BJSW Advance Access published online on July 23, 2009
British Journal of Social Work, doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcp084
A Critically Informed Perspective of Working with Resettling Refugee Groups in Australia
Peter Westoby is a Lecturer in Community Development within the University of Queensland School of Social Work and Human Services, while also working as a research consultant with the Australian Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies. He has worked in development practice within South Africa, PNG, the Philippines, and Australia. Some of this recent work is focused on peaceful development practice within Vanuatu, social cohesion and community conflict practice within Australia and the application of community development within school settings. He lectures in community development theory/practice, methodology, frame-working and community-based training. His most recent publications include two books: Dialogical Community Development: with depth, solidarity and hospitality (Tafina Press, 2009), and The Sociality of Healing: In Dialogue with Resettling Sudanese Refugees within Australia (Common Ground, 2009). Ann Ingamells is a Senior Lecturer at Griffith University in the School of Human Services and Social Work, and has many years experience in community development work with diverse groups including young people, refugees, Indigenous people and local communities.
Correspondence to Dr Peter Westoby, School of Social Work and Human Services, University of Queensland, St Lucia, 4072, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. E-mail: p.westoby{at}uq.edu.au
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Abstract |
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Although there have been many critiques of the central role that trauma plays in social work practice with refugees, nevertheless, trauma discourse maintains a powerful shaping force on service delivery in Australia, intersecting with, and gaining power from, managerial discourses that specify individually focused approaches to practice. The outcome is a double bind for refugee populations, who quickly learn that, in this country, identifying themselves as vulnerable is a pathway to resources, yet, who then find themselves caught in processes that have precarious effects for agency. Trauma work, the paper argues, however necessary at some points, is overemphasised and over-legitimised, and a range of critiques are drawn on to substantiate this. Revisiting some of the traditional disciplinary bases of social work and human services may facilitate organisations and practitioners to engage more proactively and reflexively with people who arrive as refugees across a broader range of tasks associated with re-establishing themselves in a new country.
Keywords: refugee resettlement, sociology, trauma, healing/recovery, critical practice, reflective practice