Discussion Paper

Please read the following case example [an intersectionality story] of how diverse ‘stories’ come together at a ‘cross-roads intersection’, to create interesting and dynamic layers to factors that impact people’s lives. While seemingly ‘harmless’ on one level [for example, ‘a parent disciplining their child’], such experiences in fact can setup a legacy for future ongoing and increased harm to families and individuals, as well as the abrogation of human rights. Your task in this Assignment 1 is to produce a discussion paperto explore perspectives on power, violence, oppression, and trauma in relation to the following situation.

In completing this task, you will guide the work from developing your own exploratory question in an Introduction to your paper. The rest of your discussion will be for you to then address and answer that question in the context of perspectives on power, violence, oppression and trauma.

Intersectionality story for discussion

Harry, aged 17, is an only child who works in a warehouse as a storeman. His father, an Aboriginal Australian man from rural New South Wales is deceased. Harry lives with a fairly strict and conservative single mother, originally from England, who insists that he his pay/wages have to be paid into her bank account, from which she gives him an allowance, claiming she is teaching him to be more disciplined about money, compared to how his father was. She also seeks to vet his friends. When he went out with a girl she did not like, she verbally and physically assaulted him. When really angry she yells derogatory abuse that he is just like his father, who she claims, would not work in an iron lung [Australian idiom/slang meaning ‘extremely lazy’].

While Harry does not want to leave home, he also wants control over his pay, freedom to choose his friends and to understand more about where his father came from, by exploring his Aboriginal heritage.