Subaltern Professionals: acting in pursuit of social justice

Abstract

This paper sets out to explore how we might articulate action research, professional development and the pursuit of social justice. Beginning with the examples of the professional lives of two South African nurses, the author makes the point that our involvement in professional development should not be separated from our concerns and commitment also to social justice. The paper problematises whether the notion of ‘professional’ is necessarily a ‘good thing’, arguing rather that projects of professional development have no inherent taken for granted common good. Rather, professionals have been constructed in dominant discourses as the sole guardians, controllers and repositories of ‘expert knowledge’. An alternative view is then presented. Drawing on the writing of Edward Said, a case is made for replacing ‘professionalism’ with the committed social justice moral stance of ‘amateurism’. On this basis, the author then suggests reconstructing professionals as ‘subalterns’ who might take up a critical ‘in‐between’ position in relation to expert knowledge, and the intended consumers of that knowledge. Three action research studies are then presented as examples of subaltern professional work embodying local struggles which recuperate a language of practical hope, which pay attention to politically situated perspectives, and which raise issues around the democratic construction of professional and other knowledge about our societies.

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