Blurring the Borders with Anzaldúa in Context-Informed, Anti-Oppressive Research: The Case of Bedouin Women

Abstract

Abstract Studies show that context-blind, quasi-universalist professional discourses may engender oppressive social work practices with excluded populations. For example, research confirms that social work with children and families, overtly or covertly embedded in Eurocentric, binary discourse of risk and protection, has played a highly negative role in the history of social work with non-Western populations. Based on Gloria Anzaldúa’s theory of the border, the article proposes context-informed, anti-oppressive social work research as a strategy to deconstruct binary and essentialist social work discourses with marginalized populations. Exemplified by a research project conducted in partnership with thirty-three Bedouin women in the southern part of Israel, the article offers a platform for the examination of the border as a liminal arena in which change took place by blurring theoretical, methodological and practical borders.