Abstract
Women’s Human Rights is an edited volume of essays that speaks to emerging foci in the field of social work. Noteworthy is the discussion of praxis where researchers were engaged in solidarity building efforts to advocate for justice and social change within marginalized communities in Nicaragua and India. Critical psychologists, feminist researchers, and scholars laud the work of liberation psychologist, Martín-Baró, to show how themes of resistance, liberation, and justice are key to understanding advances in social work.
Section I Resistance: Understanding Change When Knowledge is Constructed from “Below” includes feminist-based research on war rape and prevailing forms of economic and racial injustice in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming (LGBTGNC) communities. Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative, a grassroots organization, has collaborated with LGBTGNC communities to relay their struggle with inclusion, equality, and justice. The liberation psychology framework allows for marginalized communities—women of color, sex workers, transgendered individuals, incarcerated individuals, and immigrants to come together as a community, comprehend their oppressions and push for social justice.
Grassroots efforts undertaken by the organization, Medica Zenica, are noteworthy. The organization was committed to realizing the diverse experiences of survivors of war. They successfully implemented the “Stop Stigmatization” campaign in Bosnia. The survivors gained strength by developing resistance. Many women were able to cope with the stigma of being rape victims. Rape survivors became empowered as they narrated their stories to researchers. Outreach efforts by organizations through education and solidarity building among oppressed groups and communities are essential to tackle forms of inequality arising out of wealth, respect, status, housing, health, and mobility in urban America.
Section II Liberation: The Transformation of Social Structures focuses on individual human rights violations and the decontextualization of women from their political and social worlds. Women’s groups decried economic arrangements that impacted women on welfare, low-income women, and their families. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Aid to Families with Dependent Children have discriminated and controlled women’s sexuality. Liberation psychology called for the adoption of a human rights framework that helped social workers and activists identify the structural causes of women’s poverty. The human rights framework contributed to the realization of economic justice for women.
Section III Justice: Whereby Researchers Work Alongside the Dominated and Oppressed Rather Than Alongside the Dominator or Oppressor draws on prefigurative politics and social contexts that influenced and enabled the feminist movements and women’s status in rural Nicaragua. Activists engaged in prefigurative politics aim to transform the lives of individuals in poor communities by focusing on their interactions and relationships with each other. Feminist researchers and social workers argued that forms of social and civic engagement would elevate the status of women in rural Nicaragua. For instance, human development projects and workshops were introduced in rural Nicaragua. Their aim was to inform women about their reproductive and economic rights, literacy, and political decision-making.
Transnational feminist scholars and activists call attention to the situation of women in the Garo Hills of Northeast India. Sex trafficking, routine attacks on women at the border or state-sponsored violence, abduction, rape, brutal killings of women, and forms of gendered violence are issues that become controversial in the human rights discourse. Limiting the context of violence against Garo women as an instance of violence in India rather than bringing the discussion under the larger human rights framework is essential to feminist activists and social workers. Concepts of agency and autonomy align with each other. In order to prioritize the human rights of women at the margins, individual women, and individuals, social workers, feminist psychologists advocate deep listening and dialogue. The liberation psychology paradigm allows for dismantling of the dichotomies of us versus them, to build solidarity among Garo women and researchers. Finally, feminist psychologists argue that empowerment of minorities and women will take place when resistance, liberation, and justice go hand in hand.
In conclusion, Women’s Human Rights: A Social Psychological Perspective on Resistance, Liberation, and Justice is a valuable resource for social work practitioners interested in liberation psychology. Feminist researchers can appreciate the various methodological approaches that are discussed in the discipline of social work and develop new foci on women, empowerment, and human rights in sociology.
