No One is Disposable
Abolition Pedagogy & Social Work Futures
Abstract
This paper explores the ways in which critical reflection, a model for critical incident debrief within social work, is an act of abolition pedagogy and social work which confounds settler colonialism and carceral logics which pervade this profession as well as educational/learning environments. Theoretically grounded in reproductive justice and the abolition thinking of Angela Davis and Mariane Kaba, this paper argues that opportunities to unpack binaries and hidden assumptions through collective learning are opportunities to unpack the ways in which Foucault’s Panopticon Effect is unwittingly internalized and reproduced within ‘helping’ professions and at the micro level. In addition, an intersectional, critical autoethnographic exploration of a personal experience in a critical reflection group is interwoven throughout. I contend that the integration of these ‘selves’ serves as a reminder that use of self in its most authentic form has the potential to challenge and confound the constructed separation between personal and professional that attempts to depoliticize all realms of our lives and relegate our primary duties to that of working and consuming. As a site of potential transformation and liberation, critical reflection’s alignment with abolition stands in direct contrast to neoliberal educational structures often focused on individualism, credentials, surface learning, and brevity. Finally, critical reflection of practice, as a model of critical incident debrief, provides a site for abolition social work and pedagogy to take root in its capacity to foster an unrestrained imagination.
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