Working together across country lines: Cultural familiarity and unfamiliarity in both professional and
Derek is a systemic psychotherapist working in children’s social care, in training and in independent practice. Derek is also on the professional doctorate in system practice at Bedfordshire University, where he is looking into the co-construction of professional identity for family therapists from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. Email:
nasseri.derek@
gmail.com
personal contexts Joanne Hipplewith
“T e word is a drama in which three characters participate (it is not a duet it is a trio)” (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 122)
T is article primarily focuses on language as the main means of communication within a cultural context. T e above quote draws at ention to what goes on in communication between two persons in the act of speaking. Bakhtin includes language as the third actor in the trio, which makes sense but not foregrounded or a conscious third in conversations with the other. Language is located within the person speaking and foregrounded when working with populations whose fi rst language is not English.
I was employed by a trust that works
Hendrix is the course director for years one and two of systemic training at the Institute of Family Therapy. He has 13 years of clinical experience working in social care, youth off ending teams, schools and CAMHS. Hendrix is in independent practices working primarily with confl ictual co-parents and adolescents with challenging behaviours. Hendrix is also a clinical supervisor who supervises people working with complex systems. Hendrix is very interested in the use of systemic practices in outreach work in communities. Hendrix can be contacted at:
info@hendrixhammond.com
in partnership with the National Mental Health service in Dodoma, Tanzania. I joined the partnership and was fortunate to travel to Dodoma to do some leadership training in 2018. Godwin was the lead coordinator for Tanzania, and I had communicated with him through email before my work trip to Dodoma. He speaks excellent English and I speak no Kiswahili, and I even struggled with the basics. The language was not a barrier
between us, but I was aware it could be one in working with the leadership group and other members of staff. In such situations, similar but different when working with families whose first language is not English, I felt a sense of professional nervousness about offending my new colleagues. I tend to speak using more formal English, which is counterintuitive and speaks to a Western Imperialist discourse of writing and talking louder or more slowly to be heard and understood from an ‘I’ position. I had a felt sense that, as a professional
Context 169, June 2020
meeting and engaging with other professionals, I should be thinking about language and communication differently. Naturally, as a family therapist, I was
thinking about the various contexts of joining and working with colleagues who work in Mental Health in another country. I had been informed of the stark differences in health care systems in the West compared to low-income countries. My self-reflexive thoughts centred on how would I be perceived as a black woman with locs? How would this position me in their eyes and what would I need to do to de-centre my perceived and progressively anxious internal dialogue of representing my organisation, engaging with and joining with my colleagues, developing relationships, and my English blackness? With my anxiety rising, I had forgotten that I had travelled to other all-black countries during my childhood and, with my daughter, we have gone around the world. On reflection, I believe my anxiety stemmed from being a British black woman living in the West with an ancestry lost in slavery.
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Working together across country lines
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