Whatever happened to ‘antioppressive practice’?
A fleeting thought which led to an off-the-cuff tweet has got me thinking a lot about what I perceive to be a waning in the social work discourse of terms like 'antioppressive’, 'antidiscriminatory' and, by extension, ‘oppression’ and, to an arguably lesser but still significant degree, 'social justice’. (On which, see my previous blog.)
Such terms were, I believe, commonly used in social work in the past, and seen as cornerstones of good social work.
The tweet received responses that either recognised or questioned this perceived waning as an issue, which is interesting in itself. These responses prompted me to write a thread about why I had tweeted the question in the first place but it quickly grew so I thought it better put down here. Please be aware that the following is just me working through some stuff as the basis of discussion and shouldn’t be taken as a developed argument. Here’s the thread:
Based purely on my own experiences & subjective interpretations of course, but as a practitioner, practice educator and observer of social work developments I detect relatively little mention of AOP, ADP etc in current social work debates domestically.
What I do detect is an increased focus on terms and concepts like 'relationships’, 'compassion’, 'awareness' - all of course valuable but I do wonder if it’s also breaking down social work practice into its constituent parts and if so whether this might not be as helpful as hoped.
I say this because I think AOP requires all of the above, and a lot more besides — political/structural analysis not least among them.
My concern about this — if it is a thing — is that, by emphasizing particular ways of doing social work, or suggesting that social work is in some way simply about, for example, relationships, awareness or compassion we might be in danger of reducing social work to a series of discreet tasks/modes/concerns — a kind of 'dumbed down’, by-numbers approach that belies the synthesis of multiple facets that enables us to work in increasingly complex contexts.
For example, what might the risks be of focusing on relationships but not admitting structural analysis into social work with marginalised groups? How does a depoliticised ‘systemic’ approach promote social justice?
And it’s in these increasingly complex contexts we very often find the multiple, intersecting impacts of politically-mandated poverty. Which is to say, antioppressive practice is needed as much now as ever. Which is why I’m surprised it’s not more frequently and explicitly invoked in everyday practice and discourse.
I suppose my point is that I believe AOP has to be the basis of all social work because essentially, in order to respond properly to specific groups/contexts, AOP is whatever it needs to be to be part of the change that’s needed at that time, in that context. Which is really what social work is/should be.
Which means, particularly in the contemporary context of increasing poverty and inequality, we should be talking about oppression/antioppressive practice all the time!
Why should we be explicit about AOP? Reflecting on my early, pre-qualifying days as a community mental health worker I think I was working — or attempting to work — antioppressively even back then, though didn’t have the language to articulate it or the correct tools to do it properly or even the comfort of knowing that AOP was an actual thing that people did and talked about and developed.
A small-scale, everyday example of my AOP was my consistent critique and challenge of something called ‘job rota' which was a long standing regime in the residential mental health rehab facility where I worked, involving getting people with severe and enduring mental health issues out of bed every morning to clean the building, under the guise of 'developing independent living skills’. Wrong for all sorts of reasons which I won’t detail here, not least because it will reignite the race and indignation I felt about this example of institutional oppression.
Cut a long story short: I campaigned vociferously and vocally (moaned and complained and reasoned) incessantly for years and eventually job rota ended up where it belonged — in the bin — replaced after consultation with the people we supported by an optional 'have some breakfast, read the papers and plan your day' group.
I think part of the success was winning over individuals in the team one by one through reasoned appeals to justice. Or I just wore them down. But we got there. And it took its toll on me emotionally. I often felt alone, sidelined and frustrated because I was the naysayer, the problematizer.
Had I known what AOP was I might have researched it and found more effective, healthier and positive ways of achieving the goal. That’s why I think it’s important to talk about oppression and AOP.
I note with interest that BASW’s poverty aware practice guide makes no mention whatever of oppression or discrimination, or any other form of those, or of AOP or ADP, which I find surprising because surely anti-poverty practice is by it’s very nature antioppressive practice?
The guide does mention (social) justice a few times. If the idea is to reframe AOP, ADP as ‘pro-justice practice' I can see the appeal in that, being a more positive framing, but I also worry that it would constitute a move away from radical resistance which requires us to identify, examine, expose and address the roots and enablers of injustice.
Are we moving away from using terms like oppression, discrimination, antioppressive, antidiscriminatory and so on because they are politically loaded and therefore a bit scary? If so, that in itself is a worry and would certainly chime with my view that certain aspects of current social work reform constitute a concerted effort to depoliticize the profession.
It could also be that we take it as given that antioppressive approaches are woven through what we do, have become mainstream (interesting paper on that here) . Or maybe it’s just me not paying attention to the right things. Whatever the case, when it comes to AOP, I’m going to make a conscious effort to own it, name it and in doing so (re)claim it as the beating heart of my practice.
