SECTION 3: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS INFORMING ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Anti-colonialism

Anti-colonialism challenges the structures that uphold systems of oppression and marginalization while promoting notions of universality and equality (Smith, 2012). Specifically, an anti-colonial lens interrogates dominating power relations structured along race, ethnicity, gender, class, religion, language, disability, and sexuality (Dei, 2000; Dei & Ashgarzadeh, 2001). Colonization involves nation-building that categorizes people based on race, gender, religion, class, age, ability, and gender (Thobani, 2007). This categorization and racialization rationalize the othering and marginalization of Indigenous peoples, Black people, and non-white migrants, producing unequal social relations (Dua, 2007; Thobani, 2007). Even liberalizing policies for immigrants and refugees and the promotion of multiculturalism and diversity in the latter half of the 20th century have led to a “colour-blindness,” or de-politicizing of social relations that ignores how systemic racism and colonial structures continue to impact racialized people, albeit in a more nuanced way (Pon, 2009; Thobani, 2000; Williams, 2011).

Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory (CRT) is rooted in the belief that race and racism are intricately related to power relations (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Matsuda et al., 1993). CRT has been defined “as a framework or a set of basic perspectives, methods, and pedagogy that seeks to identify, analyze, and transform those structural and cultural aspects of society that maintain the subordination and marginalization of people of colour” (Solorzano, 1997, p. 6). CRT challenges dominant perspectives and re-centres marginalized perspectives by valuing experiential knowledge shared as narratives or counter stories of social inequality experienced by racialized people (Crenshaw, 1995; Ladson-Billings, 2003). In its orientation, CRT goes beyond providing a theoretical understanding of the impact of racism by supporting social justice and equity for racialized groups (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Matsuda et al., 1993). Racism complicates and shapes the social realities of racialized communities, especially their children and youth. CRT is relevant for this study as it brings to centre stage the marginalized and silenced voices of racialized immigrant youth and the implications of witnessing and experiencing FV.

A Rights-Based Approach to Children

The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights (2007) has advocated a rights-based approach to children. In this approach, children have the right to be treated not as objects that need to be cared for, protected, and have their basic survival needs met but respected and treated as human beings. This perspective makes it obligatory for states to ensure children’s rights and develop programs for their protection. In the Senate Standing Committee, Vandergrift, from World Vision Canada and at the time the Chair of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, spoke of the additional advantages of this approach:

The rights-based approach adds real value because it puts the whole child in the centre and then looks at all components and all factors that can impact that child’s situation. It is not just addressing one need—food, water or some of those things—but it looks at the whole child and treats that child as an actor in the situation, not just as a passive recipient. (Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights, 2007, p. 26)

The rationale for this approach is rooted in the realization that children constitute one of the most vulnerable groups of people, and their rights are often compromised when they compete with adults’ rights. Additionally, it has been argued that this framework is significant because although governments’ actions impact children, their perspectives rarely influence government decision-making (Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2002; UNICEF, 2001).

The rights-based approach is relevant both in the Canadian context and the topic of this study, FV and racialized immigrant youth. Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1991, and the following articles of this convention are particularly significant in the context of this study:

• Article 9 – respect the right of the child not to be separated from parents against their wish except in circumstances that go against the best interests of the child;
• Article 12 – a child’s right to express views, including in legal proceedings;
• Article 16 – protection of a child’s privacy from indiscriminate and illegal intervention;
• Article 18 – upbringing and concern for the best interests of the child to be the responsibility of parents or legal guardian;
• Article 19 – the government is responsible for protecting children from physical or mental violence, including sexual abuse, injury, neglect, maltreatment, or exploitation, even when the child is in the care of parents or legal guardian (United Nations, 1989).

The UNCRC emphasizes that children’s rights are inherent and do not depend on their race, colour, sex, language, religion, political, national, or social origin, disability, property, birth, or other status.

Further, the UNCRC requires the state to recognize the right of every child to life and respect and ensure the right of every child without discrimination, and in case of an action by a societal institution, to protect the best interests of the child.

In 2015, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by all United Nations Member States, including Canada. The SDGs are a call to action with the goal that no one is left behind. In 2017, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights presented a report on the protection of the rights of the child in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. It established the linkage of the rights of the child and the 2030 Agenda, highlighting that all SDGs and targets, while not explicitly naming children, protect and promote children’s rights (United Nations, 2017). There is a growing awareness within the international community that fulfilling children’s rights is a prerequisite for realizing the 2030 Agenda. A systematic child-rights-based approach is necessary to ensure that children are not left behind in implementing the SDGs.

Anti-oppressive Practice

Anti-oppressive practice (AOP) is centred around three concepts: oppression, power, and intersectionality (Frazer & Seymour, 2017). As a critical component of AOP, oppression focuses on the unfair, cruel exercise of authority over marginalized groups by subjecting them to negative stereotypes and other processes of inferiorization (Ferguson & Lavalette, 2006; Nzira & Williams, 2009). From this perspective, power and inequality affect various aspects of the lives of marginalized individuals, resulting in their oppression (Ferguson & Lavalette, 2006; McLaughlin, 2005, 2016).

Associated with oppression is intersectionality, which was conceptualized by Crenshaw (1991). Intersectionality highlights the multiple and interlocking natures of discrimination, disadvantage, privilege, and oppression. According to Collins (2015), “intersectionality refers to the critical insight that race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, ability, and age operate not as unitary, mutually exclusive entities, but as reciprocally constructing phenomena that in turn shape complex social inequalities” (p. 2).

Galtung (1990) elaborates on the concepts of oppression and violence and describes three types of violence—direct, structural, and cultural—that marginalized groups are subjected to. Direct violence refers to acts of interpersonal or collective violence exercised by one group against another for political, economic, and social reasons. Structural violence refers to “social arrangements” that are “embedded in the political and economic organization of our social world (Farmer et al., 2006, p. 1686), which places some individuals and groups at an advantage over others. According to Galtung, cultural violence is those aspects of culture, including religion, ideology, language, and dominant knowledge, that are “used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence” (p. 291). Finally, cultural violence makes “exploitation and/or repression [seem] . . . normal and natural” or not seen at all (p. 295).

This understanding of AOP and violence is critical for this study as experiences of oppression and violence originate in structures (Frazer & Seymour, 2017; McDonald, 2005; Morley et al., 2014). Additionally, direct violence against individuals and groups often has roots in structural and cultural violence and the experience of disadvantage for the marginalized multiplies depending on the intersections where individuals are situated. Consequently, any response to problems requires multi-dimensional solutions that help the affected individuals recognize their rights (McLaughlin, 2005, 2016) and engage with systems that contribute to or perpetrate violence (Baines, 2017; Morley et al., 2014).