beyond empowerment: changing local communities

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http://isw.sagepub.com/ International Social Work http://isw.sagepub.com/content/53/3/393 The online version of this article can be found at: DOI: 10.1177/0020872809359867 2010 53: 393 International Social Work Jessica H. Jönsson Beyond empowerment: Changing local communities Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: International Association of Schools of Social Work International Council of Social Welfare International Federation of Social Workers can be found at: International Social Work Additional services and information for http://isw.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts: http://isw.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Permissions: http://isw.sagepub.com/content/53/3/393.refs.html Citations: What is This? - May 11, 2010 Version of Record >> at Scientific library of Moscow State University on January 30, 2014 isw.sagepub.com Downloaded from at Scientific library of Moscow State University on January 30, 2014 isw.sagepub.com Downloaded from

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Page 1: Beyond empowerment: Changing local communities

http://isw.sagepub.com/International Social Work

http://isw.sagepub.com/content/53/3/393The online version of this article can be found at:

 DOI: 10.1177/0020872809359867

2010 53: 393International Social WorkJessica H. Jönsson

Beyond empowerment: Changing local communities  

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of: 

International Association of Schools of Social Work

International Council of Social Welfare

International Federation of Social Workers

can be found at:International Social WorkAdditional services and information for    

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- May 11, 2010Version of Record >> at Scientific library of Moscow State University on January 30, 2014isw.sagepub.comDownloaded from at Scientific library of Moscow State University on January 30, 2014isw.sagepub.comDownloaded from

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i s w

Beyond empowerment: Changing local communities

Jessica H. JönssonMid Sweden University, Sweden

Abstract This article critically analyses empowerment projects in a local community in southern India and explores the shortcomings of development projects aimed at changing living conditions of marginalized people. It is argued that international social work should move beyond established empowerment theories and practices and include combating structural barriers in an emancipatory manner.

Keywords development, emancipation, empowerment, social work, southern India

In a time of rapid and substantial economic, environmental and social changes all over the world and a growing demand for and debate on development, it is important to emphasize that development is not about things or numbers. It is about people. Globalization and the unequal distribution of the world’s resources are increasingly including all countries in a global overwhelming socioeconomic and cultural transformation. This is creating challenges for policymakers and politicians around the world. Globalization results in spreading models of modern institutions, such as nation states, democracy, the capitalist system and its market economy that encompasses every corner of the globe (Giddens, 1990). Structural transformations, such as urbanization, modern education and the modern labor market, have

Article

Corresponding author: Jessica H. Jönsson, Department of Social Work, Mid Sweden University, SE-831 25 Östersund, Sweden. Email: [email protected]

International Social Work53(3) 393–406

© The Author(s) 2010Reprints and permission: sagepub.

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resulted in the transformation of local communities and fewer networks of local support, including the large families. In many western countries, the transformation of the family structure and the labor market has already resulted in increasing the role and intervention of the state in individuals’ daily lives.

As a result professional and voluntary social work has occupied a central role in the life of many people who are the losers in modernization and are facing difficulties in their lives. The globalization of modernization has, in Immanuel Wallerstein’s (1974) words, created a ‘capitalist world system’ which forces many non-western countries to introduce social institutions and organizations in accordance with established western models. The new organization of social work is not excluded from the westernization process.

Besides, in many non-western countries policymakers and social workers adopt and implement many criticized professional models of ‘early moder-nity’, to use Ulrich Beck’s (1999) term. The theoretical and practical chal-lenges to such models, which have been debated during the last few decades, are more or less ignored by the modernizing elites of many non-western countries. The compatibility of these models with local conditions of social work is a not a matter of scientific and practical discussion in these countries.

The implementation of western models of social work is often legitimized by the concept of development, which often relates to economic growth and higher consumption. Poverty and social problems, such as prostitution, street children and trafficking, are often described in pathological terms and as individual problems. Development and modernization ideas in social work are often connected to the concept of empowerment, introduced by Freire (1972) in the context of Latin America. The term ‘empowerment’ represents the needs and efforts of marginalized groups for a social environ-ment free of inequalities which disfavour them socially, politically and economically. However, the term is controversial. The interrelation between the concept of empowerment and the dominant discourse of development, as a dominant global and western discourse, is criticized by many scholars engaged in the post-development and postcolonial debates (Darby and Paolini, 1994; Escobar, 2000; Harding, 1998). The idea of development is closely related to a hierarchical colonial understanding of people by dividing them into the dual categories of ‘developed/modern’ and ‘non-developed/traditional’ (Kamali, 2008). Development theory is Eurocentric, patriar-chal, exploitative, rooted in European cultures and reflective of a dominant western world view (Crush, 1995; Escobar, 1995; Gardner and Lewis, 1996; McEwan, 2001; Wilkin, 2000). Escobar means that the development theories have paternalistic attitudes towards people in non-western countries

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and consider them to be waiting for salvation. He writes that those people are attached to ‘features of powerlessness, passivity, poverty and ignorance, usually dark and lacking in historical agency, as if waiting for the (white) western hand to help’ (Escobar, 1995: 8).

The dominant model of development and the belief in universal values have paradoxically generated deep and structural crises, gaps and inequali-ties in the socioeconomic, cultural and ecological environments. Centuries of uneven development of modernity resulted in the unequal distribution of wealth, poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, hunger, disease, sanitation problems, wars and increasing numbers of refugees in many non-western countries and areas (McMichael, 2008; Melkote and Steeves, 2001; Pathy, 2001; Pearce, 2000).

Influenced by the dominant paradigm of modernity many western and non-western experts have been engaged in constructing development pro-grammes and strategies for non-western countries. The strong belief in western models of modernization and the existence of one modernity, which excludes variations of modernities, have created many problems for the development of indigenous and heterogeneous models of modernity (Eisenstadt, 2000; Kamali, 2006). This also meant constructing ‘social nor-malities’ as well as ‘social abnormalities’, in accordance with the current concept of development (Escobar, 1995). The world can therefore be divided into ‘developed North’ and ‘non-developed South’.

The dominant discourse of development has discouraged people from asking the important questions such as what kind of world we want to build, and has focused on how the ‘others’ in the South can be like ‘us’ in the North (Pearce, 2000). This means that the South and its marginalized people can only reach the ‘developed Us’ by continuing diffusion of foreign capital, technology, knowledge and institutions. Accordingly, the forces of develop-ment are considered external to Southern societies (Pathy, 2001). Such a categorization of non-western countries as the mirror image of the developed West runs the risk of ethnocentric intervention which ignores many realities of those countries, as Said discussed in Orientalism (1978) (see also Escobar, 1995; Marulasiddaiah, 2000; Melkote and Steeves, 2001). However, it is of crucial importance to admit that such a Eurocentric under-standing of modernity has not only been introduced by western scholars and agents, but also by local westernized intellectuals who consider the West as the ultimate goal of modernity and development, which have had a negative impact on many development projects in non-western countries (Kamali, 2006, 2008). Given the global characteristics of modernity and its colonial past and postcolonial present, many local elites in non-western countries are highly influenced by westernized ideas of development. One such influence

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is the neoliberal ideology concerning the role of the state in welfare organi-zation, adopted from the USA. This has resulted in structural adjustment pro-grammes to the neoliberal western capitalism (Mohanty, 2001). Even the field of social work has become highly influenced by neoliberalism and marketiza-tion (Dominelli, 1999; Jordan, 2004; Mishra, 1999).

Decreasing the role of the state and family boundaries in society has resulted in the increasing role of civil society and non-governmental organi-zations (NGOs), in order to compensate for socioeconomic inequalities and social problems. NGOs are seen as dynamic and privatized alternatives for development, democracy and empowerment (Wickramasinghe, 2005). The expansion of NGOs in the last 20 years as value-driven facilitators of change has mainly been based on the need for reducing the social costs of economic liberalization, such as growing social problems. This has taken place in a milieu of increased fragmentation and competition which has even influ-enced the field of social work. The liberal understanding of NGOs’ engage-ment in combating social problems does not prioritize social change nor see it necessary (Pearce, 2000). However, NGOs can be actors of social change by using critical social theory; as well as by learning from practice and dis-cussions with all parties engaged in development projects, NGOs can be actors of social change (Pearce, 2000).

Empowerment and emancipationA term that is used interchangeably within the frame of social work practice is empowerment, which has been associated with a wide variety of radical social movements (Askheim, 2003; Askheim and Starrin, 2007; Inglis, 2005; Mohanty, 2001; O’Sullivan, 1993; Payne, 2005; Pease and Fook, 1999). Empowerment started to be used in scientific literature at the end of the 1970s, related to the women’s movement, liberation movements in former colonies, different kinds of self-help organizations, social activism, social mobilizing, protest movements, etc. (Pease and Fook, 1999; Solomon, 1976). Empowerment is often linked to participation, power, control, self-realization and influence (Askheim and Starrin, 2007; Freire, 1972; Melkote and Steeves, 2001; Payne, 2005; Solomon, 1976). Inherent in this perspective is the view of social change that acknowledges the constraints imposed by social structures, and at the same time recognizes the human potential to change both oneself and society. The process here is seen in terms of collective social activity, as opposed to the more traditional view of the individual (Vanderplaat, 1998). Social justice, improved security for people, and greater political and social equality through mutual support and collective learning can be illustrated as the very basis of the concept (Freire, 1972; SinghaRoy, 2001).

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However, the concept of empowerment linked to the reinforcement of social justice has been replaced by the concept of development, where suc-cessful development is synonymous with economic growth, modernization, production growth, privatization and consumption. The concept is exercised in the frame of the global market economy (Mohanty, 2001) in which international social work has a micro-oriented profile (Askheim, 2003). Vanderplaat (1998) draws attention to the disempowering characteristics of the practices of empowerment. Vanderplaat means that the scope of social, economic and political activities has increasingly been limited to that which can be validated through scientific and technocratic rules and procedures. Despite good intentions, such programmes are encouraging people to see their existence and the solutions to their life problems as merely technical matters (Vanderplaat, 1998).

In recent years the development of a postmodern critical standpoint in social work has targeted the concept and practices of empowerment. Without aiming at defending postmodernism as another metanarrative, we can recog-nize the contribution of the postmodern critical approach to a more emanci-patory social work, which challenges the constraints of development and empowerment approaches (Melkote and Steeves, 2001; Pease and Fook, 1999). It is necessary to rethink empowerment from a postmodern critical perspective, to confront the paradoxes, dilemmas, limitations and weak-nesses in metanarratives of modern theories and practices of social work.

The concept of emancipation has widely been used during the anticolo-nial struggles in order to describe various efforts to obtain political rights or equality. This indicates that disadvantaged and marginalized people should get access to the means of power and influence in society and thereby free themselves from the oppressing and dominating structures and take control of their own lives (Inglis, 1997). The emancipation of disadvantaged groups needs the ability to distinguish different types of the exercise of power (Dominelli, 2002; Leung, 2005; Pease and Fook, 1999; Rowlands, 1998). As Inglis (1997) argues, there is a distinction between individuals being empowered within an existing social system and struggling for freedom by changing the system.

Empowerment involves people developing capacities to act successfully within the existing system and structures of power, while emancipation means critically analysing, resisting and challenging structures of power (Inglis, 1997: 4).

In order to organize successful emancipatory social work for marginalized groups we have to include the unequal distribution of power and the way such inequalities are reproduced (Inglis, 1997; Melkote and Steeves, 2001; Mohanty, 2001; SinghaRoy, 2001). The process of emancipation involves a

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continual struggle to reveal the ever-changing nature of power (Inglis, 1997). We should not look at our lives through an established discourse and pas-sively accept the way a discourse presents us and our reality. Emancipation demands engagement in the struggle of the definition of reality and access to the means of the exercise of power.

In the Indian context, Saraswati (2005) criticizes the empowering approaches aimed at improving the life situation of those at the margins of the existing system without really questioning the unequal power dynamics that creates those inequalities in the first place. The focus of social work with its established concepts of development and empowerment is often based on the micro level and the structural properties of society are not a focus of debate. By considering social problems as merely individual prob-lems, even the blame of lack of development is put on individuals. Individuals and structural changes should go hand in hand in order to obtain the expected results of a project (Dominelli, 2002).

Empowerment projects are also criticized for not being successful in combating gender inequalities. Saraswati (2005) means that empowerment projects for women are mainly aimed at changing individuals’ conditions instead of changing social and cultural forms of patriarchy that remain the sites of women’s oppression. Improving individual capacities, such as self-confidence and consciousness, should be combined with the change of structures that oppress women. It is futile and can also be considered as unethical for professionals to help solve problems while ignoring the sys-tematic barriers raised by the society that allow or maintain inequalities among citizens (Melkote and Steeves, 2001).

Empowerment processes that simply help women to gain access to resources, but do not aim to redefine existing patriarchal social and political power structures, can in fact be destructive and disempowering (Afshar, 1998; Leung, 2005; Rowlands, 1998; Saraswati, 2005). Emancipatory proj-ects must leave a developmental pattern and go beyond pragmatic goals, such as higher productivity, higher consumption and higher formal education, and be engaged in social and political actions (Freire, 1972; Melkote and Steeves, 2001).

Social workers have to consider the power relation of society at the macro level in their activities, since the macro power is defining and con-trolling both the social problems and the solutions. For example, social workers should consider questions such as within which organizations a project is being carried out, and what opportunities and limitations these organizations are creating for successful social work (Askheim, 2003; Dominelli, 2002; Leung, 2005). Both clients and social workers are part of the network of power relations.

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This article attempts to address the challenges and dilemmas linked to the concept of empowerment and implementation of development strategies by studying a local empowerment project in a rural area in southern India. The project is using empowerment strategies in order to monitor social change and development for women and child welfare.

Research objectives and methodThis study was conducted in the rural areas of southern India where an orga-nization called SWASTI (Social Work and Social Transformation Institute) is launching a few empowerment projects. The organization was established in 1987 as a non-governmental voluntary organization. The main objectives are social and economic development, improving people’s health and orga-nizing educational programmes. The most important and established project concerns children’s and women’s welfare in rural areas.

The main objective of the study is to explore the empowering potential of local projects concerning children’s and women’s welfare in rural areas of southern India. The following research questions have been of impor-tance for the study: ‘How do individuals participating in the project evaluate their participation?’; ‘Are there any structural hindrances for the achieve-ment of the objectives of the local project?’; ‘Does the project improve women’s position in local community?’

Participatory observation and half-structured interviews were used for data collection which took place from February to June 2008 in the state of Karnataka in southern India. The following findings are based on interviews with 20 mothers, four female teachers, one male project leader and two social workers, a female and a male.

The discourse of development and empowerment in the projectThe project under study is highly influenced by the modernist development discourse in which the West is considered the model and the ultimate goal of local and social changes. Social workers consider the participants in the projects, mainly poor from rural areas, as ignorant, backward, incapable of finding their way out of poverty and dependent on social services. In discus-sions concerning education, health and work, education is considered as the locomotive for change and development. Health has been understood as a more complex phenomenon because villagers in rural areas have traditional superstitious ideas about diseases and health. The work issues have been understood as difficult to deal with due to overpopulation, lack of resources,

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lack of work ethics and alienation among the people. The attitudes indicate that rural areas are marked by illiteracy, ignorance, ill health, unemployment, tensions and social disintegration.

The attitudes of the responsible persons and social workers in the project reflect a paternalistic understanding of development where they seem to believe in an essentialized culture of poverty among the target people of the project. They considered people from rural areas in general and women par-ticipating in the project in particular as passive individuals who were not motivated to change their living conditions. It seems that there is a lack of any consciousness about the postcolonial and post-developmental critiques of the established western development discourse.

Social work both in urban and rural areas is still highly influenced by the former colonial structure and ideology in many ways. The colonial ideolo-gies and perspectives are still in effect and I found it obvious that there is a very located sense of whiteness as synonymous with prosperity, beauty, intelligence and power among respondents. They often glorify the West by legitimizing the dichotomy of the developed West and undeveloped and backward countries in the South. Here the people at the top of the project positioned themselves as belonging to the latter, either as market-oriented or socialist modernists. There is a substantial adoption of the West’s notion of development, in which the West is seen as the ultimate goal and the model of development and progress.

In the majority of cases, the women in the project, all illiterate, claimed that education is important because they want their children to get a better life than their poor parents. This is shared by the teachers responsible for the activities in the day care centres (crèches) who mean that education is decisive for the children’s future. However, there is a discrepancy between the mothers’ and the organization’s idea about education. For many fami-lies the major problem is to survive the daily economic challenges. But it seems that the project leaders are ignorant about this fact. For instance, many mothers and young people, both men and women, in the community started educating themselves in the past but had left their education because of the immediate economic needs of their families. In addition the local community has not enough jobs for educated people, and those who educate themselves normally must emigrate towards urban areas in order to get qualified jobs.

This indicates a dilemma in the mothers’, teachers’ and project leaders’ understanding of the emancipatory role of education. If education is not related to a labour market and social environment which provide better opportunities for educated individuals it gradually loses its importance. Changing individual conditions must also include structural dimensions in

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order to make the social transformation and emancipation of disadvantaged and marginalized people possible.

One of the structural problems which differentiates the local communities of Karnataka state is the uneven development of Indian society. A common understanding among everybody interviewed in the study in particular, and community members in general, was their dissatisfaction with the central gov-ernment’s socioeconomic policies towards rural areas. The respondents claim that more social and economic investments and development programmes are conducted in urban areas, which have resulted in the unequal distribution of resources, such as welfare investments, the supply of water and electricity, and investments in infrastructure, health care and education.

Networking and the position of womenEfforts have been made to conduct monthly mothers’ meetings, in order to educate and motivate mothers to take responsibility in the areas of child care, personal health and hygiene, diseases, first aid and vaccinations, among others. Teachers are working hard to organize meetings and are having reg-ular discussions with the mothers and other villagers. The teachers believe that educated mothers understand better the needs of their children.

A few women who regularly participate in the meetings claim that this type of networking is very important. Kavita, one of the participating mothers, expresses her own experiences of the meetings: ‘Before starting participating in these meetings I never raised my voice, and never spoke to other people that I had no relation with. Now, it is different. Now I like to participate in meetings and interact with people, it is giving me good self esteem.’

However, there was no clear understanding of the objectives of the mothers’ meetings and they seemed top-down organized. The respondents showed a strong loyalty to the project, which was also confirmed by the leaders of the project. As a basis for the evaluation of the project, a social worker set the agenda of the meetings and the teachers provided monthly reports. From my point of view, the evaluation meetings tended to be a formal follow-up of the monthly activities. This maybe was one of the reasons why many women did not participate in the meetings.

Interviews with mothers who did not participate in the meetings indicates that their voices were not considered important. The goals of the mothers’ meetings seem to indicate a view in which mothers are considered as passive receivers of help from the project. The meetings were formed by self-appointed experts who were convinced that they knew best the needs of the mothers, who mainly were considered as not having proper knowledge of child care, health care and related issues. This is among the paternalistic characteristics of

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many established development and empowerment projects, which have been highly criticized by postcolonial and post-development theories. The mothers are reduced to a homogeneous group of women seen as powerless, passive, poor and ignorant by the more powerful actors, themselves influenced by the Eurocentric, patriarchal and exploitive development perspectives, which were daily expressed, and is what Mohanty (2003) calls the colonial image of the third-world women. This image was obviously internalized by social workers and teachers.

Another networking project assisted by SWASTI is self-help groups in Karnataka. A majority of the interviewed mothers and teachers are engaged in these networks. In the village of Hirekumbalagunte alone there are 32 self-help groups, almost all of which consist of women. All of the groups get loans from Grameen Bank, the micro-credit organization which pro-vides small loans in the form of micro-credits. SWASTI’s staff is partly assisting and coordinating the meetings of self-help groups in the areas. Self-help groups aim to bring about social and economic improvements in their areas. Participants are generally positive about these groups. Grameen Bank is an alternative way for poor people to get loans for different projects, which can provide the women, the family and the community better economic status and improve living conditions. Women participating in self-help groups participate in weekly gatherings, exchanging knowledge and experiences and creating a network. However, the self-help groups and participating women are facing many structural barriers in their emancipatory efforts.

As Priyanka, a teacher puts it: ‘All of the women who are members are of course strong and intelligent but they cannot manage tasks as they are illiterate, always depending on a literate, to maintain the reports required by the bank.’

This creates a huge problem for many women, as they cannot indepen-dently take care of their loans. Another structural problem has to do with the power structure in the villages based on gender relations. As Asha, another teacher, says: ‘Most of the husbands of the members of self-help groups and other men in the villages do not appreciate that the women should get power over financial capital through micro credits, which is a big problem.’

Micro-credits, which are reinforcing the economic position of women in the local communities, are making problems for the established patriarchal system. However, the opposition of men to micro-credits is not the only hindrance for the development of self-help groups. Sita, one of the respon-sible women, complains that members are mainly interested in discussing finances, and are not ready to discuss any other issues such as gender, empowerment or family planning.

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Although Grameen Bank claims that it is working for the socioeconomic development of local communities, the women in self-help groups are not confirming Grameen Bank’s claim. According to the interviewees the bank only uses the discourse of socioeconomic development as a camouflage for its real interest in increasing their capital. Although micro-credits and other empowerment strategies launched through self-help groups are leading to some economic improvements for the families, it is not enough to change other structural hindrances based on the unequal power relations which create the inequalities for the women and their families in the first place. Social, political and cultural forms of patriarchy, which make important sites of women’s oppression, are not touched. The economic efforts for improving women’s economic positions should lead to social and political empower-ment, otherwise they run the risk of reproducing and even reinforcing a discriminatory patriarchal system. Women are increasingly forced to leave their housework in order to bring money into the family. However, the money is mainly used by the men, who are responsible for the families’ economies. As Venkatesh, a young man from the village, says, ‘In some cases the credits are used for weddings, shopping jewels, alcohol, gambling or for medical and hospital expenditures.’

More income for the families leads to higher consumption, which is difficult for them to sustain in the future when they have to pay back the loans with interest. By understanding development as mainly economic growth and higher consumption, the projects which I studied in Karnataka did not question the very causes of inequalities in villages and therefore the structural mechanisms of inequalities remain untouched.

Contradictions of development projects and challenges for social workThis study shows that the empowerment projects in the rural areas of southern India follow the established modernist understanding of development and empowerment. The empowerment projects and interventions emphasize the direct transfer of relevant or appropriate knowledge, skills and resources to marginalized groups. This is mainly done within the existing socioeconomic and cultural structures of power. There is a lack of critical analytical and practical tools for resisting the structural mechanisms of oppression in order to foster emancipatory ideals and practices.

The lack of a postcolonial and critical perspective results in defining poor people as deviant generally, and women as a helpless group in need of social services in particular. Social workers who seek to empower others

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through a process of labelling, targeting and providing services need self-reflexivity to avoid objectifying ‘the others’ and reproducing social injus-tices. If empowerment strategies seek to have an emancipatory effect on people who are marginalized and discriminated against, they must go beyond developmental goals, such as higher productivity, higher consump-tion and higher formal education. Instead social work practitioners have to consider the social structures, barriers and power relations which maintain inequalities and injustices, which limit individuals’ opportunities to improve their living conditions in society, and increase their access to the means of power and influence in society.

Acknowledgement

Many thanks to Masoud Kamali for his valuable advice and comments.Thanks also to Mona Livholts for her helpful comments on the paper.

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Author biography

Jessica H. Jönsson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Social Work, Mid Sweden University, Sweden.

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