In the Western world—and by that I mean the U.S. and northwestern Europe—advocacy has become modus operandi and modus vivendi for those who aspire toward cultural competence. In the mental health field, broadly defined, advocacy has gained the status of an essential ingredient of culturally competent practice. American Psychological Association programs in counseling psychology, for instance, promote the Scientist-Practitioner-Advocate paradigm. The Advocate piece refers to the recognition of just how important advocacy is to being a culturally competent practitioner and, by extension, just how important cultural competence is for counselors’ general competence in working with clients.
Similarly, in scholarly work concerned with social issues (and especially the issues of immigration, culture, human rights, and international relations), advocacy plays an important role. It is deemed a vital component of efforts to promote the rights of the oppressed and to prevent future abuses and violations of human rights and dignity. And, of course, human rights organizations are entirely built around the idea of advocacy, the idea that it is necessary to advocate for the voiceless, to speak on their behalf, to promote their rights, to prove their humanity to those in power and to do good for them.
In this fervor to advocate for the oppressed, there has been little reflexivity about advocacy itself. In pointing out this lack of reflexivity, I do not intend to argue that advocacy is a bad thing . We all are weak at times and we all benefit from someone advocating for us at those times. Rather, my argument is that we cannot assume that advocacy is always a good thing. We need to think critically about advocacy just as we think critically about abuse, violence, power, and oppression.
For example, advocacy is nested in a story that includes victims, oppressors, saviors, and advocates. In this story, the roles of an advocate and a savior may become blurred, which is not surprising given the common goal of saving the victims from oppressors. What never becomes blurred is the distinction between the good guys (i.e., advocates and saviors) and the bad guys (i.e., the oppressors), for this is an archetypal fight between good and evil. This is to say, the two opposing sides are not to be confused under any circumstances. The victims, of course, are marginal to the dynamic of this story. They exist to give meaning to the fight between good and evil and that’s all—beyond the function of justifying the story, there is no place for them in it. So, here is something to think about: are we, as advocates, there for the fight against the evil, are we there for the vicitms, or are we there because we are trying to do the right thing? Why are we there?
Related to this, there is a tendency for the roles of advocate, victim, oppressor, and savior to become calcified. And when this happens, there is little opportunity for change. The victims remain victimized, which is to say powerless and oppressed; the oppressors continue to oppress; the advocates continue to advocate, that is, to be loud in their calls for saving the victims and admonishing the oppressors; and the saviors continue to play the role of a beloved hero who ends up saving the day. And, the question to ponder: when we engage in advocacy, are we expecting to always remain in the role of an advocate or do we think that we might shift to the role of a victim? And, do we ever think that we may also be playing the role of an oppressor, perhaps as we are trying to do the right thing and advocate for the victims?
Another thing to consider is an essentialization of the role of an advocate. This essentialization provides a temptation for people to build an identity around this role–in fact, in the mental health field, clinicians are often encouraged to do so. This is particularly true in the US where we are told that being an advocate is always and forever a good thing. Coupled with the dualistic thinking that permeates all segments of social functioning in the US, from the playground to the US Congress, the identity of an advocate is likely to become inextricably bound with the idea that an advocate is (1) a good guy by definition and (2) a savior of the oppressed.
One of the problems with the “good guy by definition” thinking is that it prohibits reflexive examination of one’s actions. An example of this is the 1992 Human Rights Watch/NCHRCR report on the Dominican batey. The report indicated that international concern regarding the living and working conditions on the bateyes, as illuminated by human rights organizations (i.e., HRW and NCHR), prompted the Dominican authorities to repatriate a large number of Haitians in the Dominican. Per 1992 HRW/NCHR report, these expulsions were cause of great suffering. And, by their own admission, the HRW/NCHR efforts to bring the issue of the Dominican batey to the attention of the international community—their efforts to paint the Dominican sugar industry and the Dominican government as the bad guys, the Haitian sugar cane workers and their families as the victims, and their appeals to the US government as the savior—were instrumental in the actions the Dominican authorities took in response to the international expressions of concern and outrage. Yet, when asked about their role in what happened to the Haitians, the HRW/NCHR took (at least officially) the stance that they only did their job, which is advocating, and that the oppressors did what you’d expect from them—continue to oppress. There was no reflection in their report about the nature of their work and about whether the goal of improving people’s lives could have been approached differently.
A problem with the savior aspect of the advocate identity, is the potential damages to the identity- holder and to those on whose behalf an advocate acts. The potential damages to the identity-holder are as follows:
- A prohibition of weakness, vulnerability, and badness, at least in relation to their role as an advocate. That is, advocates are supposed to be strong for the victims and, if they are to be effective in their work, they shouldn’t be weak and vulnerable. Also, advocates are supposed to be good if they are to truly help the oppressed. (And, let’s be honest for a second, is there any human being who is always strong and good?)
- A deflection of the advocate’s attention away from his or her own needs and always towards the needs of others. (As advocates, are we taught to always think about our own needs? And we do have some needs, don’t we?)
The most prominent damage to the intended beneficiaries of advocacy is a tendency to construct the victims as weak and in need for help. Such construction renders them disempowered despite the intended goal of advocacy–the empowerment. So a question for thought is how are we, as advocates, contributing to the disempowerment and marginalization of the oppressed?
