How - Anti- ing ' becomes Mastery: Moral Subjectivities Shaped through Anti-Oppressive Practice

Abstract

Anti-oppressive practice (AOP) has been popularly adopted in the undergraduate and graduate levels as a dominant framework for theorising about oppression, the self and working towards change. It is conceptualised as the socially just framework to practise from when engaging racialised and marginalised populations. Using a post-structural Foucauldian analysis, I intend to examine the discursive effects of AOP as occupying a position of mastery. Specifically, the active process of - anti-ing' is a way of governing the self which becomes a form of currency when it is taken up as a dominant discourse. Looking at three tenets of AOP theory relating to identity, authenticity and resistance, I suggest that AOP can operate to re-inscribe a normalcy that relies on the construction of a moral subjectivity, effectively obscuring the types of work that are required to modify and regulate oneself when performing - anti-ing'.