmarked, invisible privilege and power

• issues are deflecting in a way which suggests that these ”others”

threaten the democratic fabric of Canadian society

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 • there is a reassertion of individual rights and identity over
collective identityand group rights

Employment Equity

Canada has built a culture of tolerance towards immigrants that are visible
minorities but still maintain the status quo. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well
as the Multicultural Act are but some examples of immigrant tolerant policies.

Arresting the “Brain Waste”

Galabuzi argues that a key area to focus on eradicating structural racism within
the job market is by create state policies in professional regulators like the provincial
government. The author also argues that the point system is contradictory and limiting
itself. The author also criticizes the laissez-fare approach to the labour market. What
happens is that employers requires adaptability of it immigrant population while the point
system devalues that quality, while immigrants with university degrees are oftentimes the
ones who get into Canada, yet there are shortages of doctors, teachers, and construction
workers.

Addressing Unequal Access to Professions and Trades

There are some advances with pressure from the shortage of the medical and
educational sectors, labour-market competition, and employers for a revision on
credential recognition. The government has provisioned a credential agency that
investigates the value of education on a Canadian context but no ones obligated to adhere
or believe their claims; most do not. But in all, the author strives for Canada to leave the
laissez-fare state and be more active and that social change is necessary; to move from a
immigrant tolerant society to a real multicultural society.

Successful Anti-racism Strategies

• Raising race consciousness–addressing race as a social relation

• Reviewing policies and practices for racial bias and resistance

• Developing an anti-racism, anti-oppressive vision and programs

• Developing reflective skills and practices–challenging White

power and privilege, rhetoric and symbolism, deconstructing
everyday forms of racism in all walks of life

• Responding to allegations of racism in an organization

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• Empowering racialized groups and individuals–organizational
resources, legitimacy, expertise, leadership, political
representation, and representation in decision-making

• Monitoring anti-racism initiatives

• Emphasizing the role of institutions in combating racism

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