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Abstract

Since its founding 35 years ago, Affilia has been committed to supporting and publishing feminist research and praxis. As the first and only feminist social work academic journal, Affilia has provided an important home for feminist social work scholarship. Of course, during this time, and well before, definitions of “feminist” and indeed “social work” have been contested, as they continue to be today.

The original full title of the journal was Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work. This name was chosen because the founders had a vision of Affilia as a place to share “what the women's movement has brought to the social worker's view of the world, the client's world, and the world's world” (Saunders, 1986, p. 3). At the same time, the mission statement of the founders described a commitment to fostering the “development of feminist values, theories and knowledge as they relate to social work research, education and practice” (Sancier, 1986, p. 4). As the context, frameworks, and praxis of feminisms and social work have evolved, so too should we. Thus, we are changing our name to Affilia: Feminist Inquiry in Social Work to better reflect the scope of the journal and the scholarship we publish. We believe that this new subtitle stays true to the founders’ mission while being more explicit about our feminist commitments and recognizing new developments in feminist theorizing and research and the breadth of Affilia content. It honors that feminism has never been solely for or about “women” and that it is more than a fixed personal identity or political doctrine. Instead, we recognize feminism as an intellectual movement fueled by critical analysis and aimed at social justice.

As we celebrate our 35^th anniversary and continue the ongoing practice of refining our feminist vision, we thought it would be useful to initiate a conversation amongst the editorial board about how best to articulate our commitment to using feminist theories and methods – and Affilia's platform – to advance social justice. Our goal was to clarify a set of critical feminist principles to inform our work as editors, as well as to offer guidance to authors and reviewers.

Before introducing these principles, we offer a note about what we mean by critical feminisms. The term “critical” risks cliché when articulated without description or explanation. However, we use this term intentionally, both to signify our social justice goals and to differentiate from versions of feminism (e.g., “choice feminism,” “commercialized feminism”; see Goodkind [2009]) that have been coopted by neoliberalism and often function to reinforce rather than challenge the status quo. We recommend Patricia Hill Collins’ (2019) Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory for an extensive discussion of critical theory as central to social change projects. Notably, Collins (2019) describes critical theory as critical in two senses of the word – involving analysis and critique (which is how it is usually understood) and as essential or necessary (a less often used connotation in this context). We embrace this dual meaning, conceiving of critical feminisms as providing an essential, necessary means to understand and critique inequality, and thus work towards social justice. In recognition of rich and contested interpretations of the term “critical,” we choose to let the pages of our journal be the platform for continued engagement with and evolution of the content and meaning of critical feminisms. Hence, we opted for a simpler subtitle for the journal – “feminist inquiry in social work” – to avoid foregone assumptions about the meaning of critical feminisms while signaling an opening to ongoing critical dialogue.

Critical Feminist Principles: Conceptual, Epistemological, and Political

Based on our collective discussion, we developed the following critical feminist principles for research and praxis, which we have divided heuristically into three areas – conceptual, epistemological, and political – though there is much overlap across them. We offer these principles in the spirit of ongoing dialogue and with the recognition that this emergent work requires continual reflection and adaptation.

Conceptual

Our first set of critical feminist principles is conceptual, interrogating the categories by which we organize our understanding of the world, what constitutes feminist viewpoints, and, further, what we deem to be within the scope of critical feminist social work. These principles include and extend beyond a shift from a gender binary or even the notion of a gender continuum, and push towards more holistic ways of perceiving and conceptualizing analytic and empirical categories. They expand from legal or national boundaries towards global interconnectedness, recognizing interdependence, and urge us to embrace each other and the complexities of our world.

Adopt a holistic worldview

One important part of holistic thinking is to eliminate false dichotomies (e.g., man/woman, nature/nurture). Binary frameworks lead us to see things as opposite when their constructed meanings are in fact interdependent (see, e.g., Scott [1988] on equality vs. difference frameworks). The leadership of trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming people and communities have moved us along and beyond the notion of a continuum to question the category of gender altogether (Butler, 1990; Doan, 2010; Snorton, 2017). The decentering of binary assumptions presents evolving opportunities to query and understand complex gendered realities.

Embrace complexity and intersectionality

There are no simple explanations for social phenomena nor are there easy answers to the complex problems and challenges we face in social work. Our work should be emergent, generative, and focused on raising critical questions, because as Collins (2019) explains, the questions we ask are often more important than the answers. Likewise, none of us is unidimensional; an intersectional perspective reminds us not only that we all have multiple facets of our identities and experiences, but also that social categories have developed their meaning in relation to each other (Crenshaw, 1991; Hancock, 2013).

Provide context

In social work, we teach the person-in-environment framework, but then too often focus on individual-level interventions. Attention to historical, social, and political context enables us to situate the question or problem – and its solutions – in social structures and institutions. For example, Laina Bay-Cheng (2010) demonstrates how we focus on girls’ and women's sexual choices and behaviors as though these occur in a social, political, and material vacuum. Instead, she advocates dedicating critical attention (in research and action) to the forces and conditions that thin their sexual agency and render them sexually vulnerable in the first place. Our analyses must be grounded in and value historical knowledge and local contexts to better understand current conditions and avoid repeating past mistakes.

Honor the value of relationships, trust, authenticity, and connection

Despite Western-dominated emphases on individualism, we recognize that none of us is independent. Jennifer Propp, Debora Ortega, and Forest NewHeart (2003) argue that “being independent or self-sufficient is a myth at best and unhealthy at worst” (p. 262). We must engage with authenticity if we want to promote equity and healing in response to hierarchy and oppression. Our work for social change must not only be collaborative but also intergenerational; social justice cannot be accomplished in any other way.

Emphasize praxis

Praxis is a core feminist tenet in which theory and practice are understood as inextricably linked. Our theories about how the world works, whether articulated or not, undergird our actions; therefore, being intentional about the theories on which we base our practice is important. Bell Hooks (2000) reminds us that the production of theory can be a liberatory practice and that both theory and feminism are for everyone. Praxis also indicates that we do not develop knowledge for “knowledge's sake” but in the service of action.

Epistemological

Our second set of principles addresses how we know what we know, what counts as knowledge, and whose knowledge counts. Taken together, they challenge us to question accepted truths, recognize the partiality and provisional nature of all knowledge, situate claims in the positionality of those making them, center marginalized and minoritized voices and perspectives, and promote reflexivity in our research and practice.

Question certainties and assumptions

We too often begin research and practice by doing things the way they have always been done or accepting as given the terms of our engagement. Feminist social work scholars Rosemary Sarri and Janet Finn (1992) provide an example of rethinking the premises on which our practices are based by questioning certainties in child welfare, which include “the dichotomy of public and private; the primacy of autonomous individualism and the capacity of corrective intervention” (p. 219; see also Pollack, 2020). By challenging these foundational, often unspoken beliefs that ground child welfare practice, Sarri and Finn open up new possibilities for envisioning and enacting structures and supports relevant for meeting the abolitionist call (e.g., upendmovement.org).

Reframe questions, problems, dilemmas, and goals

Through the process of challenging our unexamined assumptions, we can create space for reframing the questions we ask, the problems we seek to address, and the aims of our research or praxis. For example, Diana Pearce (2000) demonstrates how shifting the goal of “welfare reform” from that of mothers’ employment (which she calls “a subtle but powerful substitution of means for ends” [p. 136]) to that of enabling mothers to keep and care for their children suggests entirely different approaches to supporting families.

Challenge positivism by recognizing partiality of perspective, importance of positionality, and necessity of reflexivity

Social work scholars, at times, have clung to positivism to prove our field's legitimacy, despite scant evidence of universal laws or truths that predict or explain human behavior and social organization. Feminists have long demonstrated the importance of positionality and the partiality of all perspectives (Collins, 1986; Haraway, 1988), particularly those of dominant groups, which are often represented as objective, impartial, or universal. As Gilgun (2008), Probst (2015), and others have shown, we must be transparent and reflexive in analyzing and detailing the impact of who we are on the research we conduct – in terms of questions we ask, methods we use, and our interpretations and analysis of our data (e.g., Daley, 2010). We are all always learning, unlearning, and relearning, and we must meet new ideas with openness and humility.

Interrogate “traditional” academic knowledge production

Knowledge production must make space for nontraditional research paradigms, methods, and processes. Collins (2019) states: “The methodologies that we choose to use to analyze our worlds shape the truths that we find” (p. 290). Affilia has a history of welcoming multiple research methodologies and forms of scholarship (see, e.g., Johnson and Flynn, 2020; Liegghio and Caragata, 2021; Pollack, 2003, 2020), and we continue to encourage the use of methodologies that challenge norms and center the perspectives, praxis, and embodied knowledge of marginalized people (e.g., Beltrán and Mehrotra, 2015).

Center the voices and perspectives of subjugated and minoritized people

The elevation of counter-narratives in knowledge production (particularly those of racialized people and people from the Global South) highlight the epistemological value of lived experience and embodiment. A central goal of feminist scholarship has been to make space for those who have long been excluded from the conversation. Yet this does not simply mean having a more diverse sample; rather, it means acknowledging and supporting researchers from marginalized groups and recognizing that “traditional” methodologies are not just missing part of the story but are actually perpetuating injustice. Ramona Beltrán and Gita Mehrotra (2015) remind us that there are important traditions outside of the “mainstream” that can guide us to epistemic justice.

Political

Our third and final set of principles centers our social justice goals, recognizing the centrality of power and the importance of collective action towards liberation. Being political means having the courage to take a stand and to challenge worn accusations of partiality and bias. Adrienne Maree Brown (2019) reminds us that taking a stand also allows us to enjoy the pleasure that political engagement can bring.

Recognize that the personal is (still) political

This old feminist adage retains relevance today, particularly amidst the neoliberal rhetoric that suggests that we are each solely responsible for our well-being. Consciousness raising is the process by which one comes to recognize how what might at first seem to be individual problems have social roots. (MacKinnon, 1989). This recognition is part of the empowerment process, whereby people understand the social roots of their challenges and work together to change their social conditions (Carr, 2003). An empowerment praxis demonstrates how individual and structural change are interdependent, and thus how we must work at multiple levels.

Acknowledge and address power and power differentials

We must name social work's complicity in past and ongoing oppression and acknowledge the power we wield as social workers, though we do not always feel powerful. As Ann Weick (1982) explains, “A key…to the proper use of power is the knowledge that one shares the condition and struggles of those one may be called on to help” (p. 183). This is not to minimize very real differences in power and experiences but rather to recognize that we are not separate or different in any fundamental way from those we seek to help. Janet Finn’s (2020) articulation of a social worker's role as that of accompaniment (rather than helping) provides a useful reframing of social work practice that incorporates power.

Commit to liberation

Iris Marion Young (1990) reminds us that “oppression designates the disadvantage and injustice some people suffer not because a tyrannical power coerces them, but because of the everyday practices of a well-intentioned liberal society” (p. 41). Feminist inquiry leads not only to the elucidation of visible and obscured dynamics of oppression but also to strategies to dismantle systems that give rise to and reproduce inequities and injustices. Thus, our liberation will require carefully cultivated solidarity and collective action that targets all of our structures and institutions.

Reimagine justice and care

Despite social work's foundational tenet of social justice, critical feminisms ask more deeply how justice is defined. They take into account a world rooted in injustice. Transformative justice and abolition have been rooted in the work of prison abolitionist feminists of color, further challenging conventional notions of justice based on Rawlsian moral philosophical or criminal legal definitions of justice with collective, liberatory frameworks (Kaba, 2021; Kim, 2020). Ruth Wilson Gilmore's vision of abolition, grounded in humanity, care, and sustainability, reminds us that “when life is precious, life is precious” (Scahill, 2020). The feminist leadership of disability rights activists in the prison abolitionist movement has further deepened notions of care (Mingus, 2017; Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018), challenging social work to re-examine its charity-based and medicalized role in care work and the continued white-supremacist and ableist underpinnings of a feminized field.

Take a stand

Michaele Ferguson (2010) identifies and critiques “choice feminism” – that is the acceptance of any position as “feminist” as long as one can claim agency in choosing it – as stemming from a fear of politics. She argues that many feminists accept “choice feminism” because they fear being labeled too radical, exclusionary, and judgmental. However, we cannot accept as feminist ideas, policies, and actions that are in fact antithetical to our liberatory goals. Thus, Ferguson implores us to take pleasure in politics, despite its difficulties and dilemmas, because it offers opportunities to engage, learn, and grow, and ultimately to make the world better. Similar to Adrienne Maree Brown’s (2019) ideas about “pleasure activism,” despite the risks, there is joy to be had in our collective justice efforts. Sara Ahmed reminds us that even “killjoy” status does not mean we cannot enjoy our feminist work. She explains, “we need to engage with the world—know it, understand it—if we are to transform it. We cannot withdraw from sexism and racism. And we can be engaged and even enjoy what we challenge” (Mehra, 2017, para. 9).

Collectively Building Our Feminist Future

A decade ago, Affilia published a special issue on critical feminisms in social work (volume 25, issue 4), one aim of which was “to reinvigorate our profession's commitments to social justice and social change” (Gringeri & Roche, 2010, p. 338). At that time, feminisms were falling out of focus, and Affilia was making the case for their continued relevance. Now, we find ourselves at an entirely new moment, when feminisms have seen renewed interest but have frequently been co-opted by neoliberalism. We are issuing a call for submissions to a similarly themed special issue, to be announced in November 2021.

Social work is one of few disciplines and professions with an explicit commitment to social justice. Now, more than ever, we need scholarship that challenges all supremacist hierarchies – whether based on race, gender/sex, ability, or any other class that is removed from accountability to others, redresses social work's past and ongoing complicity in the perpetuation of inequities, and provides a vision and roadmap for a more just world. Feminist inquiry is about always asking the next question and connecting the next set of dots, and this perpetual striving and curiosity are energizing. We hope that these critical feminist principles will be useful to our readers, authors, and reviewers as you envision, develop, conduct, and discuss feminist scholarship and praxis. We look forward to ongoing conversation in the pages of Affilia and beyond.

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