Abstract
The concept of human rights is often referenced within social justice initiatives, social work practice, and advocacy campaigns. However, human rights as a foundational concept can have differing meanings, understandings, and vary in how it might be applied across social movements, organizations, nations, and cultures. In social work, there is more work to do in adopting a nuanced and critical approach to human rights that can hold these tensions between universalism and relativism. Using the first author’s international social work field placement experience, this article addresses these complexities that surround understanding human rights in context and how a perspective that embraces this nuanced approach can facilitate and inform a social work approach to collaborative advocacy and practice. We also discuss the importance of cultivating a more open and decolonized understanding of social work practice during the learning process in order to prepare students to practice internationally. Fundamental to this approach of collaborative advocacy and practice is a mutual exchange of knowledge, resources, and experience. The preparation process for international internships must create space for not only incorporating a human rights framework but also for discussions of nuanced ways in which the universality of human rights is carried out within the peculiarity of local contexts.
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07 April 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41134-021-00171-3
Notes
Collaborative advocacy is a term Raylinn Nuckolls created while reflecting upon how the idea of advocacy and the savior complex can easily become entwined when a person from the Global North interfaces with persons or communities in the Global South. Oftentimes, the pursuit of advocacy can leave out the actual perspectives and voices of those we are hoping to advocate for and a hierarchy of needs is decided without them and imposed on them. These assumptions of need might not reflect their perspective of which needs are most important and should be prioritized. Collaborative advocacy is used here to describe an approach that prioritizes the perspectives of those we are hoping to advocate with and for.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the efforts of so many individuals that supported this work including Erna Dinata, Ph.D. at the University of Indonesia, Lucy Fiske, Ph.D. at the University of Technology Sydney, and all of the families and staff at the Cisarua Refugee Learning Center.
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Raylinn Nuckolls is now at Thresholds, a community mental health organization in Chicago, IL.
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Nuckolls, R., Villarreal Sosa, L. Human Rights, Collaborative Advocacy, and a Global Approach to Practice: Lessons from a Field Experience in Indonesia. J. Hum. Rights Soc. Work 6, 82–89 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41134-020-00149-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41134-020-00149-7