Charlotte Burck

Living in several languages: Language, gender and identities

Living in several languages encompasses experiencing and constructing oneself differently in each language. The research study on which this article is based takes an intersectional approach to explore insider accounts of the place of language speaking in individuals’ constructions of self, family relationships and the wider context. Twenty-four research interviews and five published autobiographies were analysed using grounded theory, narrative and discursive analysis. A major finding was that learning a new language inducted individuals into somewhat ‘stereotyped’ gendered discourses and power relations within the new language, while also enabling them to view themselves differently in the context of their first language. This embodied process could be challenging and often required reflection and discursive work to negotiate the dissimilarities, discontinuities and contradictions between languages and cultures. However, the participants generally claimed that their linguistic multiplicity generated creativity. Women and men used their language differences differently to ‘perform their gender’. This was particularly evident in language use within families, which involved gendered differences in the choice of language for parenting – despite the fact that both men and women experience their first languages as conveying intimacy in their relationships with their children. The article argues that the notion of ‘mother tongue’ (rather than ‘first language’) is unhelpful in this process as well as in considering the implications of living in several languages for systemic therapy.

INTRODUCTION: ‘DIALOGUES AND DEVELOPMENTS IN SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE: APPLYING SYSTEMIC AND PSYCHOANALYTIC IDEAS IN REAL WORLD CONTEXTS’

The papers that follow were presented as part of a day conference in November 2005 at which social work practitioners, managers and educators who had undertaken postqualifying training at the Tavistock Clinic sought to establish a dialogue between psychoanalytic and systemic ways of thinking and practising. Over the years there have been various efforts at creative exchange between these perspectives by social work theorists, of which Preston-Shoot and Agass (1990) is one of the best. But live dialogic encounters are less common, and the day provoked considerable interest and an atmosphere of thoughtful intensity. One of the paradoxes which emerged was the realisation that perhaps the internal organisational conversation between systematic and psychoanalytic perspectives within the Tavistock Clinic was less advanced than among those who attended the conference from multi-disciplinary ‘front line settings’. In other words, the guests turned out to have much to teach the hosts about how to throw a good party. In the current climate, when the principles of the welfare state are under threat and we face ever-increasing demands to measure our work in simplified ways, it is more crucial than ever to ensure that we can defend and sustain complexity. An important way to do so is through bringing a number of different perspectives to bear on our work. However, enabling creative dialogue between different perspectives is challenging in any circumstances. In times of uncertainty, many of us are prone to revert to familiar beliefs and practices as touchstones, or even as claims of identity. In such conditions we are less than receptive to others’ view and are most at risk of polarising our differences and taking up oppositional positions. Some years ago a research study was carried out in North America of groups working in research laboratories with the aim of exploring what factors contributed to the productivity and creativity of a team (Dunbar, 1995). The study found that teams which included members with different disciplines and perspectives were the most inventive and effective. It concluded that such diversity enabled a team to maintain curiosity about those occurrences which did not ‘fit’ with the dominant hypotheses and ideas and thus led to the development (discovery) of important new thinking. This idea of the usefulness of multiple perspectives is central to a systemic theoretical

Challenges and impossibilities of ‘standing alongside’ in an intolerable context: Learning from refugees and volunteers in the Calais camp:

This article describes the experience of setting up a psychosocial and therapeutic support project in the French Calais refugee camp, by a group of family therapists and clinical psychologists from the United Kingdom. This came about in response to reports of a humanitarian crisis unfolding on our doorstep, with the British government’s lack of support for the growing numbers of refugees gathering along the UK border with France. The project involved working alongside other agencies in the camp to provide psychosocial and resilience-based therapeutic support to unaccompanied young people, women, children and their families and also to many volunteers in the camp. The process of setting up the work is described, as well as the challenges and dilemmas of offering an intervention in extremely unsafe and insanitary conditions, where for most the experience of trauma was ongoing. The project was informed by systemic–narrative practice and community/liberation psychology, which incorporate the political and social context. A narrative framework offered a way of drawing on people’s strengths and resources, rooted in their cultural and social histories and helping them connect with preferred identities, which we found to be essential in the context of ongoing crisis.