an international and interdisciplinary journal of postmodern cultural sound, text and image
Volume 10, April-May-June 2013,
ISSN 1552-5112
Social Work Meets Cultural Studies: Art,
Advocacy and Methods in Social Justice This year’s Cultural Studies Association conference
title, “Beyond Disciplinarity: Interventions in Cultural Studies And the Arts”
was the inspiration for this paper. Even if the “theoretical noise” that is
cultural studies has made a valiant effort to avoid being named a discipline,
it still must cope with the current academic structure that still relies
heavily on disciplinarity (During, 1993, p. 35). At the heart of cultural
studies is a hope for interdisciplinary work; work that goes outside of
academic disciplinary boundaries and questions discipline formation. As Simon
During (1993) discusses in his introduction to The Cultural Studies Reader, cultural studies is not a discipline
of its own but is academic work beside other disciplines that fosters
skepticism about knowledge creation and research practices. Cultural studies
has stayed very close to particular academic disciplines (within the United
States) most heavily within English and communications programs as discussed by
both Lawrence Grossberg (2010) and Michael Bérubé (2009) in their work
questioning the future of cultural studies. Cultural studies interventions, for
instance, a more thorough understanding of the power associated with popular
contemporary art, could prove beneficial to academic disciplines that cultural
studies has historically neglected. In this paper I hope to encourage work
between cultural studies and social work. Both social work and cultural studies have worked
closely with class and those in the margins with a common mission to fight
injustice; however, social work has not been a discipline working beside
cultural studies, which leads me to ask, why is this? In what ways could
cultural studies contribute to the culture of professional education and what
can be learned by cultural studies scholars from direct professional experience
with inequality and the practices of marginalization? The cultural and interpretive turn within the
humanities and social sciences occurred in large part due to the entry of young
people of color, women and the working class into the academy, some before, but
mostly after WWII (people like Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams). The
scholarship of cultural studies is resistance to white, male-dominated
(Western) scholarship. The make up of social work, however, has not changed
much during this same timeframe; it is and has been a field dominated by women.
Social work has been an occupation that has long provided opportunities for
advancement for women. The social service professions have also played a large role
in the increase in black middle-class in the I have been a practicing social worker for all of my
adult life, officially since 1993 when I received my MSW. Social work is a
fairly complex profession, which I will barely articulate in this paper. My
work as a non-academic social worker focused mainly in critical care medicine,
but today I prepare undergraduate and graduate students for social work
practice at the university level. My experiences as a social worker, working
directly with people in crisis, inform who I am as a person and a scholar. As an example, my years of witnessing
suffering and struggle within the From a cultural studies perspective, social work
sometimes feels to me like a place that time forgot. When I put on my cultural
studies hat and I pull back the large tropical leaves and peer in at the
everyday practices of social work, I am a bit shocked at how the discipline
aligns itself with big daddy medicine, as opposed to other academic brothers
and sisters that might be more closely related politically. Medicine and social
work (generally) still firmly value objectivity and create practices that
maintain the role of expert (which also maintain power hierarchies). The
professions as a whole have not fully embraced postmodern theory and the work
of the humanities (or interdisciplinary scholarship like cultural studies). The
dominant culture within social work training is influenced by traditional
social science research with an emphasis on modern values of progress, and
scientific observation. Social work (again generally) has not taken the
cultural/interpretive turn. So what is a given to the audience in front of me
at a cultural studies conference, is still rather unexplored territory for my
profession.[2] The concept of culture itself is being re-explored
within the professions and I have found this renewed interest, a bit of an “in”
to bring cultural studies to social work. Medicine is driving this cultural
concern and this response comes partially from social science research
generated over the past 20 years about disparity in access and in health care
outcomes for people of color, the poor, the LGBTQ community, women, as well as
the disabled and the elderly.[3] The public has deemed medicine, as well as closely
related professions, insensitive to difference. There is also acknowledgement
that the population within the The concept of cultural competence has been created
as a goal to better prepare student professionals for work with difference. As
one would imagine, in a professional culture mildly influenced by postmodern
scholarship, this education is set up as an inoculation. Here are some fun
facts about “name your oppressed group,” keep these fun facts in mind when
working with particular racial and ethnic groups, and if you complete your
cultural competence training successfully, you should be good to go (again,
like a shot to the arm). The general research on this type of cultural
competency pedagogy is that it is not successful. Students admit not feeling
comfortable talking about difference in the classroom, and because of this they
don’t feel prepared to work with difference as practitioners (Hyde & Ruth,
2002). Social work educators often avoid discussion of difference in the
classroom due to fear of the topic causing conflict (Mildred & Zuniga,
2004). When social workers are observed in practice, it becomes evident that
they remain unaware of their privilege (Anderson & Middleton, 2011).
Obviously, the way that cultural competence is taught to professionals is an
oversimplification of race and ethnicity, and does not go into the
sociopolitical aspects of category formations. Sherene Razack (2008) looks at
the sociopolitical aspects of cultural competence education with Canadian
judges and Inuit populations in her article, “What is to Be Gained by Looking
White People in the Eye?” She points out the mistakes that are made when judges
compensate for past injustice by lessening the sentences of men that have been
charged with domestic violence. The unique oppression of Inuit women is not
taken into consideration by these judges because they have a simplified
understanding of the cultural challenges. In response to the mistakes in
judgment, the answer developed by the judges was to complete cultural
competence training. After reading this article it seems a no-brainer: cultural
studies can be very helpful in complicating the concept of culture and how power
plays a role in how culture moves and changes. The hope of cultural studies to work across
disciplines has challenges. Working beside social work as a discipline presents
some obstacles. The longer I am in graduate school the more I feel I am in the
middle of an invisible tug of war. I walk in and out of two areas of
scholarship on a daily basis with very different languages and very different
values. As cultural studies scholars, we
are encouraged to do interdisciplinary work but are given very little practical
ways to go about bridging the language and value gap. At What is considered intellectual and what is
considered rigorous is often a barrier to interdisciplinary work. I was exposed
to cultural studies for the first time while working near the Differing values also come in the way. Social workers
(particularly those in the trenches) value practicality and shy away from
theory talk and research talk once they have left grad school (MSW). There is a practical argument that also goes
on within cultural studies and feminist theory. What good is my writing if
everyday people can’t read it? What good is my research if it doesn’t impact
the everyday world? Art is embraced and valued in cultural studies (both high
and low art) – in social work not so much. Art isn’t scientific, it involves
feelings and interpretation –it is not objective, it is creative – it can’t be
measured[4]. For example, I get a fair amount of scoffing from
my colleagues about the use of film in the classroom. The common feeling is
that film is what you use when you haven’t prepared properly for class. This
attitude toward contemporary popular art is unfortunate because film, music,
photography, literature could have the potential to bridge language and value
differences and could be another tool used toward social justice. Within social work, it has been
helpful to show how contemporary culture is important to cultural competence.
Education scholars like Ernest Morrell (2002) and communication scholars like
Greg Dimitriadis (2001) look at the helpfulness of bringing in and infusing
popular text into the classroom particularly with children from disadvantaged
urban areas. Morrell and Dimitriadis serve as examples of how cultural studies
theory can be helpful to a social work audience. Popular art/media texts are
familiar to students regardless of educational background. Children learn to
analyze and think through conflicts and problems using familiar scripts learned
through popular media. By bringing contemporary culture into the classroom, my
social work students begin to notice popular media interests of their clients
as ways to make connections and to build rapport. My students also bring
concerns to the classroom about harmful representations that depict their
clients in an unflattering light that is not true to the student’s experience
with particular groups of people. Also, when I bring my students’ personal
popular media interests into the classroom, this respect for familiar text
creates a space where different interests are accepted and encouraged. This
discussion of contemporary popular art leads to openness and talk about
difference between social work students and their clients as well as critical
thinking about where categories and deviance come from (on a good day). Our world is awash with popular texts. My social work
colleagues talk almost daily about popular media texts and various forms of art
and clearly engage with the media and popular art in their everyday lives, but
not critically. Popular art forms are seen as simply entertainment without much
political meaning or potential. Popular art as a common language could help
with value barriers between professionals and their clients, students and
teachers, and between academic disciplines, like social work and cultural
studies. Film, in particular, has been very helpful in leading my students to
better self-understanding, understanding of others and a way to better
understand the power and politics that surround and limit us. For me film has
been helpful in building skills that look at the micro, mezzo and macro levels
of cultural concern. Film exposes my students to different languages and
different values. Films guide my students into homes and communities where they
are frightened to go because they have been taught (by society; by their
families) to be afraid. Film is helpful in questioning culture from a
sociopolitical level. Where do definitions like: good mother, successful adult,
mentally ill, and disabled come from? What is the role social work plays in
these constructions? Films like: Straight
Story; Murderball; Waitress; Lars and the Real Girl; Dirty, Pretty Things; The
Beginners, and Raising Victor Vargas (just
to name a few) help me ask these questions of my students. I teach my students that media representations can go
against the grain and that popular art can be transgressive. If representations
do not reflect the work we do in the trenches – speak out about it – encourage
clients to speak out – create an alternative representation. Creation of art
within agencies by those that are often not given a voice - brings audience to
their silenced stories.[5] Art can be
seen, not only as a treatment option, but as an advocacy (macro-level)
intervention. The emphasis on privacy within social work practice is often an
excuse to maintain status quo and to squash political action. Advocacy through
engagement with and resistance to popular art forms by social workers and their
clients is a way to speak out about silenced injustice. One agency, in Conclusion I have discussed a great deal about how cultural
studies could be helpful to social work and very little about how social work
could be helpful to cultural studies. Raymond Williams, in his essay: “The
Future of Cultural Studies,” reflects on the early history of cultural studies
as important to how scholarship should proceed (Storey, 1996). Williams
discusses the importance of “Open University” to the development of cultural
studies. The interaction between “intellectuals” and people’s everyday lives
was crucial to the knowledge development of cultural studies (p. 172). Social
workers are often in settings and have relationships within the community that
are enviable by cultural studies researchers. The social worker’s daily
experience is rich with people’s everyday lives. Autoethnography, for example,
is a method that could be used by social workers and directly by their clients
to raise awareness, to develop empathy and to stir people to action.
Autoethnography uses techniques of performative writing and is a meld of art
and cultural observation. Autoethnography relies on experience as important to
knowledge creation and social workers are often a part of the action, and at
times the only professional group allowed into the most marginalized spaces.
Advocating for stories on the margins to have audience, so that these
experiences can inform scholarship, could be a common mission for both social
work and cultural studies. Collaboration between social work and cultural
studies is helpful to a deeper consideration of the concept of cultural
competence, is helpful in the use of media for advocacy, and could help to
encourage client engagement and production of transgressive art. A partnership
between cultural studies and social work would likely increase practices of
qualitative inquiry like autoethnography. Michael Bérubé makes a good point
when he cautions that cultural studies scholars are often unaware that there is
more to the academic structure than English departments. Cultural studies could
benefit from casting its net a bit farther out into the academic waters. For
scholars that are quick to critique, it will also be important to develop
collaboration skills, which include finding strengths in potential discipline
partners. Grossberg brings up the question, within his work, about the ethical
obligation of the intellectual and in particular, the cultural studies
intellectual. Looking at popular art through a critical lens, and understanding
the sociopolitical aspects of culture have been skills that have been
invaluable to cultural studies, and these interventions could prove helpful and
practical ways to understand and fight against injustice. References Anderson, S. K. & Middleton, V. A. (2011). Explorations in Diversity Examining
Privilege and Oppression in a Multicultural Society. Bérubé, M. (2009). What’s the matter with cultural
studies. The Chronicle of Higher
Education. Sept. 14. During, S. (1993).
Introduction. The Cultural Studies
Reader. Grossberg, L. (2010). Cultural Studies in the Future Tense. Hyde, C. A.
and Ruth, B. J. (2002). Multicultural content and class participation: Do
students self-censor? Journal of Social
Work Education. 38 (2), 241-256. Morrell, E. (2002). Toward a critical pedagogy of
popular culture: Literacy development among urban youth, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 46 (1), 72-77. Razack, S. (2008). What is to be gained by looking
white people in the eye? Culture, race and gender in cases of sexual violence.
In M. Ryan (Ed.) Cultural Studies and
Anthology (pp. 311-315). Williams, R. (1996). The future of cultural studies.
In J. Storey (Ed.) What is Cultural
Studies? A Reader. (pp. 168-177). an international and interdisciplinary journal of
postmodern cultural sound, text and image Volume 10, April-May-June 2013,
ISSN 1552-5112 Notes
[1] There is a helpful discussion about the
black middle-class and the importance of public sector jobs like social work in
the roundtable discussion entitled “Progress, Paradox, and the Path Ahead,” in
the Poverty Issue of The American
Prospect, July/Aug. 2012; particularly, by Angela Glover Blackwell.
[2] There are social
work exceptions to this generalization, as one would guess. In my work looking
more closely at social cultural competence education and social work practice I
have found several social work scholars that are aware of postmodern and
poststructural thinkers. Examples: Gentlewarrior, S. et al. (2008). Culturally
competent feminist social work: Listening to diverse people. Journal of Women and Social Work, 23(3),
210-222, Jani, J. S., Pierce, D., Ortiz, L. and Sowbel, L. (2011). Access to
intersectionality, content to competence: Deconstructing Social Work Education
Diversity Standards. Journal of Social
Work Education. 47(2), 283-299., Kohli, H. et al (2010). Historical and
theoretical development of culturally competent social work practice. Journal of Teaching in Social Work.
30, 252-271.
[3] A bibliography of
disparity research can be found at the American Association of Medical Colleges
website. The guide: Cultural competence
education for medical students: Assessing and revising curriculum (2005)
can be found at: https://www.aamc.org/44826/search.html?q=cultural+competence&x=7&y=9
[4] Some
social work practitioners use art in their work directly with clients, but in
general there is resistance to art as serious scholarship.
[5] I do have colleagues interested in photovoice and theater of the oppressed, and I have been exploring Amherst Writers and Artists workshops as ways of using art creation with clients to increase self-understanding and to raise awareness about the realities of people’s lives.