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Revisiting Empowerment Through Critical Praxis: Perspectives of Front-Line Workers Supporting Refugee Women Experiencing Gendered Violence in Australia.
- Source :
- Affilia: Feminist Inquiry in Social Work; May2024, Vol. 39 Issue 2, p245-264, 20p
- Publication Year :
- 2024
-
Abstract
- 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- IMMIGRANTS
MELANESIANS
SELF-efficacy
SOCIAL justice
QUALITATIVE research
BRITISH people
RESEARCH funding
INTERVIEWING
SUDANESE
SOCIAL worker attitudes
PSYCHOLOGY of women
JUDGMENT sampling
PORTUGUESE people
GHANAIANS
LEBANESE
DESCRIPTIVE statistics
INTERSECTIONALITY
CHILEANS
ITALIANS
BOSNIANS
SERBS
BRAZILIANS
THEMATIC analysis
RESEARCH methodology
BANGLADESHIS
IRAQIS
SOCIAL support
IRANIANS
INDIANS (Asians)
DATA analysis software
REFUGEES
GENDER-based violence
ETHIOPIANS
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 08861099
- Volume :
- 39
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Affilia: Feminist Inquiry in Social Work
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 176930089
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1177/08861099231186199