On the misuse of Cultural Safety published in Overland Literary Journal

Overland, Australia’s oldest radical literary magazine published my article on Cultural Safety and how it is being misused this week. I am a huge fan of this magazine, which showcases fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and art. It is available both as a quarterly print journal and an online magazine. Not only that, the magazine hosts events, discussions and debates, major literary competitions, and a residency for underrepresented writers. They are amazing. If you are in a position to do so, please support them by subscribing.

Here’s an excerpt from the piece:
Cultural Safety developed as an oppositional discourse adopting a standpoint epistemology: it takes as a starting point the notion that knowledge is shaped by our social location and that people from marginalised groups have specific knowledge of social systems from their experience that is not available to people from dominant groups, for whom such systems are constructed. When a subject from a dominant group claims a need for Cultural Safety, even on behalf of another, they are also working against the idea that marginalised groups have specific knowledge that allows them to identify what is culturally safe. It is a discourse that erases and appropriates the affective space of marginality.

My thanks to colleagues in Aotearoa, Micaela Sahhar, Jordy Silverstein and Danny Butt for their thoughtful and generous feedback.

Image: Te Wao Nui child health service, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand (Wikimedia Commons)