Emic Social Work: a Story of Practice

EMIC SOCIAL WORK: A STORY OF PRACTICE BY FRANCES ROBERTA CRAWFORD B.A.Hons., University of Western Australia, 1970 M.S.W., University of Western Australia, 1977 © Copyright by Frances Roberta Crawford, 1994 THESIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994 Urbana, Illinois EMIC SOCIAL WORK: A STORY OF PRACTICE Frances Roberta Crawford, Ph. D. School of Social Work University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994 Susanne E. Glynn, Advisor This autoethnographical study reflects on the lived experience of a social worker with a public welfare agency in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia during the seventies and early eighties. Framed by a philosophical consideration of the tensions between postmodernism and modernism, the study utilized the research methods of feminist critical ethnography and interpretive interactionism. Reflection on the practitioner's seven years of immersion in participant observation, interviewing and document analysis was organized around key epiphanic moments of cultural insight. In this setting, it was found that Aboriginal people were excluded from the demos in the consciousness of most Western Australians, including social workers. This actuality was traced by working from the practitioner's bodily placement in the region and the relationships this entailed. The processes by which this ideological exclusion was abstracted and generalized into standard knowledge for social workers to apply across a diversity of local situations are described. This practitioner case- study identified the workings of structural power bases in local and particular situations, and the strong links between power and knowledge. With regard to social work, conceptual links were made to the pre-modernist critical autoethnography of Jane Addams. The research found that to hold to a professional commitment to values it is necessary for social workers to resist seduction by and subjugation to the relations of ruling. The cultivation of a range of research philosophies rather than only the bureaucratic procedures of positivism, would allow more movement from "what is" to "what should be" in the practice profession of social work. This research argues that social work education must convey an understanding that the social can only be known by interpretation and that closure of knowledge as to the human condition is not possible. Preparing students to be able to act out of situated, reflexive home-made models of practice is named as a competency aim for social work education requiring a focus on the social construction of self, a diversity of faculty and students in open dialogue with each other, and exposure to the interpretive disciplines of anthropology/sociology, feminism, philosophy and history. iii ABSTRACT This autoethnographical study reflects on the lived experience of a social worker with a public welfare agency in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia during the seventies and early eighties. Framed by a philosophical consideration of the tensions between postmodernism and modernism, the study utilized the research methods of feminist critical ethnography and interpretive interactionism. Reflection on the practitioner's seven years of immersion in participant observation, interviewing and document analysis was organized around key epiphanic moments of cultural insight. In this setting, it was found that Aboriginal people were excluded from the demos in the consciousness of most Western Australians, including social workers. This actuality was traced by working from the practitioner's bodily placement in the region and the relationships this entailed. The processes by which this ideological exclusion was abstracted and generalized into standard knowledge for social workers to apply across a diversity of local situations are described. This practitioner case- study identified the workings of structural power bases in local and particular situations, and the strong links between power and knowledge. With regard to social work, conceptual links were made to the pre-modernist critical autoethnography of Jane Addams. The research found that to hold to a professional commitment to values it is necessary for social workers to resist seduction by and subjugation to the relations of ruling. The cultivation of a range of research philosophies rather than only the bureaucratic procedures of positivism, would allow more movement from "what is" to "what should be" in the practice profession of social work. This research argues that social work education must convey an understanding that the social can only be known by interpretation and that closure of knowledge as to the human condition is not possible. Preparing students to be able to act out of situated, reflexive home-made models of practice is named as a competency aim for social work education requiring a focus on the social construction of self, a diversity of faculty and students in open dialogue with each other, and exposure to the interpretive disciplines of anthropology/sociology, feminism, philosophy and history. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis has been many years in the making and the people involved in its construction are numerous. I single out for specific thanks my family network, the people of the Kimberley and fellow social workers in participating in the experiences on which I now reflect. In particular I want to express appreciation for the warmth and generosity with which I was welcomed into the communities of Looma, of Broome and the Kimberley generally. Through this process of acceptance, I have become aware of some of the diverse possibilities in living, listening and interpreting. I thank Rosalie Dwyer, Ernie Stringer, Suzanne McGinty and Tony McMahon for paving the way here to Illinois and fellow staff at Curtin University, particularly Jennifer Gardiner, Sabina Leitman, Kathy Logan, and Anne Wearne for encouraging me on this venture. I thank the members of my committee, Susanne Glynn, Charles Cowger and Norman Denzin for their guidance and dialogue during the course of this project. In particular I thank Dr. Glynn for her careful reading and generous discussion of this text, Dr. Cowger for facilitating a positive experience of doctoral education, and Dr. Denzin for the pleasure of participating in his seminars. There were many who provided me with support in other ways. For providing a reading of earlier drafts I thank Robyn Allen, Audrey Bolger, Deborah Cseglowski, Ernie Stringer and Jayashree Venkatraman. Dr. Margaret Adamek provided a particularly close and helpful reading of the final version. In addition the time Goutham Menon and my office- mate, Jayashree, gave me, listening and discussing through endless cups of coffee was invaluable as was my relationship with fellow doctoral students. Long-distance support was provided by my mother and sisters, and Sue Dicker, an American living in Perth and my cultural consultant on interpreting the American graduate school experience. The maps in the thesis were computer-drawn by Leta Hunt of the Geography and Mapping Library of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana using software made available by the Environmental Systems Research Institute of California. The text would not have been written without the commitment to this project of my husband Michael Dwyer and my children, Brendan, Catherine and David. The love and support they have demonstrated around this American experience are an integral part of the product. 5 vi Committee Certificate of Approval--Insert here vii We are all natives now. Clifford Geertz (1973) 8 ix TABLE OF CONTENTS MAPS.........................................................................................................................................................xiv PREAMBLE Stories From Another Place, Another Time........................................................................................1 Exploring That Line Between "Us" and "Them" ........................................................................1 Milly Read ............................................................................................................................2 A Disruptive Voice ...............................................................................................................2 Gadeyas and Ruling ..............................................................................................................3 The Western Australian Aboriginal Act of 1905 ..................................................................3 Sex Abuse .............................................................................................................................4 Keeping Them in Their Place ...............................................................................................4 They Can't Help It.................................................................................................................5 The Hairy-legged Brigade.....................................................................................................5 Notes.....................................................................................................................................6 CHAPTER ONE Setting the Scene.................................................................................................................................8 Reflecting on Becoming an Australian Social Worker ................................................................9

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