Theories of Oppression and Power

Becoming conscious of personal oppression and privilege is vital to shift from "power over" to "power with" relationships.
An Anti-Oppressive Framework (AOP) analyzes how systems (colonialism, racism, sexism) create individual discrimination and systemic inequities for marginalized groups.

Understanding privilege helps improve practice by identifying how systems of oppression function.

Reflective Practice: Consistently and critically self-reflect on positions of power and privilege to identify and correct imbalances and avoid re-creating oppressive behaviors.
Engage in Active Listening: Position oneself as a learner, allow others to share diverse lived experiences, and gather information with intention to act on it.
Identify the Bigger Problem: Practices must address root causes of issues to avoid complicity in oppressive behaviors.
Work Collaboratively: Focus on empowerment, include marginalized individuals in decision-making, and promote their autonomy. Intentional collaboration aims to balance unequal power dynamics.
Challenge Power and Privilege through Solidarity:
- Allyship: Actions by dominant groups to support oppressed groups, but often becomes performative, demands labor from oppressed, and can have negligible impact.
- Solidarity: An action-based approach that actively and intentionally aims to redistribute unfair advantages of systemic oppression, removing the onus of education and resistance from oppressed groups.

In the absence of theories, workers often adopt "Blaming the Victim" approaches.

Power Over: Domination or force; can be a hierarchical relationship where one group controls another.
Power With: Cooperative power exercised among equals, based on mutual support, solidarity, and collaboration to build collective strength and common ground.
Power To: The unique potential of every person to shape their life and world, enabling individual impact and joint action.
Power Within: A person's sense of self-worth, self-knowledge, dignity, and capacity for hope, affirming individual value and respecting differences.

Order Perspective (Mainstream/Conservative):
- Assumes people are competitive, self-absorbed, and individualistic, requiring social institutions and laws to maintain order.
- Believes social problems arise from a person's failed socialization process.
- Focuses on the marginalized individual rather than structural change, leading to "Blaming the Victim."
- Legitimizes the existing social order by assuming societal agreement on rules and values.
Conflict/Change Perspective (Critical):
- Attributes social problems to social structures, processes, and practices that favor certain groups and oppress others (class, race, gender).
- Views society as groups competing for resources and power.
- The dominant group imposes its worldview, laws, and institutions.
- Ideally envisions a society with no dominating group.
- Connects private troubles to structural sources (e.g., patriarchy, racism, heterosexism).

The Conflict/Change Perspective aligns with Critical Social Theory and Critical Social Work.
Includes approaches like feminism, Marxism, anti-racism, structural approaches, post-colonialism, anti-oppression, narrative therapy, and Indigenous decolonization work.
Aims for an egalitarian society free of dominant-subordinate relations.