Intersectionality for Social Workers

A Practical Introduction to Theory and Practice

Claudia Bernard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780429884160
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Travail social

This book explores how intersectionality theory can be applied to social work practice with children and families, older people and mental health service users, and used to engage with diversity and difference in social work education and research.

With case-study examples and practice questions throughout, the book provides a model for integrating intersectionality theory into social work practice. It highlights the ways intersectional theory helps us to understand the complexities of working with the interlocking nature of problematised elements such as gender, race, class, sexuality, disability, and other axes of structural inequalities experienced by groups in subjugated social locations. Intersectionality is used to examine multiple forms of inequalities and the complexities and questions they give rise to in social work practice. The emphasis throughout is that intersectional approaches can open up social work practice to new understandings of the complex linkages of multiple and intersecting systems of oppression that shape the lived experiences of diverse groups of service users.

Providing an introduction to an intersectional theoretical framework for understanding the lives and experiences of socially disadvantaged service users, Intersectionality for Social Workers will be required reading on all modules on anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice, sociology, and ethics and values in social work.

1Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9780429467288-1

This book explores how an intersectional theoretical perspective can be used in social work education and practice to engage with diversity and difference. It highlights the contributions that intersectional theory can make to help us understand the complexities of working with the interlocking nature of problematised elements such as gender, race, class, sexuality, disability, and other axes of structural inequalities experienced by groups in subjugated social locations. Intersectionality is used as a means to examine multiple forms of inequalities and the complexities and questions they give rise to in social work practice. The emphasis throughout is that intersectional approaches can open up social work practice to new understandings of the complex linkages of multiple and intersecting systems of oppression that shape the lived experiences of diverse groups of service users. Central to an intersectional perspective is its capacity for developing alternative epistemologies to make us think in new ways about how the oppressed and discriminated against are impacted by the overlapping nature of forms of oppression in their particular social contexts (Hill Collins 1990; Yuval-Davis 2006a; Yuval-Davis 2006b). An important feature of an intersectional approach to social work is that it offers an alternative lens through which to examine how contexts of oppression underlie the social problems that social workers have to respond to in welfare interventions (Murphy et al. 2009). My goal in this book is to therefore provide a basic introduction of an intersectional theoretical framework for understanding the lives and experiences of socially disadvantaged service users.

In this introductory chapter, I set the scene by laying out the broad scope of the text. Opening with a brief outline of key terms and concepts, it will provide an overview of the range of issues that will be discussed and will also detail the common themes running through the book, namely the use of intersectionality and anti-oppressive practice in social work. In particular, this introductory chapter will articulate some of the key themes and practice issues in social work to illuminate how the book will offer relevant insights.

Intersectionality

Intersectionality, a term first coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (Crenshaw 1989; 1991), is a theoretical tool with its roots firmly anchored in black feminist thought and critical race theory that has primarily sought to interrogate the interacting layers of various systems of oppression that affect the lived experiences of black women. The central tenet of an intersectional theoretical perspective is that it provides the analytical tools to conceptualise how multiple categories of difference intersect and interplay in a context of social relations of power, which advances understanding of how divergent groups may experience oppression differently. A number of intersectional feminist scholars from a range of disciplines have elaborated the ways in which intersectionality is key to analysing multiple social categories of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, nationality, age, disability, and other markers of identity interplay to structure the relational and contextual nature of black women’s lived experiences (Alexander-Floyd and Nikol 2012; Anthias 2001; Brah and Phoenix 2004; Hill Collins 1990; hooks 1984; King 1988; Lewis 2013; Rodgers 2017). According to Yuval-Davis (2006a), intersectionality allows for the examination of the interlocking nature of gender, race, class, sexuality, disability, and other social divisions for marginalised groups in oppressed social locations. In recent years the language of intersectionality is now widely used by scholars, researchers, and activists in different fields and disciplines as an organising and political tool to identify and call into question social inequities and analyses of difference (Bilge 2013; Emejulu and Mü gge 2018; Hill Collins 2015; Hill Collins and Bilge 2016; Jordan-Zachery 2007; Kantola and Nousiainen 2009; Kanyeredzi 2018; McCall 2005; Mehrotra 2010; Mirza 2015; Nayak and Robbins 2018; Prins 2006; Yuval-Davis 2006b).

Why a book about intersectionality and social work?

In the field of social work, there is a growing body of literature using intersectionality as a framework to harness the values of social justice and human rights perspectives, thus a number of scholars have applied intersectionality to a wide range of practice, policy, and research debates (Barretti 2015; Bubar et al. 2016; Busche et al. 2012; Fong 2004; Gunn et al. 2016; Hicks 2015 Mantovani and Thomas 2014; Mattsson 2014; Mehrotra 2010; Murphy et al. 2009; Nayak and Robbins 2018). In particular, critical race scholars have used an intersectionality orientation to underscore the importance of race in social work and, most importantly, for probing the multidimensional facets of marginalised racial, ethnic, and religious groups’ experience of social work (Badwall 2016; Barn and Sidhu 2004; Bernard 2019; Bhatti-Sinclair 2011; Bhui 2002; Dalrymple and Burke 2006; Dominelli 1988; Lavelette and Penketh 2014; Okitikpi and Aymer 2010; Robinson et al. 2011; Williams 1999; Williams and Johnson 2010). Feminist scholars in social work have drawn on the explanatory power of intersectionality for elucidating the gender aspects that underlie much social work practice with families and especially to foreground the mother-blaming discourses that pervade much of social work thinking and practice (Bernard 2013; Davis and Gentlewarrior 2015; Dominelli and McLeod 1989; Turner and Maschi 2015; Krumer-Nevo and Komem 2015; Wendt and Moulding 2017).

This book emerges from the increasing recognition that there is a need for perspectives that can provide insight into how sources of oppression interact for a nuanced understanding of the diversity of issues that social workers have to grapple with. Because of demographic changes, the UK population has become more racially, ethnically, and religiously diverse, so it has become imperative that social workers are able to understand the complexity of the lived experiences of the individuals, groups, and communities they work with. Most notably, this racially and culturally diverse population includes families and groups of varying races and ethnicities who have recently migrated from different countries in Africa and Asia, and second and third generation British-born children of Caribbean, African, and Asian descent (many of whom are of mixed heritage), as well as newly arrived migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, among other places. It should also be noted that in Britain, ‘Muslims belong to a diverse range of ethnic and national groups, including Afghan, Arab, Iranian, Indian, Kosovan, Kurdish, Turkish and Somalian communities’ (Garland et al. 2006, 427). It is certainly the case that diversity issues are much more complex and multifaceted as migrants come from more diverse national, ethnic, linguistic, and religious backgrounds, have more varied legal statuses, and bring a wide array of human capital in terms of education, work skills, and experience (Boccagni 2015; Foner et al. 2017; Geldof 2016; Van Robaeys et al. 2018). To be sure, because of the heterogeneity of the minority ethnic groups, their needs will be highly differentiated, resulting most notably in a highly complex range of social work issues to address in contemporary practice. What is more important, however, is that with the increasing demographic diversity of service users in the UK, the challenges that social workers have to confront in practice in making complex decisions with significant legal, ethical, and value-based dimensions have become much more complicated. As Williams and Mikola (2018) point out, with the diverse demographics of racial minorities there are significant challenges for social work practice.

In various domains of social work, a number of key scholars have used intersectionality to draw attention to the ways in which mutually reinforcing systems of structural and situational inequalities impact service users’ experiences of social work and, above all, the way that needs and problems are conceptualised for black and minority ethnic groups. A case in point is in the field of child and family social work where there has been growing attention paid to emergent forms of abuse and harmful behaviours that call into question different childrearing practices. For example, abuse linked to faith and beliefs, such as FGM, honour-based violence, and forced marriage (Costello et al. 2015; Gupta, 2016); witchcraft or spirit possession (Briggs et al. 2011; DfE 2012; Tedam 2016; Tedam and Adjoa 2017); gangassociated physical and sexual violence (Beckett et al. 2013; Firmin 2018; Pearce 2014; Pitts 2013); human trafficking or sexual exploitation (Stobart 2006; Bokhari 2008); and unaccompanied minors at risk of human rights violations (Westwood 2016) to name but a few. In other practice settings, scholars employing tenets of intersectionality have explored mental health debates (Barn 2008; Fernando 2003; Fernando and Keating 2009; Keating 2016); to articulate emancipatory approaches to study disability (Campbell 2014; Carr 2014); to stimulate debates about older people, ageing and the life course perspectives (Chaney 2011; Calasanti and King 2015; Cuesta and Rämgård 2016; Duffy 2017; King et al. 2019; Hafford-Letchfield 2013; Rajan-Rankin 2018; Torres 2019; Wilkens 2019). Additionally, it is now increasingly recognised by scholars that social workers must acknowledge the significance of the role of faith, spirituality, and religion for black and minority ethnic groups accessing social work support (Crisp 2017; Dinham 2018; Hodge 2017; Holloway and Moss 2010; Furness and Gillian 2014; Pentaris 2012).

What becomes clear is that the complex multidimensional issues affecting diverse populations result in social workers delivering services to a much broader range of service users than previously. Thus, put simply, we can see the increased relevance of intersectionality perspectives for social work particularly at a theoretical, methodological, and practice level. In other words, there is a need for theoretical frameworks like intersectionality that can help disentangle the interplay of the multiplicity of injustices borne of inequalities that bring minority groups and families from diverse racial and cultural backgrounds into the social welfare system in the UK. Intersectionality thus has the potential to enrich social work theory and practice and this book will therefore offer a new angle on an important theoretical perspective to social work in the UK. Perhaps more importantly, intersectionality allows us to delineate the contextual, social, and environmental factors that affect service users’ lives and offers a framework for developing strengths-based practice. While this book refers to and references the body of work being undertaken internationally, its focus is on the way that intersectionality can inform social work practice in the UK.

Overview of the book

The book is organised in three sections. The first traces the historical development of intersectionality theory to consider its relevance for contemporary social work in the UK. The second explores applications of intersectionality theory for social work interventions in different practice situations, with chapters focusing on children and families, adult services, and mental health. The final section focuses on social work education to consider the teaching and learning of intersectional theory and its utility as an analytical tool in social work research. A key feature of the book is its blending of theory, case studies, reflective questions, and chapter summary questions, to illustrate how an intersectional perspective can be applied to interventions grounded in social justice values and principles.

The book is made up of eight chapters. In Chapter 2, I begin by mapping an historical overview of intersectionality, to trace its development from critical race feminism, and its particular use by US scholars, to provide a contextual backdrop for the theory. The chapter will discuss the emergence of the term intersectionality and summarises the core tenets of the theory. It will also set out the different perspectives of intersectionality and consider the competing ideas as to whether it is a theory, a framework, a model, a method, a metaphor, or a paradigm. Additionally, this chapter looks at feminist critiques of intersectionality. The criticism often levelled at intersectionality is of its open-ended nature; thus, it is often misapplied or misu...