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As a theory that has informed my research and social work practice, critical theory has shaped this study “to the extent that [the study] seeks social transformation as forms of justice and emancipation” (Gray and Webb 2009, p. 107). Critical theory calls for thinking critically about individual practices that cause oppression and systems and structures in society that act to oppress. It also involves using critique to highlight this oppression and resulting injustices at both the micro and macro levels of society and calls for action to formulate approaches to transformative emancipation.

Initially influenced by Marxism, critical theory in the last three decades has also been influenced by Feminism, Post-structuralism and Critical Race Theory (Gray and Webb 2009). It is difficult to refer to critical theory as one pure type of theory. There are multiple manifestations of critical theory - critical traditions are not static and therefore continue to change and evolve. This changing and evolving nature has meant that critical theory evades precise

definition and thus criticalists are seldom found to agree on what critical theory is (Kincheloe and McLaren 2003).

I have related critical theory‟s hybrid tradition to social work‟s

understanding and conceptualisation of cross-cultural practice. As a result, I have regularly asked myself the following questions in relation to cross-cultural social work thinking and practice. First, why and how are social workers implicitly expected to know their own culture in practising cross-culturally? Second, why

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are social workers unreservedly thought of as being able to identify how culture affects their practice? Third, why is the practice of cross-cultural social work assumed to rely on a social worker‟s acquisition of cultural knowledge about the „other‟? Finally, I have asked why and how social workers can be expected to be able to juggle all of this while remaining „sensitive to difference‟ (AASW 2010).

In essence, the „culturally sensitive practitioner‟ needs to know how to do culturally sensitive practice but she/he can remain immune to having to ask why the need exists. Such questioning captured and impacted both the way I thought about the theoretical underpinnings of this study and how I conducted the study. Kincheloe and Steinberg‟s (1997) and Kincheloe and McLaren‟s (2003) work on critical theory meant that in the formulation and conduct of my research, I needed to be cognisant that:

 all thought is shaped by power relations and power is formed by social and historical forces;

 facts derive from values and ideologies;

 the relationship between ideas, objects and meaning is unstable, fluid, and regulated by social influences in a capitalist world;

 language is the key to how we understand and make meaning of our experiences in the world;

 there are groups in society that are privileged at the expense of others - in the contemporary world we have learnt not to question why this is the case and so people uncritically accept their

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generalised acceptance of oppression as an expected outcome of contemporary life; and

 mainstream research practices are a product of this system of unexamined privilege and therefore inevitably replicate the

oppression of some human beings (Kincheloe and Steinberg 1997).

Critical theory is no longer comfortable with thinking of oppression as only derived from economic structures. Critical theory‟s relevance to today‟s world rests on being able to position oppression at the intersection of multiple forms of positions of “advantage or subordination” (Pease 2010, p. 117). Hence, it becomes problematic to think of cross-cultural social work as informed by a model of practice that assumes that the power to do cross-cultural social work lies with the sensitive respectful worker who is mindful of religious, spiritual

worldviews and meaning-making differences; can access interpreters; can

promote culturally aware and culturally competent practices; includes community Elders in shaping Indigenous practice; builds collaborative relationships with clients; and, promotes anti-racist and anti-oppressive practice principles by challenging racism and other forms of oppression (AASW 2010).

Conducting research under the influence of critical theory has meant questioning the significant emphasis that is placed on the „how‟ to research at the expense of giving attention to „why‟ to research. This preoccupation with method over human values is leading researchers away from an analysis of which value choices have informed the research process and the impetus for research in the first instance (Giroux 1997). A concern with identifying which human values

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inform research allows critical researchers to think about how research contributes to hegemony.

Gramscian hegemony, as explained by Kincheloe and McLaren (2003, pp. 439-440), stipulates that power is no longer exercised through physical force but rather it is negotiated by socio-cultural means such as through the media,

educational institutions and the family. Therefore, thinking of hegemony in research can never be removed from the socio-cultural influences that are asserted by various groups with myriad individual agendas. Furthermore, critical theorists relate hegemony to ideology. In doing so, we think of hegemony as the larger force by which the powerful seek control of the less powerful and we think of ideology as the cultural means by which this force is delivered and reinforced:

Ideology vis-à-vis hegemony moves critical inquiries beyond simplistic explanations of dominance [and] endorses much more subtle, ambiguous, and situationally specific form of domination that refuses the propaganda model‟s assumption that people are passive, easily manipulated victims. Researchers operating with an awareness of this…understand that dominant ideological practices and discourses shape our vision of reality (Lemke 1995 cited in Kincheloe and McLaren 2003, p. 440).

Culture is seen by critical researchers as a site for contested knowledge production and transmission. Kincheloe and McLaren (2003, pp. 441-443) argue:

Cultural production can often be thought of as a form of education, as it generates knowledge, shapes values, and constructs identity…particular cultural agents produce particular hegemonic ways of seeing…the new „educators‟ in the [21st century] are those who possess the financial resources to use mass media…Western societies have to some degree capitulated to this…passively watching an elite gain control over the political system…critical researchers are intent on exposing the specifics of this process.

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Culture for criticalists is: “always contextual, emergent, improvisational, transformational … [and above all] political” (Laird 1998, pp. 28-29). Current understandings of culture run counter to efforts by criticalists who seek to think of culture as a social and individual construction (Dean 2001) and include:

 culture as “ways of life, and shared values, beliefs and meanings common to groups of people” (Quinn 2009 cited in AASW Code of Ethics 2010, p. 43);

 „culture‟ as used interchangeably in many Western countries with concepts such as ethnicity, race, and nationality (Matsumoto and Juang 2004); or,

 culture as the “totality of ways of behaving that get passed on from

generation to generation” (North American National Association of Social Workers‟ Standard of Cultural Competence Practice 2001, p. 9)

As society contests ideas about culture, there are also challenges being made to ideas about multiculturalism. This study, under the influence of critical thinking, has endorsed a rejection of the notion that “people need to practice a „difference blindness‟ [perspective] that ensures individual rights and privileges are applied to everyone in the same way, without reference to one‟s cultural background, ethnicity, race, and/or religion” (Sundar 2009, p. 99). This study is more closely aligned with the „recognition of difference‟ perspective first proposed by Charles Taylor (1994).

As an advocate of the politics of recognition, Taylor (1994) situated the idea of multiculturalism within the notion that all human beings make sense of

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themselves in relation to others‟ recognition of that self – that is, identity is a process that evolves with human interaction. For multiculturalism to be enacted and workable in bringing about equality for all, Taylor (1994, p. 72) argues constant and ongoing dialogue is necessary to find a balance between “the

inauthentic and homogenizing demand for recognition of equal worth, on the one hand, [and] the self-immurement within ethnocentric standards, on the other”.

Ultimately, all of these ideas represent the extent to which post-

structuralist thought has influenced and been fused with contemporary critical theory. This fusion has offered this study the opportunity to pose critical questions about the cultural reality that participants described during their encounters with one another and allowed the intention of the research to be spoken and examined openly. Critical theory has fused with post-structuralism in this study to

fundamentally critique sources of power and privilege and provide a stage for transformative action.

The next section discusses another theoretical framework that has influenced this study and my research practice - anti-oppressive theory.