Embodying Anti-Racist Practice Through Mindfulness and Intergroup Dialogue in Social Work Practice

Overview: Situated as a critical dialogical learning process, Intergroup dialogue (IGD) represents a powerful tool for enhancing social workers' skills and capacities. The presenters will explore dynamic applications of IGD as a tool for Anti-Racist identity development and explicate the significance of mindfulness and embodiment as precursors for sustained Anti-Racist work.Proposal text: Background

Within anti-oppressive literature, a growing body of research seeks to identify ways of enhancing critical and transformative social justice learning processes (Berila, 2015; Johnson, 2018;). While Intergroup dialogue (IGD) is an established learning method within social work education and across affiliate disciplines (Buehler et al., 2021; Dessel and Rogge, 2008; Gurin et al., 2013), it remains less explored within organizational and community practice contexts. Congruent with the tenets of critical social work practice (Fook, 2015; 2018), Anti-Racist IGD draws upon many essential social work practice skills—such as engaged listening, creating a holding space, and group facilitation skills—while functioning with the broader aims of communicating across racial difference, promoting critical consciousness, and increasing civic engagement (Maxwell et al., 2011; Nagda & Gurin, 2007; Zúñiga et al., 2012). Given social work’s core ethical commitment to social justice and Anti-Racism, specifically, and considering the importance of social work practitioners developing the competencies for engaging within and across dynamics of difference, IGD is a particularly powerful tool for use in social work education and practice contexts alike.

Crucially, as the panelists will discuss, Anti-Racist work is never purely a cognitive exercise: it requires the engagement of our bodily, visceral, sensorial, and affective dimensions towards 'unearthing' and 'unlearning' the implicit ideologies engendered by our colonialist, white-supremacist global situation. Framed by Kendi’s (2019) Anti-Racist framework and building off Menakem (2017) and Clark and Yellowbird’s (2021) formative work, this discussion draws from somatic, critical education, and contemplative science literature to explore the significance of attending to the body’s role in reproducing racial oppression and, conversely, to its potential for operating as a site for transformative healing. Such a perspective calls attention to the criticality of challenging mind-supremacist epistemologies undergirding prominent social justice models and situates embodied Anti-Racist IGD as an innovative learning tool and practice space.

Objectives

In this discussion based on a forthcoming textbook chapter, the presenters will elucidate the processes involved in conducting an embodied IGD process that promotes racial understanding, healing, and Anti-Racist identity development. Using case examples, the discussants will illuminate key components of Kendi’s (2019) Anti-Racist framework and describe central components for conducting mindfulness-based Anti-Racist IGD processes. Interwoven throughout the discussion, the presenters will explicate the theoretical, conceptual, and scientific underpinnings that implicate the role of mindfulness as a vital resource for enhancing social justice pedagogies and deepening Anti-Racist practice.

Implications

Despite the growing recognition of the significance of the body in learning and healing processes (Berila, 2015; Johnson, 2018), we are unaware of efforts to merge somatic and mindfulness practices, Intergroup dialogue, and an Anti-Racist framework within social work literature. In sharing our work, we hope to increase the visibility of a novel approach for integrating mindfulness within Anti-Racist IGD and, in so doing, amplify the call to engage more deeply with the embodied and affective dimensions embedded within social justice learning and Anti-Racist work. Ultimately, this work holds theoretical, pedagogical, and practical implications for the field of social work and toward the expansion of embodied anti-oppressive social work practice.