ABSTRACT
This book is about consciousness-raising—the awakening of the mind and body to what is often referred to as, for lack of a better term, social reality. It features accounts of people’s experiences in transcending dominant ways of thinking so as to be able to recognize and resist discrimination, disadvantage and oppression. Social workers speak of promoting “social change and development,” “the empowerment and liberation of people” and “social justice” in partnership with disadvantaged populations (International Federation of Social Workers, 2014). For the disadvantaged, an important step toward empowerment and liberation is the achievement of critical consciousness: the recognition of the inequality and oppression that shape their lived experience. Thus, there has been occasional mention of “developing a consciousness” (Corrigan and Leonard, 1978: 122) or “consciousness-raising” (Dominelli, 2009: 52; Moreau, 1990: 53) and the “use of critical consciousness” (see, for example, Sakamoto & Pitner, 2005: 435) in social work texts throughout the decades. However, there is a notable dearth of literature on practical ways by which critical consciousness can be developed (Barak, 2016). This book is a contribution toward filling this gap by way of offering accounts of the application of consciousness-raising in various contexts. It is intended for students, practitioners and educators of social work, community development, social pedagogy and other forms of critical practice aimed at changing the world by addressing structural inequality and exclusion, whether it be on the bases of gender, class, race, ethnicity, ability, religion, sexual orientation or other social lines. While the accounts featured here are of particular groups of people situated in specific parts of the world at certain points in time, the stories of awakening, empowerment and resistance featured can hopefully provide readers with insights and inspiration in grappling with the challenges they face in their part of the world today.
