Critical consciousness as foundation for social justice work

¶ … Social Justice

Which of these makes the most to you and why?

I chose three principles of social justice that I believe are foundational to the work, in that, each supports the constructs of structural violence and cultural violence. These principles are as follows: Understand how power works. Challenge our certainties. Confront questions of power. I don't believe that social justice work can occur without the deliberate cultivation of critical consciousness. In order to understand how power works, it is crucial to understand the structures that establish poverty for certain classes or groups of people, and to understand how cultural violence validates the rightness of the structural violence that occurs. A rational humanistic approach to the analysis of culture and society requires the ability to see power relations clearly and to be able to identify how the dynamics of power and authority can be influenced to promote social inclusion and equality of rights. Moreover, critical consciousness promotes the ability to understand how affinity for power and those in power serves to create fractured social relations, the maintenance of socially unjust structures, and promote the status quo.

Which of these makes the least sense to you & why?

I chose two principles of social justice work that I believe contribute the inherent limitation of the field of social work. Build and share leadership. Be cognizant of positionality. The idea of promoting and developing leadership only makes sense to me if it strongly yoked to the development of critical consciousness. Although this may be implicit, it is not stated in the description of the principle. The important distinction for me is that leadership must be built from outside the structural violence paradigm -- that is, it must occur as a result of critical consciousness. Moreover, sharing leadership with those who function within a socially unjust context is less likely to productive -- that is, bring about social change -- as sharing leadership with those who the capacity to speak truth to power or change the power relationships. I believe that there are certain general ways of being and interacting that are more impactful than placing positionality at the helm of interactions and transactions. Treating people with respect and regard does not take require an attitude of positionality, yet such behavior can be highly influential. While I do believe that awareness of the partiality of a personal world view is important, I prefer to frame it within critical theory as the practice of critical consciousness. Issues of gender, ethnicity, age, and race are all important in the dynamics of social justice, but they are more symptomatic than prescriptive. I think a focus on positionality can lead to a prescriptive way of working that treats every situation as unique to the point where any ability to impact the situation in a meaningful way gets watered down.

What principles of social justice work do these voices exemplify?

I think Healy (2005) articulates for the status quo, as a long-standing argument for avoiding substantive change is that the laws, or regulations, or power structures, or whatever, do not make it easy or do not permit. If we look to Freire, we can see how it change is accomplished -- there are many who would have said that the taking critical theory to the mat and teaching 300 Brazilian sugarcane workers to be literate in order to meet suffrage requirements in 45 days simply is not possible. I complete agree that social work must be politicized if it is not to continue to be marginalized. As Hooks, Fook, and Pozotto (2005) argue, serious engagement with postmodern critical theory is necessary if substantive social justice change is to occur. This requires the legitimization of personal and political struggles and, importantly, the establishment of an alternative social work discourse.