Towards an ethics of compassionate care in accompanying human suffering: dialogic relationships and feminist activist scholarship with asylum-seeking mothers

ABSTRACT

In the face of forced migrants’ urgent needs and ongoing human rights violations endured within and across borders, scholars note the ‘dual imperative’ (Jacobsen and Landau 2003) of documenting these realities while also responding through humanitarian advocacy and/or political activism. This article documents one such experience, that is, an action research process that began with the first author’s accompaniment of Central American asylum-seeking mothers and children in Boston and included witnessing to and documenting these mothers’ narratives in a context of systemic injustice, while contributing to the creation of a humanitarian grassroots network. The latter supported migrants’ needs while advocating for their right to asylum. Reflecting on these experiences, we explore how research that creates knowledge while acting in the world, demands what we herein describe as feminist activist scholarship grounded in dialogic relationality and compassionate care. The latter moves beyond empathetically feeling for or documenting the suffering of others, towards mutual accompaniment to engage in concrete actions to alleviate that suffering. The dialogic relationships of care in which scholars accompany and act with those at the margins have the potential to transform conventional, post-positivist knowledge production strategies from distancing or objectifying processes towards mutual accompaniment and activist scholarship.

KEYWORDS:

• Care ethics
• compassion
• feminist relational theory
• humanitarian crises
• asylum-seeking mothers
• feminist activist research

Acknowledgements

We thank the asylum-seeking mothers that trusted us with their stories and allowed us to walk with them as they sorted the multiple resettlement challenges they encountered. We thank The Needham Immigration Task Force, RIAN Immigrant Center, BC CHRIJ, Dr. Lombe, Dr. McRoy, BC SSW, and De Novo who supported this research in different ways. We are grateful to Boston University School of Social Work who supported this research by covering the open access fees. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Any opinions, findings, conclusion or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the individuals and organizations that supported the research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 De Novo is a community organization based in Cambridge, MA, which provides free legal assistance and affordable mental health counseling to low-income people, including immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers. DeNovo hosted and supported the research project referring participants, offering a space to conduct the interviews, and providing invaluable guidance throughout the research project.

Additional information

Funding

The research project was partially funded by BC CHRIJ through the Kelsey Rennebohm Memorial Fellowship.

Notes on contributors

M. Emilia Bianco

M. Emilia Bianco, PhD, received her doctoral degree in Social Work from BCSSW, US. She is currently working as a Full Time Lecturer at Boston University School of Social Work, and conducting independent research. Her primary research focuses on the intersection of gender, development, human rights and mental health, with a global perspective.

M. Brinton Lykes

M. Brinton Lykes, PhD, is Professor of Psychology and Co-Director of BC CHRIJ, US. She is co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Transitional Justice. Her critical activist scholarship with women and children incorporates the creative arts and onto-epistemologies of Original peoples to focus on: (1) rethreading life in the wake of racialized and gendered violence; and, (2) migration and post-deportation human rights violations, transnational families, and resistance.