Catholic Social Thought and the Caring Professions

Abstract

Catholic social teaching provides a developed and consistent body of principles, based on solidarity with the full potential of every person. Love, the personal aspect of solidarity, is an indispensable relational quality. These principles, an external framework for action, are close to core social work values as well as to the values of many clients. They acknowledge both the context of the helping relationship and the consciences of the helper and the person helped. This could contribute to a thickening and deepening of our understanding of social work practice and the consequent “formation of the heart.” doi:10.1300/J377v26n03_05     

South Africa’s settler-colonial present: Khoisan revivalism and the question of indigeneity

ABSTRACT

South Africa’s settler-colonial past is widely acknowledged. And yet, commonplace understandings of the post-apartheid era and a focus on the end of segregation make an appraisal of settler colonialism in present-day South Africa difficult and controversial. Nonetheless, we argue that an understanding of South Africa’s “settler-colonial present” is urgent and needed. We suggest that settler colonialism as a specific mode of domination survives apartheid. In particular, we focus on the recent revival and political mobilisation of indigenous Khoisan identity and cultural heritage to show that settler colonialism and apartheid should be understood as distinct yet overlapping modes of domination. A settler-colonial mode of governance aiming at “the elimination of the native” in two interrelated domains, dispossession and transfer, characterises past and present South Africa. An understanding of this continuity offers opportunities for an original interpretation of both Khoisan revivalism and contemporary South African society.     

Immigration and Settler-Colonies Post-UNDRIP: Research and Policy Implications

It is now common to identify a policy convergence around migration which is eroding the longstanding distinction made in the migration literature between “traditional” countries of immigration (like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States) and other Western states. Taking the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as instructive, this article focusses on the case of Canada, arguing that its settler-colonial foundation has impacted and continues to impact three areas relevant to the comparative study of migration: 1) national discourse; 2) land and forms of social power; and 3) politics and forms of solidarity. The implications of settler-colonialism for the study of international migration are broader than the case of Canada and suggest the need to link considerations of Indigeneity systematically in migration studies, and to address the particularities of settler-colonial states in relation to other Northern states by being attuned to “divergence within convergence.”     

Aesthetics of disaster as decolonial aesthetics: making sense of the effects of Hurricane María through Puerto Rican contemporary art

ABSTRACT

On 20 September 2017, Hurricane María made landfall on Puerto Rico causing unprecedented disaster. From that day onwards, the Puerto Rican multi-layered colonial, social and political context was further complicated by the traumatic acceleration of a human disaster via this natural disaster. This crystalized the urgency of using art as vehicle for (social) catharsis, a practice that continues to be used by individual artists, collectives, community organizations, art projects, and other art institutions on the island and abroad, through mural art, community paintings, art exhibitions, literature, music, and many other aesthetic expressions. This article examines, from a decolonial and critical cultural studies perspective, post-Hurricane María artistic expressions in contemporary art as decolonial aesthetics through the cathartic use of the frame of an aesthetics of disaster. It is argued that, an aesthetics of disaster aims to re-assert an artistic form that is able to accelerate the discursive nullification of a deeply rooted colonial, social and cultural problem by way of art as catharsis inspired by the way that Hurricane María unveiled these problems. The piece briefly contextualizes Puerto Rico, and it examines the idea of Puerto Rican contemporary art as catharsis. Then, it describes how Puerto Rican contemporary art exhibitions and associated aesthetic production are processing urgent post-hurricane issues through three illustrative pieces in exhibitions in PR and abroad in the United States (US). Lastly, decolonial aesthetics is reexamined and re-understood, informed by Édouard Glissant's view expressed in Poetics of Relation which aids to the conclusion that Puerto Rican contemporary art using the frame of an aesthetics of disaster functions as a powerful form of decolonial aesthetics.     

Converging on food sovereignty: transnational peasant activism,pluriversality and counter-hegemony

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to debates on left-wing convergence by reflecting on the convergence of a diverse transnational peasant movement around a value of and demand for food sovereignty. It reads convergence on food sovereignty through the idea of pluriversality developed by decolonial theorists. In so doing, it argues, first, that a politics of pluriversality has been key in fostering convergence on food sovereignty. Second, it suggests that convergence on food sovereignty highlights possibilities for convergence at a theoretical level across hitherto opposed decolonial and counter-hegemonic positions.     

Keynote 2. Viewing Participants as Resources for One Another,Communities and Societies

Abstract

The new millennium has heralded fundamental shifts in our sense of security and solidarity. Systemic changes are warranted to restructure human relationships both within and between diverse communities. The call for establishing ‘resilient’ communities is becoming a common theme as governments worldwide struggle to maintain social cohesion. The primary purpose of this paper will be to advance the proposition that communities are strengthened economically and socially through the creation of strategic initiatives that foster the establishment and ongoing maintenance of intergenerational solidarity. Intergenerational solidarity is described as an effective vehicle for converting life into a dynamic learning laboratory with mutual benefits for individuals, groups and society. Ageist attitudes and aged-based stereotypes, particularly as applied to older adults and aging, are seen as a threat to intergenerational solidarity. The conventional solidarity model requires comparison and challenge from a framework that incorporates the possibility for negative tensions arising from intergenerational competition for scarce resources and services. A lifespan development perspective is offered as an effective means for viewing how socio-economic conditions and the policy agenda influence interactions between the generations. Core ingredients for developing and sustaining meaningful interaction between generations are proposed and a view of the future is given where aging and the social roles of older adults are transformed.     

Kashmir and Palestine: itineraries of (anti) colonial solidarity

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the itineraries of anti-colonial solidarity between India & Palestine and argues for placing Kashmir’s anti-colonial struggle for sovereignty in these itineraries. Examining routes of solidarity through transnational and translocal assemblages, the essay highlights the need for critical reflection on anti-colonial solidarity. The paper is also an argument for the need for anti-colonial solidarity with Kashmir and Palestine to take account of the context of contemporary geopolitical alliances within global capitalism, which indicates a (settler/post) colonial formation.     

Ventriloquism,racism and the politics of decoloniality in Ecuador

ABSTRACT

This article discusses two forms of discrimination against indigenous people: ventriloquism and open racism, and argues that a transition from paternalism to open intolerance has taken place in Ecuador in the context of governmental emphasis on natural resource extraction. Ventriloquism, when non-Indians speak for indigenous people, is analysed through the Sumak Kawsay (Good Living) policies of the government of Rafael Correa (2007–2017). Public racism is examined by looking at government repression against indigenous leaders and communities and Presidential speeches. The article concludes that the state’s ventriloquist and racist discourses and practices are equally rooted in the country’s colonial past. These findings are contrasted with the writings of scholars that have called the government of Mr. Correa decolonizing. The article examines the ways in which decolonial theorists informed and promoted the policies of this regime, and argues that decolonial scholars have been insufficiently self-critical and reflective of their own complicity with the state’s repressive project vis-à-vis indigenous communities.     

‘It is like being put through a blender’: inclusive research in practice in an Australian university

Abstract

How can university-based researchers committed to a position of solidarity with, and activism alongside, people with disabilities maintain such a stance in the metric-driven environment of the modern university? How can the academy ensure there is the opportunity for people with disabilities to contribute to production of the knowledge in which they have most at stake, in a wider environment where access to basic services for people with disabilities is precarious? In this article we draw on our experience as a team of university-based and community-based researchers with and without disabilities to reflect on these questions, using a framework of reflexive solidarity to consider practical strategies for strengthening the relationship between disability activism and the academy.     

解决巴以冲突的难点及其相关思考

综观历史和现状，解决巴以冲突的困难有的来自巴以内部，也有来自外部。通过梳理巴以冲突的历史脉络，作者提出了对解决问题的几点思考：希望各方把握大局，有紧迫感；美国真正能在巴以问题上发挥积极作用；双方选择切实可行的方案，付诸实践；巴勒斯坦内部的团结对达成和平协议至关重要。     

Without love there can be law but no justice

ABSTRACT

This special issue of Globalizations builds the case across a diverse group of papers that law is in need of decolonization, especially law systems structuring settler-colonial societies. This is because law's dispossessing character in these contexts is hidden by the prevalence of nomophilia; that is, an uncritical love of law for the neutrality and objectivity it self-proclaims to possess. The collection of papers for this special issue constitute a collective critique of colonial law and crime that does its part in disrupting law's empire of violence by tracking the legalized violence across the axes of class, race, gender, and sexuality. The popular expression of ‘fuck the law’ captured by Agozino in the leading paper of this issue establishes the context in which we make a call for the necessity of love to enter the realm of law as an urgent decolonizing praxis. Without love there can be law, but no justice.     

Building Solidarity Through Difference: A Practice Model for Critical Multicultural Organizing

ABSTRACT

Building solidarity is perhaps the most crucial, yet under-theorized, process in organizing for social change. Traditional models of union and neighborhood-based organizing associate solidarity with commonality, as opposed to difference. However, this traditional organizing model is being forced to adapt to an increasingly multicultural context, presenting a need for rethinking past practices and creating new frameworks for multicultural organizing. Theoretical work on the topic has been relatively detached from action on the ground, with few efforts to translate it into community organizing practice. This article develops a practice model for critical multicultural organizing drawing on a five-year qualitative, participatory evaluation of youth participation in grassroots community organizations. As well as offering insight into the efforts of young people to organize around neighborhood issues in largely low-income and racially diverse communities of color, the cases highlight inclusive practices that will help any organization become more sustainable and effective.     

Native American men-women,lesbians, two-spirits: Contemporary and historical perspectives

ABSTRACT

People living in the role of the “other” sex in Native American cultures, often entering into same-sex relationships, have been subject to various anthropological, historical, and psychological analyses and interpretations. Most recently, there has been a shift to an indigenist/decolonial interdisciplinary focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Native people. This article gives a discussion of approaches to the subject, with a focus on female gender variability. An overview is given of the latter, complemented by a discussion of the identities and concerns of contemporary Native lesbians, many of whom identify as “two-spirit,” a term that alludes to the dual, spiritually powerful nature traditionally attributed in a number of Native American cultures to individuals who combine the feminine and masculine.     

Enfleshing temporal insurgencies and decolonial times

ABSTRACT

Time and temporality often remain the unthought in our spaces, moments, and movements of radical political imagination and practice. In this contribution, we aim to open a dialogue between current queer/feminist/black/decolonial scholarship on time, and the praxis of feminist movements and women in movement in Cali, Colombia. We hope to nurture, in this way, a systematization of the role of decolonial times and insurgent temporalities in our anti-capitalist praxis and deepen the theorization of decolonial emancipation and/as healing. We develop this systematization through exploration of three moments of encounter; the first a women-only workshop ‘Finding Voice’, the second a workshop that was part of a diálogo de saberes between feminist/peace movements in the region, and the final a public talk-performance at the International Conference in Mental Health and Well-Being, all held in Cali. Exploration and excavation of these moments suggest-enflesh that embracing our untimely rhythms and that which is out-of-time in our subjectivities, excavating together the epistemological possibilities of silence and the pauses in-between speech, as well as reconfiguring ‘failure’ as a moment of possibility, open embodied pathways to decolonising and feminising the revolutionary political.     

The making and breaking of solidarity between unwaged and waged workers in the UK

ABSTRACT

This article explores in what way solidarity relationships are made and unmade between waged and un-waged workers in the UK. It thereby feeds into the broader discussion on the decline and future of trade unionism and new ways of organizing struggle. In particular, it engages with the literature on community unionism. Methodologically it draws on Participatory Action Research undertaken between 2013 and 2017 with 12 unwaged workers’ groups organizing outside of established trade unions. Conceptually the article challenges understandings of solidarity based on self-interest by emphasising its relational complexity. It argues for a concept of workers’ solidarity that is based on a broadened understanding of work but which at the same time goes beyond a common identity by paying attention to power-discrepancies and current inequalities. Through such a lens, solidarity is created through affective bonds and is based on a shared anger about injustice and a common desire for transformation.     

Kashmir and Palestine: archives of coloniality and solidarity

ABSTRACT

What features of contemporary coloniality emerge if we examine geopolitical alliances across settler and ‘post’ colonial contexts? What forms of solidarity become necessary in the context of these colonialities? Referencing the historical and contemporary features of the occupations of Kashmir & Palestine, the introduction to this special issue makes the case for naming the states of India and Israel as part of a contemporary geocolonial formation. Naming and framing require understanding present forms of coloniality and reflexive solidarity. The essays in this special issue form an archive of coloniality and solidarity through which the authors examine the minutiae of living and of dying, of assembling archives from below, and of building and decolonising solidarities across Kashmir & Palestine.     

Intersections of hate: Exploring the transecting dimensions of race,religion, gender,and family in Ku Klux Klan Web sites

ABSTRACT

The United States has a historical legacy of oppression and subjugation spanning an array of social locations, including class, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation and others. Contemporary research has documented a growth in themes of prejudice and racism present in popular media, such as the Internet. This study fills a gap in the literature by exploring Internet manifestations of a social group that has been historically organized around an ideology of intolerance, prejudice, and hatred: The Ku Klux Klan. Findings from an intersectional content analysis of KKK Web sites reveal that prejudice exists on multiple axes of hate. Major themes include emphases on white solidarity, the cult of Aryan Christianity, Aryan Klan masculinity and heteronormative nuclear family values. These dimensions intersect to create a complex picture of the Klan’s self-proclaimed social supremacy. Implications regarding the use of the Internet as a vehicle of hate are considered.     

SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS AND RACIAL GROUP INTERESTS AMONG BLACK AMERICANS

ABSTRACT

This study assesses predictions from the dominant ideology thesis and theory of group interest concerning the relationship between socioeconomic status and racial solidarity across three domains of racial ideology. Findings from a local area sample (N = 184) in Cleveland, Ohio, provide considerable support for the theory of group interest. Racial solidarity indicators, such as the perception of discrimination, transcend individual socioeconomic status in constructing a group-based racial viewpoint. Conversely, traditional measures of class position, such as income and education, fail to induce attitudinal variation across the analyzed domains, namely causal attributions, racial politics, and attitudes toward interracial intimacy. In fact, the subjective social class measure, occupational prestige, tends to promote differences favorable to racial solidarity. These findings undermine the long-established conclusion that increased socioeconomic status exerts a conservatizing influence over racially/ethnically-specific attitudes. The implications shed light on the extent to which racial worldviews exist and directions for future research are mentioned.     

Rural Arab Families Coping with Caregiving

SUMMARY

This research examines the coping patterns of the rural Arab family in caring for a chronically ill elderly relative. The Arab community in Israel is in transition as a result of modernization with changes occurring in the traditional family structure, family norms and living arrangements. This study was conceptualized within the framework of intergenerational solidarity versus ambivalence and utilized a qualitative approach based on the phenomenological paradigm. Data were collected from 10 family units with a chronically ill homebound elder, by means of in-depth interviews. Four people were selected from each unit including the elder, his/her spouse-the primary caregiver-and two other secondary caregivers, usually sons and daughters-in-law. The data indicate the uniqueness of coping patterns among these caregivers in regard to two main components, which are contradictory to findings in the family caregiving literature: differences in the gender of child caregivers and the family readiness to use assistance from formal support systems.     

Needed: a new international for a just transition and against fascism

ABSTRACT

We urgently need a new global solidarity movement, but it will not be shaped like the old ones, with failing solidarity when it is most needed or at the service of anti-imperialist regimes. What we need, urgently, is a global movement for a just transition, combining social and environmental justice, as well as a strong movement against re-emerging fascism, in North and South.