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The Shifting Sands of SocialJustice Discourse: FromSituating the Problem with“Them,” to Situating it with“Us”Kathryn ChoulesVersion of record first published: 31 Aug 2007.

To cite this article: Kathryn Choules (2007): The Shifting Sands of Social JusticeDiscourse: From Situating the Problem with “Them,” to Situating it with “Us”, Reviewof Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 29:5, 461-481

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The Shifting Sands of Social JusticeDiscourse: From Situating the Problemwith ‘‘Them,’’ to Situating it with ‘‘Us’’

Kathryn Choules

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity, it is an act of justice.—Nelson Mandela, February 2005

INTRODUCTION

Through examining three social justice discourses—charity, humanrights, and privilege—this paper seeks to critique how they impacton our understanding of injustice. I look at how the competing dis-courses locate each of us in relation to unjust systems. I come to thisanalysis from the perspective of an educator looking for ways toengage others in this debate and help change understandings ofinjustice within a social justice discourse. In particular, I am keento work with people who, like me, are net beneficiaries in unjustsystems—people who because of their positioning within the domi-nant group at both a local and=or global level attract privilege ofdifferent sorts. Thus, when I use ‘‘us’’ or ‘‘we’’ in this paper, I amreferring to people who occupy privileged positions in one wayor another. Whether or not a person occupies a privileged positioncan change with the particular context.

It probably is already clear that I see discourses that avoid anexamination of our privileged position as complicit in maintainingsystems unjust and inequitable. I have watched my own under-standing of injustice change over the years as my experiences,and other people, have educated me. Discourses about injusticeoften do not involve an analysis of power relationships. Theabsence of a power analysis benefits those groups who occupypositions of power. Any understanding of injustice that sees it as

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The Review of Education, Pedagogy,

and Cultural Studies, 29:461–481, 2007

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DOI: 10.1080/10714410701566348

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disconnected from questions of privilege, makes it more likely forinjustice to continue. For the vast majority of us positioned withinthe dominant social group, injustice remains something externaland unrelated to us. By seeing injustice as unrelated to us, it is easyto use individualistic and meritocratic justifications to remain dis-engaged. After all, I am not overtly racist in my behavior or words;I was not responsible for the genocidal government policies againstthe Indigenous people of this country;1 I get ahead because I workhard and I don’t expect handouts. Justifications such as these per-mit us to see injustice as something not related to us (Schick andSt Denis 2003). In looking for ways to engage members of the domi-nant social group in social change, I examine the implications of thediscourses of social justice: charity; human rights; and privilege. As‘‘social processes by which we produce meaning’’ (Ball 1990, 3)these discourses have important implications for how we act, think,and feel about injustice.

People become interested in social justice for a variety of reasons.There is a range of views, approaches, and motives within socialjustice discourse. People can be motivated by religious or humani-tarian reasons, a sense of fairness or a sense of guilt (Iyer, Leach,and Crosby 2003). Some of these motivations impede rather thanpromote social justice, as expanded on below. How we understandinjustice has major implications for the way we see, or don’t see, ourown role in maintaining unjust systems. For example, approachesor motives that do not challenge the ‘normalized’ Western privi-leged position are likely to exacerbate injustice as they devalueexperiences and ways of life other than that of the white rationalmale. Discourses in which certain ways of being and living areset apart from a norm and seen as alien, reinforce the lack ofawareness of position and power, that accompanies those whoare viewing from the center (Chow 1998, 4).

There is a long history of pedagogy that supports social justiceand human rights work. It has evolved with analyses of injusticeand a commitment to changing the structures that support it. Thepopular education movement in Latin America, which builds onthe work of Paulo Freire (1987), is one such example. In the West,pedagogies informed by critical theory and feminism incorporatea well-developed analysis of inequality and injustice and supporteducational approaches that go against the grain of dominantdiscourses (see Ellsworth 1989; Luke 1992; Brookfield 1995; Giroux1997). The pedagogies within these traditions do not rest with

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raising consciousness around critical issues. Rather, they encourageparticipants to take the next step and identify ways to engage withinjustice and change it. How injustice is understood by thoseinvolved in the pedagogical process will be significant in whatresponses are possible.

In terms of systemic injustice and the power structures thatmaintain it, a charity discourse is a ‘business-as-usual’ view thattinkers at the edges of injustice leaving the underlying system inplace. A discourse founded on human rights has the potential tochallenge systemic injustice at a much deeper level but has beentranslated by many in a way that leaves such systems untouched.It is the discourse of ‘privilege,’ with its radical refocusing of theissue and explicit analysis of power, which exposes the blindnessof discourses that do not involve an examination of the positionof the powerful. The discourse of privilege, expanded on below,firmly locates all groups and individuals as being implicated ininjustice—whether they are advantaged or disadvantaged. Givenmy personal interest in the difficult task of engaging comfortableprivileged Westerners in social justice issues, this approach is worthexploring further.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Social justice looks to challenging and changing of structural andsystemic injustice in which certain groups are singled out for lessfavorable treatment and others are privileged. It refers to a utopianvision for the world, a process or way of being in the world (Bell1997, 1–2), and to a set of values. As a utopian vision ‘social justice’plays a motivating role. Knowing that it is unattainable, the visionnonetheless engages the optimism of the spirit. As a vision it refersto a world in which human beings and their relationship with eachother and the environment are the determining considerationsbehind our decisions, not profit. Social justice refers to a societycommitted to equality of (negotiated) outcomes for all in whichpower and resources are equitably distributed and nobody isexcluded from full participation in society on the basis of factorssuch as gender, religion, ethnicity, socio-economic group, national-ity, ability=disability, or sexuality.

Injustice, both within societies, and between societies, is perpetu-ated by the continuing inequitable distribution of resources and

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power. There are strong forces, deliberate as well as unconscious,which serve to ensure that the inequitable distribution of resourcesand power continue. Depending on the nature of the society, thedominant social group relies on a combination of overt as well ashidden exercises of power to preserve its position. The practicesand assumptions that come together in racist, sexist, classist, andother exclusionary discourses are major obstacles to social justice.They permit the domination of society by the ideas of the rulinggroup.

This understanding of social justice recognizes and goes beyondthe more limited modernist ideas of equality and freedom that arestill very much a part of general community views. It does this byvaluing diverse ways of being and knowing, rather than presentinga single model for society as the one correct way. Taking into con-sideration ways of being beyond that of the normalized Westernmale makes for a more complex view of what may constitute a uto-pian vision. These changes to how ideals such as equality areviewed in a postmodern world are described by James Donaldquoting Michael Walzer:

In complex modern societies, asserts Walzer, the idea of ‘simple equality’—everyone getting the same amount of the same thing in the same form—isneither achievable nor desirable. In principle, it is inadequate to their het-erogeneity, to the real differences of power and aspiration that divide socialgroups. In practice, it could only be achieved by unacceptable constraintson individual liberty by the state. Instead, Walzer argues for a ‘complexequality’: the distribution of different social goods according to differentcriteria reflecting the specificity of these goods, their social significance,and the variety of their recipients. Rather than deriving normative princi-ples that would apply in all cases from either the rights of individuals orthe promise of universal emancipation, Walzer insists on a respect forthe boundaries between social spheres and the negotiation of meaningsand criteria appropriate to that particular sphere. (Donald 1992, 143)

It is through work such as that of Walzer and Donald, that morenuanced and less binary understandings of injustice, understand-ings more reflective of our lived experiences, can be reached. Goingbeyond the traditional Marxist economic critique, feminism andpostmodernism have allowed us to see the complexities of multipleco-existing, and at times conflicting, exclusionary discourses. Inadding the feminist and postmodern understandings of injusticeto the modernist approach, we maximize the potential for making

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visible the processes that support injustice. By using a pragmaticcombination of Marxist (Apple 1985), feminist (Lewis 1990; Lather1992), and postmodern (Kincheloe and McLaren 2000) analyses toinjustice, a greater range of obstacles can be identified. It is notmerely distribution of resources and power that must be examined,it is also the beliefs about groups excluded from full participationthat must be interrogated.

CHANGING DISCOURSES

Over the last century, there has been a considerable shift in the wayin which injustice is understood. At the risk of oversimplifying, it ispossible to see the changing social justice discourse as being char-acterized by changes in the direction of the gaze. In the modernistapproach to injustice, the normalized gaze is outwards from theprivileged position of those who occupy the center. Any problemis located with the Other, with the deficit found there (Allman1988, 87). Whoever these Others may be—non-male, non-white,non-able bodied, non-heterosexual, non-affluent—they are posi-tioned as being deviant and lacking (Aronowitz and Giroux 1991,128). This is strongly present in charity discourses and is also evi-dent in human rights discourses. In a more postmodernist approachto injustice, the gaze is turned back towards the center and thesuggestion is made that maybe the problem is located there. Allthree discourses—charity, human rights, and privilege—co-existand do not cover exactly the same territory. It is not suggested thatthere has been a linear progression from charity to human rights toprivilege. There are also the usual internal differences within eachof the discourses that mean that they do not constitute a unified,coherent whole.

CHARITY

In the West, the notion of charity is generally associated withChristian principles.2 From the Concise Oxford Dictionary of WorldReligions, charity is ‘‘an openness and generosity to others,especially in the support of those in need’’ (Bowker 2000). It islargely associated with the alleviation of individual sufferingthrough individual acts of kindness. Using the charity model, sig-nificant social change has been achieved by convincing the powerful

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of the ‘moral good’ that a more socially just approach wouldachieve. This charitable discourse resulted in ‘good’ people, forexample, accepting the need to limit the ages at which childrencould work (Hammond 2000). It also supported the movementagainst slavery (Pope Leo XIII 1888). By appealing to a person’sgoodness or sense of charity, many injustices have been and con-tinue to be addressed.

Charity is often contrasted to justice because of the discretionaryway in which charity can be exercised. In addition, the charitablediscourse, although effective in engaging people to act in ways thatameliorate suffering, can have negative long-term social conse-quences. These include loss of dignity and powerlessness for thepeople, the ‘objects’ of the charitable action. The charitable dis-course lends itself to an ideological approach which positions thosewith power in the benevolent and condescending role of protectorand the Other as in need of protection, who is often seen as lackingin full adult capacity. Those who become the objects of charity areexpected to respond with gratitude, and a dependency on charitymay result. The act of charity generally does not look to remedythe underlying cause of the need. Even when the injustice is rem-edied in a systemic way, a charitable approach is often patronizingand paternalistic. The Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on the abolition ofslavery is a good example of how a charitable discourse was used ina way that works to maintain the oppressive status quo, notwith-standing the radical act of abolition.

To each one of these [slaves and former slaves], whether they have alreadybeen made free or are about to become so, We address with a pastoralintention and fatherly mind a few salutary cautions culled from the wordsof the great Apostle of the Gentiles. Let them, then, endeavour piously andconstantly to retain grateful memory and feeling towards those by whosecouncil and exertion they were set at liberty. Let them never show them-selves unworthy of so great a gift nor ever confound liberty with license;but let them use it as becomes well ordered citizens for the industry ofan active life, for the benefit and advantage both of their family and ofthe State. (Pope Leo XIII 1888)

The paternalistic charity contained in the Encyclical positions for-mer slaves as in need of guidance from those who generouslygranted them their freedom. Those in the privileged positionretain the power and ability to determine who is accorded ‘help’and when. As a result, notions of the ‘deserving’ needy and

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‘undeserving’ needy arise, determined by those who are furthestfrom the reality of those with the need. Although ‘‘the idea ofmaking any distinction between the deserving and the undeserv-ing poor has vanished from modern welfare policy,’’ it has notvanished from the minds of most people (Palmer and Woodcoft-Lee 1990). In relation to people with disabilities, Diana Palmerand Patricia Woodcoft-Lee, suggest:

People with disabilities are the ‘deserving poor’ to whom one can legiti-mately dispense public or private largesse and feel that one is doing ‘goodworks’ (as against social disapproval about assisting the undeserving ‘dolebludger’). (Palmer and Woodcoft-Lee 1990)

Although the dominance of the charitable discourse has been chal-lenged by a human rights discourse, it still predominates in variouscontexts. Of current relevance is the approach of most Westerncountries to refugees and asylum seekers. The complete disregardthat the government of Australia has shown to the human rightsof asylum seekers has been documented in reports by the UnitedNations High Commissioner for Refugees (Bhagwati 2002), the Aus-tralian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HumanRights Commissioner 2001), Amnesty International (Amnesty Inter-national (Australia) 2002), and the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch(Human Rights Watch 2003). As William Booth has noted, ourrelationship with outsiders has been characterized not by questionsof justice or rights, but rather is based on standards of ‘‘mutual aid,good samaritanism and, in general, charity’’ (my emphasis) (Booth1997, 270). He goes on to say:

It is a return to the ancient view, aptly characterized by Alasdair MacIntyre,that outside the political community theology, not justice, governs: divinelyordained xenia or caritas, hospitality or charity toward foreigners. (myemphasis, Booth 1997, 270)

As can be seen from the example of refugees, within a charitablediscourse, the social problem is located with the object of charityor the victim of the injustice. Refugees are seen to be the problem,not the underlying reasons for their persecution or the closed bordersof safe countries. In general, charity does not look at the underlyingsystemic or structural causes of injustice, but seeks to remedy theneeds of particular individuals. Structural power remains unques-tioningly in the hands of the dominant group and the persumed

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superiority of that group’s way of life is never questioned. The pos-ition of the privileged is not challenged and they are not seen asimplicated in the existence and maintenance of unjust systems.

HUMAN RIGHTS

The charitable discourse has been augmented by, and is increas-ingly being replaced with, a human rights discourse. Norberto Bob-bio sees this change in discourse as the result of the recognition thatthe beneficiary of a duty to be charitable is in fact, ‘‘the holder of aright’’ (Bobbio 1996, 57). Developed initially in relation to civil andpolitical rights, ‘‘[h]uman rights were to provide basic protectionsagainst arbitrariness—not to equalize access to power’’ (Shafir2004, 14). As presently understood, human rights are the result ofthe identification of successive rights that are seen to apply to allhuman beings. Based on the equality of all human beings ‘‘withoutdistinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion,political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birthor other status’’ (United Nations 1951), respecting human rightshas the potential to effect radical social change. Embraced com-pletely they would result in the elimination of injustice arising fromthe social and other factors identified.

A discourse of ‘rights’ is being employed more and more to chal-lenge injustices and effect social change. The first wave of feminism,when suffragettes campaigned for equal political rights, shows oneway that the discourse of ‘rights’ was used successfully to effectsocial and political change. With the development of second gener-ation (socio-economic) and third generation (collective) rights in thetwentieth century (Klein Goldewijk and de Gaay Fortman 1999),human rights have become a predominant part of social justicediscourse in the West. Unlike charity, human rights challenge theexisting status quo, being based as they are on the equality of allhuman beings arising from our shared humanity (United Nations1951). This challenge has been resisted at times by the powerfulbestowers of charity, including institutionalized religion (Bobbio1996, 67).

This shift in the focus of the social justice discourse from a dis-course of charity to one of rights can be seen very well in specificinstances. A good example is the struggle by people with disabil-ities. Disability activists have effectively changed the language

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employed from that of charity to that of rights (Hurst 1998). Usingthe discourse of human rights stops social justice being seen as thechoice and benevolence of the powerful. It is a potent change andmakes new ways of understanding injustice possible. Rather thanbeing an optional ‘good’ that the powerful can bestow, social justicebecomes something demanded by the equality of all human beings. Arights based discourse presents the injustice from the position of thepowerless. Nonetheless, within the human rights discourse the pos-ition of the powerful remains largely unexamined. The problemremains with the Other, the marginalized or oppressed group whowishes to gain the full benefits of personhood.

A major difference between charity and human rights is that thelatter has been codified at an international level. The codification ofhuman rights in the formal U.N. treaties has both advantages anddisadvantages for those of us wishing to engage people in socialjustice and social change. Having a formal system is beneficial inthat it presents a mechanism for making complaint and seekingenforcement of rights. There are established procedures that canresult in serious international pressure on states which breachhuman rights. Civil and political rights have the strongest enforce-ment processes (United Nations 1966). Unfortunately, human rightsare not legally enforceable in the majority of situations where theyare violated. Human rights treaties are weak in establishing waysof ensuring that the rights set out in the treaties are observed,especially in relation to economic, social, and cultural rights (KleinGoldewijk and de Gaay Fortman 1999, 8). The difficulties ofenforcement of human rights treaties are deliberate on the part ofthe states. As shown in the negotiation of the Declaration of theRight to Development in 1986, there is reluctance to have treatiesthat clearly identify the duty-bearers of the rights and impose jus-ticiable obligations (Hamm 2001, 1007-8). The treaties that do assigna responsibility for protecting human rights place those responsibil-ities on the state.

As an educator seeking to engage individuals and groups in theWest to reflect on how we can work towards a more just world, aproblem with human rights treaties is that they are not directedat the people with whom we work. The formal treaty system inassigning responsibility to states, can in fact be used to hide behindand deny any responsibility for injustice. It would be useful for thehuman rights discourse (if not the formal human rights system) tobroaden to discuss in greater depth the responsibility side of the

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equation. Given that it is clear who has rights, let us develop ingreater detail who it is that has the duty to fulfill those rights.

The various limitations arising from the human rights systemhave caused activists to criticize it. Arundhati Roy has criticizedthe human rights movement on the basis that its existence demon-strates a lack of equality. She argues that an appeal and projecttowards human rights have become the second best option avail-able for vulnerable groups. Whereas the rich and powerful obtainjustice, the others get human rights. She says:

Almost unconsciously, we begin to think of justice for the rich and humanrights for the poor. Justice for the corporate world, human rights for its vic-tims. Justice for Americans, human rights for Afghans and Iraqis. Justicefor the Indian upper castes, human rights for Dalits and Adivasis (if that.)Justice for white Australians, human rights for Aboriginals and immigrants(most times, not even that). (Roy 2004)

Although this may be the way human rights have been experiencedby groups excluded from power, I disagree with Roy that such aresult is implicit in the human rights discourse. Human rights, likesocial justice, act as a utopian vision motivating progress towards amore just world. Merely because that utopian vision has notalready been realized does not detract from the importance ofworking towards it. The human rights discourse started at a timeof significant discrimination, oppression, and inequality. However,this rebuttal of Roy’s position is only valid so long as there is in factmovement towards the vision of a world characterized by humanrights and social justice. If the ‘new’ discourse of human rights ismerely to mask the fact that there has been no social change, noredistribution of resources and power, then the critique is one thatmust be listened to. This is not the place to analyze whether theworld is a more just place in 2007 than it was in 1948, the year thatthe Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed. What Ido wish to note here however, is the danger of radical discoursesbeing taken over by conservative interests that utilize the languageof change in order to avoid real change. Roy’s words are a goodreminder of this.

Another major problem in relation to economic and socialrights—such as housing, health, transport, and education—is thatit is assumed that it is at least theoretically possible for all humanbeings to enjoy the same level of enjoyment of these rights. Thishas resulted in a development oriented approach to human rights

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(Klein Goldewijk and de Gaay Fortman 1999, 16) which pushescountries with lower standards of living to become like the indus-trialized West. Such ‘‘thinking does not take into account any lim-itations on development that may arise from the need forsustainability and does not question the possibility of such progresson the global level’’ (Hamm 2001, 1008). The environmental move-ment has clearly called into question the ability of the natural worldto sustain the living standards of the privileged West, let alonespread them to the majority world.

As with the charitable approach outlined above, the human rightsapproach does not necessarily require us to look at the power andresources of the privileged. Those of us who are part of dominantor privileged groups do not have to examine our own position,behavior, and beliefs. The problem of injustice remains located withthe poor, the marginalized, the excluded. Those who inhabit privi-leged positions have safe, uncontested positions from which tojudge any situation. Such a result begins to change when humanrights are supported not from the liberal position of individualrights and individual responsibilities, but rather understood in moresocialist terms of individual or collective rights accompanied by col-lective responsibilities. When collective responsibility becomes partof the human rights discourse it starts to come closer to the way adiscourse of privilege understands injustice.

PRIVILEGE

By the end of the twentieth century a third focus had begun to bepart of the social justice discourse, repositioning the way injusticehas been understood. This is the focus provided by ‘privilege.’The discourse of privilege places under the spotlight those of uswho occupy positions of power in any society and interrogatesthe systems and structures that operate to maintain the privilegedposition of certain groups. In Foucaultian terms there is a shiftingof the ‘gaze’ (Foucault 1979). Far from being the occasional benev-olent bestowers of charity, those in the position of privilege arechallenged for their role in perpetrating social injustice by hangingon to power and privilege. As Sharon Elise notes, the developmentof the notion of privilege:

attacked colonial practices among mainstream social science researchersthat led them to view the victims of oppression as harbingers of social

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problems, so that when race and racism were investigated, it was in termsof the deficits of racial minorities. When sexism was investigated, it focusedon the deficits of women; and when classism was investigated, it focusedon the deficits of poor people. The new scholarship called for an investi-gation of privilege and the practices that maintained and reproduced itto the disadvantage of Others. (Elise 2004, 412)

‘Privilege’ as used here, implies an ability to act without conse-quences and as if one had the right to set the rules. It shares somesimilarity with the notion of ‘parliamentary privilege’ in whichmembers of parliament have the ability to say what they will, with-out the risk of legal action that would exist if the same things weresaid outside parliament. Male privilege and white privilege are thetwo most well developed theories of privilege. Privilege works to‘‘over empower certain groups. Such privilege simply confersdominance because of one’s race or sex’’ (McIntosh 2002, 79). Beingmale and white in most societies enhances a person’s social, eco-nomic, and political prospects. The norms against which a personis judged are set from that position. Northern hemispheric privi-lege, referred to below, is a further form of privilege used to analyzeglobal economic and political injustice. The major characteristic of‘privilege’ is that it is unearned, arbitrary, an accident of birth,the luck of the draw (McIntosh 2002). A second characteristic ofprivilege is that those who have the privilege can be ignorant ofit, disclaim it, disavow it, and yet be unable to avoid benefitingfrom it, whether they consciously exercise it or not. Privilege hasas its shadow, oppression (Applebaum 2003, 8), and its existenceimplicates all those who occupy privileged positions in the oppres-sive dynamic. Having privilege ensures that a group’s humanrights are respected and also enables that group to ignore and viol-ate the human rights of others.

The development of the discourse around privilege has followedtheoretical developments in post-colonial studies (such as Spivak1988, Chow 1998) and cultural studies (Hall 1996), influenced asthey are by postmodernism. When feminism and postmodernismbegan challenging the normalised rational Western male, the Othersbreathed a theoretical sigh of relief. It now seems obvious that it isnecessary to in fact cast the gaze in the other direction, from thosewho have been excluded, back towards those who exclude, andfrom those whose life choices are circumscribed to those who cir-cumscribe. As a result, those who occupy dominant positions are

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now having their positions questioned. This is being done by peoplepreviously excluded, supported by those whose social, racial, andeconomic positioning would otherwise have them positioned as partof the dominant group. From the previously uncontrovertedposition at the center, those with privilege now find themselves ina more fragile position, challenged by voices previously silencedin modernist discourses such as charity and human rights.

An individual’s positioning, within or outside the dominant orprivileged group, is not static but changes as the context changes.A person has multiple positions due to differences arising fromsex, class, race, sexuality, (dis)ability, and other factors. If the focusis on global injustice, all of us who are residents of relatively safewestern countries are privileged. We live in countries with socialsecurity systems that mean that even the poorest are significantlybetter off than the poor of many other countries. Basic health careand education is available to all. As Edmund O’Sullivan notes,‘‘[i]n terms of the world’s economic system, almost everyone inthe North is rich. In comparative terms even our destitute are welloff’’ (O’Sullivan 1999, 129).3 However, within those Westerncountries another set of privileging practices and structures exist,subjecting groups to substantial disadvantage based on socio-economic factors. There, a person’s privileged position changes inrelation to how they are positioned by racist, sexist, homophobic,and other exclusionary discourses.

The different impact of using a privilege rather than humanrights discourse depends on the particular injustice being con-sidered. A human rights discourse, with its emphasis on equalityand respect, conceivably should result in a society in which thedominant group accepts the presence and participation of others.It can even support a challenge to the right of the dominant groupto set the norms of society. The same result is reached through thediscourse of privilege. Where the discourse of privilege, with itsinbuilt interrogation of the position of the powerful and their exclus-ive enjoyment of certain benefits, makes a greater difference to theoutcome is whenever the injustice relates to how limited resourcesare allocated. The issue of resource allocation is exacerbated in amaterialist consumer-based society where the ‘need’ for resourcesis never satisfied, thus making all resources limited. A humanrights discourse does not necessarily result in the powerful examin-ing their over-consumption of resources but allows us to deflect thiswith a declaration that all human beings have the right to such

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enjoyment. Where the benefit being enjoyed is limited, the dis-course of privilege obliges the privileged to take action to changethe inequality caused through their exclusive or inequitable over-enjoyment. The notion of global economic privilege of the northernhemisphere (rich countries) is eloquently expressed by EdmundO’Sullivan:

It is now becoming clear that what we call development in the northernhemisphere is the major source of underdevelopment in the southern hemi-sphere. It has been labelled maldevelopment and overdevelopment bycritics (Shiva 1989; Max-Neef and Hopenhayn 1989). It is also the major fac-tor in the desolation of the earth. I think it is essential that we abandon theconcepts of development and underdevelopment and focus on privilege inthe northern hemisphere and its effects not only on the southern hemi-sphere but on the planet as a whole. In my opinion it will be necessaryto see that northern hemispheric privilege is the single most importantthreat to planetary survival. One of the most important forms of learningfor peoples in the northern hemisphere involves emancipating and decou-pling themselves from this privilege. (O’Sullivan 1999, 129)

This radical re-description of ‘development’ by O’Sullivan ischaracteristic of the way the discourse of privilege works. Thetaken-for-granted understanding of how the world is and shouldbe, is turned on its head when viewed from the perspective ofthose who are disadvantaged by a set of practices and beliefs.Environmental groups have highlighted the central role that West-ern countries need to play in reducing their high standard of livingin order to achieve global environmental sustainability as havethose working in the development area (Chambers 1997). Theirwork can be supported by an analysis of injustice that employsthe notion of privilege.

AN OBLIGATION TO ACT?

By examining the position of the privileged, a discourse of privilegeencourages the beneficiaries of injustice to see themselves as impli-cated and having some collective responsibility for the perpetuationof injustice. As Peggy McIntosh says in relation to white privilege,accepting the notion of privilege makes one newly accountable: ‘‘Aswe in Women’s Studies work to reveal male privilege and ask mento give up some of their power, so one who writes about havingWhite privilege must ask, ‘Having described it, what will I do to

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lessen or end it?’’’ (McIntosh 2002, 77). The individual responsi-bility we may have for injustice is not uniform for everyone whomay be privileged on any particular issue. Accepting that individ-ual responsibility is not uniform highlights that some people havehigh levels of individual responsibility for social injustice. AsMichael Newman says, there are people with ‘‘names andaddresses and very personalised bank accounts that make up theruling class’’ (Newman 1994, 86) and who deliberately use theirresources to maintain their position.

For many people in a privileged position, their individualresponsibility for the existence and maintenance of structures ofprivilege is, at most, marginal. They do not act with the intentionof maintaining systems of injustice. However, in the same way thatcitizens may justly be held liable for the wrongs perpetrated by thestate, those in the privileged position may justly be held collectivelyliable for the wrongs perpetrated against those not in the privilegedposition. Relying on the work of Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers,Andrew Schaap argues that:

[a]ll citizens may justly be held liable for wrongs perpetrated by their state.Civic responsibility entails a collective liability for making reparation tothose wronged. However, this liability in no way implies moral blame,since such responsibility is based on association rather [than] individualaction. . .Whereas the idea of collective guilt is unjust because it attributesblame without regard to individual intentions and actions, the idea of col-lective responsibility is just since it refers only to the liability or duty of citi-zens, without attributing blame. Political liability is an unavoidablecondition of membership in a political community. (original emphasis,Schaap, 2000, 3)

In the same way as collective responsibility obliges ‘‘citizens toaccept both the burdens and benefits of membership in a polity’’(Schaap 2000, 8), it can be logically applied to the burdens and ben-efits of membership of a privileged group. This applies notwith-standing that being a member of a privileged group is not withinthe control of the individual. The privilege is attached to arbitrarycharacteristics not chosen by the person. Schaap sees that this col-lective responsibility arises from the fact that we live in a sharedworld. In words that apply easily to unchosen membership of aprivileged group, he says:

Like Jaspers, Arendt draws a clear distinction between collective responsi-bility (which is always political), and personal responsibility (which is legal

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or moral). Whereas personal responsibility means that one will be judgedaccording to one’s acts, political responsibility entails only liability basedon association. What distinguishes political responsibility from personalresponsibility is that it is vicarious and involuntary. It is vicarious becausea citizen may be held liable for things he did not do and it is involuntarybecause it results from his (typically unchosen) membership in a politicalcommunity (Schaap 2000, 5).

A major contribution of the discourse of privilege is the challengeto the way we view ourselves and those who occupy privilegedpositions as being just. In the same way that Schaap understandsan individual’s political responsibility, we can speak of an indivi-dual’s responsibility for systems of privilege. Notwithstanding thatwe are not personally responsible for the structures which privi-lege some at the expense of others, in global economic terms, allwho live in the West are beneficiaries of them. Peter Singer dis-cusses whether the rich should give money to the poor. In arguingthat such an obligation exists, Singer states, ‘‘we ought to be pre-venting as much suffering as we can without sacrificing somethingelse of comparable moral importance’’ (Singer 2001, 113). Becausehe sees this as a moral obligation, Singer criticizes the currentclassification of monetary donations by the wealthy to the pooras ‘charity.’ He states that ‘‘[t]he traditional distinction betweenduty and charity cannot be drawn, or at least cannot be drawnin the place we normally draw it . . . we ought to give the moneyaway, and it is wrong not to do so’’. . . (110). On a more globalscale, Thomas Pogge challenges how we can consider it just, in‘‘a world heavily dominated by us and our values [to give] suchvery deficient and inferior starting positions and opportunities toso many people’’ (Pogge 2002, 3). The discourse of privilege hassimilar radical implications for our understanding as to whetherit is possible for those in a socially privileged position (e.g., dueto race or gender) not to act to change the status quo and still con-sider themselves just people.

Depending on the particular injustice being considered, therewill be a variety of options that those of us in privileged positionsmay be obliged to take. In our personal interactions with people, itcomes down to acting and supporting action that would be accept-able to us if we were on the receiving end (Rawlsian approach). Inmore structural terms, for example in terms of economic injustice,as Singer indicates above, those of us who are economically privi-leged are obliged to give away the money that we don’t need to

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those most in need. Our governments should negotiate fair tradeagreements as opposed to free trade agreements, and should sig-nificantly increase the percentage of gross domestic product thatthey give in aid. In relation to gender and racial injustice, those ofus who benefit from such exclusions should support programs ofaffirmative action in which preference is given to members of thedisadvantaged groups, in employment and other spheres. Whenthe global and local statistics show that these measures have suc-cessfully achieved equality between groups then it will be time toremove them.

RESISTANCE

The implications of adopting an analysis of injustice based onnotions of privilege will be unpalatable to privileged people. Resis-tance to such a project is supported by the dominant discourse ofconsumption and status achieved through successfully competingagainst other individuals and groups. Many people who inhabitthe dominant group on any particular issue e.g. whites in relationto racism and men in relation to sexism, will not feel that theyare privileged. In fact, they may even feel that they are victims.There will be resistance to accepting that there is a structural advan-tage that goes with being part of the dominant group. The structur-al advantages are effective because they are so well hidden bydominant discourses. Any advantage is seen to reflect merit andeffort rather than systemic inequality. Our lack of knowledge andunderstanding of local as well as global dynamics of privilege isnecessary to enable it to continue. Without privilege being exposed,resistance will necessarily occur. Even where privilege is decon-structed and exposed, there will continue to be resistance. We seeand experience this resistance from the privileged as their positionis challenged. Some resistance is due to a desire to protect interests,some is paralysis from the overwhelming nature of the problem,and other resistance is due to the way the message is presented.

Ignoring the distaste at needing to present social justice in a waythat is attractive and palatable to the privileged, we must appreciatethat a strident and aggressive approach is more likely to provoke adefensive response. A discourse of privilege that is productive ofsocial justice must not incorporate blame for the collective benefitsthat come from privilege. Blame is a sure way to disengage many

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people. The challenge for activists and educators is to developapproaches that minimize the resistance of the privileged to becom-ing aware of their privilege and acting to change.

Many social justice educators are working on this from a varietyof angles. The deliberate use of affective learning processes such asempathy is one such angle. The critical edge provided by an analy-sis of privilege helps to ensure that an arousal of empathy does not‘‘terminate in exonerations and denials of complicity [by encour-aging] students to ignore the ways in which they indirectly andunintentionally contribute to social injustice.’’ Rather, educators‘‘must continue to encourage privileged students to interrogate[their] moral motivations, to complicate the ways in which suchstudents see themselves as good’’ (Applebaum 2004, 71).

CONCLUSION? A COMPLETE ABOUT FACE

It seems clear to me that in the absence of an analysis of power, andwithout reflecting the gaze back onto those who occupy privilegedpositions, any understanding of injustice is unlikely to engage thosepeople who are most implicated in the perpetration of injustice.Theorizing on privilege brings such insights to the social justicedebate and is an important strategy to engage people to act forsocial change. No longer can we believe that the problem is locatedwith the Other, with the deficit found there. The limitations of mod-ernist understandings of injustice, such as those found in the char-ity discourse and even in the human rights discourse, are notconducive of radical social justice. By using a more postmodernapproach such as the discourse of privilege, the gaze reverts to usand suggests that what we think and do is implicitly bound up inmaintaining systems of injustice. The discourse of privilege high-lights that we need to scrutinize our own assumptions, beliefs,and behaviors and question the normalized position from whichthose beliefs grow. Unless we do that and engage in action to undoprivilege, those of us in privileged positions are implicated in theinjustice created.

From the perspective of a person, whose global location, level ofeducation, and race generally locates her in a position of privilege, Isuspect that these stumbling attempts to challenge privilege andlook to transform systems of privilege are in effect attempts to livea more whole and meaningful life. Arbitrarily acquired privilege

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in its many guises seems to me to present one of the greatest obsta-cles in this search. I look forward to the ongoing development ofnotions of privilege which will recognize that while those of us inthe dominant group may be materially privileged and able to viol-ate the human rights of others with impunity, this ‘‘privilege’’ sig-nificantly hinders our ability to achieve coherent and fulfilling lives.Is this what Thomas Pogge is hinting at when he suggests that ingiving up positions of privilege ‘‘we might recognize ourselves[our humanity] for the very first time’’ (Pogge 2002, 8)?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author gratefully acknowledges the comments of AnnaCopeland, Barry Down, Peregrin Wildoak, Greg Thompson, JanCurrie and James Bell on drafts of this article.

NOTES

1. In particular, I am referring to the Australian government policy of removingIndigenous children from their families in the twentieth century (Human Rightsand Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997).

2. Other major world religions have similar traditions.3. This is not to minimize the extent of poverty in some Western countries but

to acknowledge that in relative terms it cannot be compared in severity withthe poverty of many industrially underdeveloped countries.

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