Community mobilization
3. Christian presentation in society. This relates to the relationship between church and state and the role of Christianity outside of the
3.6.5 Hermeneutics in Social work
In this section the researcher described a hermeneutic, systemic and a social constructionist approach to the social work profession. The role of social work related to families with HIV/AIDS is approached from different vantage points, e.g. challenges of parenting for families living with HIV/AIDS.
Phases two and three of the Intervention Research Model are herein followed viz. the information gathering and synthesis, as well as the specification and definition of dominant discourses in families with HIV/AIDS which need to be changed.
Family therapy is embedded in social work practice and therefore the researcher thought it important to discuss both disciplines.
Many Bible Colleges and Theological institutions require their students to be involved in community practice. The field of social work and family therapy can render a great service to these students by providing them with the necessary information and practice skills.
Figure 3.3. Hermeneutic circle Dummer et al 2004.
Within the hermeneutic circle, part and whole, pre-knowledge and learning about the person, and theory and practice, are all within a reciprocal enlightenment relation. Thus the experienced interpreter (e.g., the social worker) comes to a real and fundamental understanding of a situation or a person. The social work profession also embraces a post-modern hermeneutic model, in which the social worker becomes aware of pre- conceived ideas about the life world of clients and their problem situations. The methodology that is followed would address subjectivity and reduce the risk of transference of „own experience‟ from the counsellor. The above described hermeneutic circle can also relate to problem situations that are structural in nature. The social worker would engage in a critical reflection of the role of societal structures, that are supporting the current problems and actively engage with the client in appropriate action. (Dummer et al, 2004).
P = pre-understanding U = understanding P1 = advanced pre- understanding...
U1 = advanced understanding...
P2 P1 P U U1 U2
Figure 3.4. Risk Assessment Dummer et al 2004
Thiersch (2004) positions hermeneutic ideas within a critical paradigm that exposes the contradictions of our society. The client‟s “everyday world” is between “system” and
“everyday life,” and therefore the duty of the social worker is to draw the attention of the clients to their problems, and create awareness of the social causes thereof. The social worker supports the connection between individual help and community care, political action and empowerment processes. The social worker, therefore, facilitates a communicative and reflective process, whereby the client becomes more conscious of negative trends. “Within this view risk is not something to avoid, but to take, and communicated, as otherwise there would be no social progress or social change”
(Thiersch in Dummer et al 2004:3).
The hermeneutical, and critical traditions are losing credibility in the western world, as possible risk taking within helping processes is no more acceptable. Because of legitimacy, effectiveness and transparency of social work, more rational theories like the systemic theory are gaining importance, with clear criteria for its procedures and interventions, including possible risks and dangers. However, the authors argue that if social workers are only aware of their social function and don‟t dare to take risk at all,
Social Worker
Client communication
risk as Society
they will no longer be able to stand up to their ethical and critical commitment to support the individual not only for, but also against society (Dummer et al 2006).
Bodor described philosophical hermeneutics as a worldview “that grants value to the contexts and understandings of place, history, experiences, voices and text” (Bodor 2006:1). Bodor emphasized the hermeneutical historical viewpoint that the human sciences require subjective understanding of experience, which is an ongoing authoritive process. The purpose of this process is to challenge and deconstruct authoritative assumptions that we hold of understanding our world. Bodor valued this approach in social work with remote and rural communities, because it speaks to beliefs, values, context and the interpretation of our own life world. In this study, research participants reflect on their families of origin as well as the communities that their families belong to. Families living with HIV are possibly families that are living in impoverished circumstances, deprived of health services, belonging to a minority population group and opposed because of stigma and discrimination related to their HIV status. Challenging and deconstructing authoritative assumptions may take place in an individual or familial counseling session as well in community social action that is undertaken on behalf of clients in an advocacy capacity.
“Hermeneutics has to do with a theoretical attitude towards the practice of interpretation, the interpretation of texts, but also in relation to the experiences interpreted in them and in our communicatively unfolded orientations in the world”
(Gadamer 1983:112). The hermeneutic process entails a listening to and a deep exploration of the stories from infected and affected people and a listening to the relational, contextual and historical voices behind the stories. This process of „making sense of our world‟ is described by Gadamer as finding the underlying questions to the statements that we make (Gadamer 1983). In the study, the pastoral family counsellors are encouraged to enter this process of making sense of the life world of people living with HIV/AIDS and relate their practical theological understanding with the support of interpretation text and experiences from the field of social work.
This dialectical process of understanding and interpretation, by asking genuine questions, is experienced within the hermeneutic circle through the act of dialogue. The result is the construction of meanings. Within this process, we cannot „bracket‟ our own thoughts and beliefs and be neutral. We need to acknowledge our life world and fore- knowledge and become aware of prejudices, our situatedness in history and time (Gadamer 1983). Hence, for the study the participants are encouraged to dialogue and construct meaning as a group, related to the life world of their current families and families of origin.
In this process, our historical consciousness will be changing, as we understand our traditions differently. Gadamer mentions the “I-Thou” relationship, where we open ourselves to the other and learn what we do not know. The position of not having a
„truth claim‟ opens to a merging of different vantage points. Gadamer described understanding and interpretation as the fusion of these vantage points, a fusion of horizons, a genuinely reciprocal process (Gadamer 1995).
Bodor adds the concepts of reflexivity and rigour to the practice of hermeneutics.
Reflexivity means that the social worker reflects on the influence of background pre- understanding, value positions, experiences and narrative that shape the interpretive process. Rigour relates to trustworthiness and legitimacy. A value orientated approach, containing pre-understanding, originating in the historical context of social worker and client brings understanding, meaning and makes us into real people, who open their horizons to others and may have to change as a consequence of hearing something new and learning about ourselves.
In our practice with HIV positive families, the hermeneutic approach may make us aware that the complexity of life doesn‟t warrant to produce a specific, single explanation for life circumstances (Gadamer 1995).
The trustworthiness is experienced within the hermeneutic cycle, and means an integration of differences, multiple perspectives, within the context of the whole.
Constructivist hermeneutics relies on language to communicate meaning and
understanding. This requires a hermeneutics of trust. At community level, it requires us to live in connection with the history and locally created understanding and the intertwining of the co-created realities (Bodor 2006). In the present study, the integration of differences and multiple perspectives are an outcome of the painstaking work of finding understanding, reflection and more understanding, which happens between pastoral family counsellors, counsellors and families as well as in the interaction with communities.