Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

When social workers and human services workers practice in a culturally-responsive manner, they engage in anti-oppressive practices by adopting an adaptive framework of engagement. They counteract the overpowering whiteness of everything, whereby contemporary processes of erasure, such as the whitewashing of history and current events, rubs out the subtleties of oppression on so many levels. Reactions to these situations are juxtaposed between feelings of discomfort and resistance, and too often, the challenges seem all-consuming. However, Audre Lorde wrote in 1984, “I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group”. The above refrain is mirrored in the countless break-downs of communities on an international geographical scale. So, social workers have to be ever-watchful; part of their education is to consider how questions that come from the stories we are told, can galvanise a pedagogy of hope from meaningful thinking and actions. What is the role of individual spirituality in the above process? Through a pedagogy of discomfort and Indigenous resistance lens, how can the resilience of spirituality manifest across different layers of cultural tacit and explicit behaviours? In this paper, the context of preparing social work students to start developing practice awareness that incorporates inner peace, mindfulness, and well-being is central to the core of what the profession needs in order to survive, but this context involves both personal and political insights that are both discomforting and hopeful.