"The Constant State of Becoming”: Power, Identity, and Discomfort on the Anti-Oppressive Learning Journey

yesThe development of a clear personal and professional identity – ‘knowing oneself’ – is frequently cited as a key factor in supporting anti-oppressive practice. In the field of health and social care, work placements are a major vehicle for equipping students to become anti-oppressive practitioners committed to making effective diversity interventions in a range of organizational settings. This article highlights some of the tensions inherent in the formation of such an identity and pays particular attention to issues such as discomfort, power inequalities, the discursive production of the self and ways in which educational and workplace organizational settings can simultaneously promote and inhibit such identity development. The article concludes that the discomfort experienced by students as part of this learning process is not only inevitable but necessary to becoming an anti-oppressive practitioner, and that the narrative process offers ways of empowering both students and service users to challenge oppression

Negotiating identity and alterity: Cultural competence, colonization and cultural voyeurism in students’ work-based learning

yesThere is increasing demand for work-based learning experiences to form part of undergraduate degrees concerned with working with people. Social justice and anti-oppressive practice underpin the philosophies of many such degrees which attract students with the promise of working within diverse communities and with the marginalized and vulnerable. Benefits to students include the development of a professional identity, an anti-oppressive approach and culturally competent practices. Despite this, critical approaches to work-based learning highlight ways in which the student can be colonized by dominant values via ‘cultural voyeurism’. This can lead to power inequalities being replicated and perpetuated by the student rather than challenged. The roles of identity and alterity in these learning processes are examined and the concept of professional identity is questioned. The article concludes that the tasks of negotiating identity and alterity are characterized by uncertainty and unfinalizability, and that the notion of cultural competence is itself problematic