Rupaleem Bhuyan

“Women Must Endure According to Their Karma” Cambodian Immigrant Women Talk About Domestic Violence

Asian populations living in the United States share similar cultural values that influence their experiences with domestic violence. However, it is critical to recognize how differential cultural beliefs in the context of immigration and adjustment to life in the United States affect attitudes, interpretations, and response to domestic violence. This article discusses findings from community-based participatory action research that explores how Cambodian immigrant women talk about domestic violence, what forms of abuse contribute to domestic violence, and what strategies they use to cope with and respond to abuse in their lives. The richness of this research lies in the stories that immigrant women tell about their struggle and their strength in addressing domestic violence.

Participatory Action Research in Practice A Case Study in Addressing Domestic Violence in Nine Cultural Communities

Participatory action research (PAR) is increasingly recognized as a viable approach to developing relationships with communities and working closely with them to address complex public health problems. In the case of domestic violence research, where ensuring the safety of women participants who are battered is paramount, participatory approaches to research that include advocates and women who are battered in research design, implementation, analysis, and dissemination are critical to successful and mutually beneficial projects. This article presents a case study of a PAR project that conducted formative qualitative research on domestic violence in nine ethnic and sexual minority communities. The article describes the specific ways in which a PAR approach was operationalized and discusses in detail how community participation shaped various stages of the research. Furthermore, specific actions that resulted from the research project are reported.

Understanding Domestic Violence Resource Utilization and Survivor Solutions Among Immigrant and Refugee Women Introduction to the Special Issue

Domestic violence (DV) is a pervasive problem affecting cultural, ethnic and economic groups worldwide (Greenfield et al., 1998; Wilt & Olson, 1996). Although DV affects women across differences by race, ethnicity, and class, scholarship with immigrant and refugee women has demonstrated that cultural factors related to language, religious beliefs, traditional help-seeking behavior, composite of social networks, and degrees of acculturation all influence how a woman who is abused by her partner will respond (Abraham, 2000; Bui, 2003; Yoshihama, 2001). In general, immigrants vary in their history of immigration, social status in the United States, and changes to cultural practices within their communities. In the context of abuse, structural factors—including financial resources, social support, availability of culturally

Negotiating within Whiteness in Cross-Cultural Clinical Encounters

Despite awareness in social work and related literatures that sociocultural power dynamics are reproduced in practice, there is little research on how whiteness manifests as an oppressive discourse in clinical settings. This article analyzes audio-recorded therapy sessions between white therapists and racialized immigrant clients from an urban community mental health center in Canada to explore the ways in which whiteness shapes clinical encounters. Using poststructural theories of discourse and conversation analysis, the authors examine how discursive strategies that therapists and clients use in therapy sessions produce and reify whiteness as a prominent feature of cross-cultural communication. The findings illustrate how therapists maintain whiteness as an unmarked norm in their assessment of individual development and the family life cycle and how clients respond to, negotiate with, and resist whiteness, which positions them as subordinate others in Canada. The authors conclude with a discussion of implications for practice and future research.

Constructions of migrant rights in Canada: is subnational citizenship possible?

Devolutionary trends in immigration and social welfare policy have enabled different levels of government to define membership and confer rights to people residing within the political boundary of a province or municipality in ways that may contradict federal legal status. Drawing upon theories of postnational and deterritorialized citizenship, we examined the legal construction of social rights within federal, provincial, and municipal law in Toronto, Ontario. The study of these different policy arenas focuses on rights related to education, access to safety and police protection, and income assistance. Our analysis suggests that the interplay of intra-governmental laws produces an uneven terrain of social rights for people with precarious status. We argue that while provincial and municipal governments may rhetorically seek to advance the social rights of all people living within their territorial boundaries, program and funding guidelines ensure that national practices of market citizenship and the policing of non-citizen subjects are reproduced at local levels.

Whom Should We Serve? A Discourse Analysis of Social Workers’ Commentary on Undocumented Immigrants

We present a discourse analysis of social work practitioners’ commentaries on undocumented immigrants that were collected from a survey of practicing social workers’ attitudes toward immigration and immigrants. Analyzing 198 open-ended comments, we explore the discursive mechanisms practitioners employ to construct undocumented immigrants, and their professional responsibilities toward them. These views are illustrative of the ways in which the profession determines inclusion and exclusion, writ large in national immigration policies and laws and played out in the arenas of social work and social services. Disparate views of practitioners highlight tensions in the professions relationships to law and social policies as well as to its own ethics and identity.

Social workers’ perspectives on social justice in social work education: when mainstreaming social justice masks structural inequalities

Abstract This paper presents findings from an exploratory study with Master of Social Work (MSW) graduates in Canada to explore the extent to which their classroom and practicum learning addressed social justice and anti-oppressive practice. Thirty-five MSW graduates took part in a semi-structured online survey regarding the quality of social justice knowledge and practice skills in their field instruction and coursework. The survey also examined how graduates employ social justice in their current social work practice. The majority of the study sample reported favorable educational outcomes and embraced social justice goals in their current practice. Discourse analysis of written comments, however, identified a disconnect between social justice theory, field education, and the overall climate of the social work program. Despite an explicit endorsement of social justice values by the program and the profession, graduates reported limited opportunities to learn anti-oppressive practice or apply social justice theories in their field education. We argue that the ‘hidden curriculum’ in social work education reflects market pressures that privilege task-oriented goals while ‘mainstreaming’ social justice rhetoric. Skills to confront oppression with transformative change are viewed as abstract goals and thus less useful than clinical practice.

Rise Up: Learning From Today’s Social Movements

Teenage survivors of mass shootings organizing to ban assault weapons. Undocumented youth and their parents chaining their arms to delay deportation buses. Black leaders taking to the streets to challenge police/state violence. College students demanding safety from rape and sexual assault. Indigenous communities across Turtle Island calling for protection and healing for their communities and for the natural resources of the Creator. So many people who are directly impacted by violence—structural, symbolic, and interpersonal—are outraged and with the speed of a tweet, Instagram post, or Facebook feed are sharing their pain to mobilize thousands upon thousands for social change. Parents, siblings, and friends are refusing to be silent; their unbridled anger, fear, sadness, and outrage calling us to attention: #idlenomore #BlackLivesMatter #MeToo #NoMore #Neveragain. As a feminist social work educator and scholar, I have been deeply moved by the outrage and the pain. This emotion is powerful. As feminist, queer theorist Sara Ahmed (2017) suggests, “emotions are a resource; we draw on them” (p. 246), to understand, to make meaning, and to mobilize. At this time of social movement, how will we draw upon this outrage in our social work practice? What can we learn from these movements and what role can individual social workers or the profession as a whole play to bring out the change this outrage seeks? I take seriously the responsibility to bring social movements into the classroom—to examine current social problems and to encourage students to connect their social work practice to processes that bring about transformative change. Echoing Chandler’s (2018) call, “to model courage,” we must mentor progressive, feminist social workers to become future leaders who engage

From One “Dragon Sleigh” to Another Advocating for Immigrant Women Facing Violence in Kansas

This article presents the results of a study with providers of domestic violence and sexual assault services in Kansas. In recent years, the changing demographics of the U.S. Midwest have required community-based organizations to adapt their services quickly to “new” immigrant populations, many of whom are Spanish speaking and perceived as “illegal” and thus face numerous barriers to accessing services. We examine how intersecting and interlocking oppressions shape the delivery of services to immigrant women who are facing violence and discuss what strategies advocates use to support women’s safety and self-determination in an intense and at times hostile anti-immigrant environment.

Feminism in These Dangerous Times

At this pivotal time for Affilia, we first give thanks to the journal’s outgoing editors in chief, Dr. Noël Busch-Armendariz and Dr. Deb Ortega, for their peerless leadership during a period of growth and rising impact for the journal. Among their many accomplishments was the establishment of the consulting board of editors, an expansion of the existing editorial board structure that allowed the journal to effectively manage the volume of submissions which doubled during their tenure. Perhaps more importantly, the addition of new consulting board members widened the breadth of contentspecific knowledge within the board structure while ensuring that feminist principles in social work guided the review of manuscript. With the able support of associate editor Dr. Susan Chandler and editorial assistants Lindsay Morris, Karin Wachter, and Laurie Cook Heffron, they established a well-ordered system that resulted in both a more timely and rigorous peer-review process. Their success in upholding the journal’s commitment to feminist leadership was demonstrated in their steadfast provision of collaborative mentorship to junior and mid-career feminist scholars as well as the creation of the Distinguished Feminist Scholarship and Praxis in Social Work Award to focus well-deserved attention to excellence in feminist scholarship. Last and not least, the powerful, topical editorials they generated issue after issue challenged us to expand the limits of feminist praxis. We will sincerely miss their collective wisdom and unfailing comradeship.