GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Definitions which are as neutral and literal as possible of certain terms which are often subject to distortions and interpretation given the emotional charge and involvement they provoke in those who use them. Agreeing on some simple definitions creates a common language which makes possible a real comparison of the practices used by the different actors involved, and an analysis of the differences among them, without an a priori scale of values or prejudices.
There will be about 50 words total, divided into two sections. Some examples:

SAYING WORDS

Prostitution

The buying and selling of sexual services.

In legal terms the word 'prostitution' refers only to persons who openly engage in economic transactions for agreed sums of money or other goods.

Prostitution can be practised by both sexes, though historically it has been practised mostly by women.

Violence

from Latin violare

(to contaminate, ruin with force what is whole)

An aggressive or oppressive action, carried out by either physical or psychological means.

Mediation

An activity or action carried out by someone who intervenes between two parties, establishing a relationship between them so that they can arrive at an agreement.

Institution
The fundamental rules or customs, taken as a whole, upon which the state or political or social organisations are based.

A social, religious, moral or political order based on law or accepted by tradition.

Total institution: a sociological term which indicates an organisation which segregates its members from the rest of society and regulates their entire living experience in every detail.

Guardianship

In legal language, this indicates the institution by which minors who are orphans or whose parents are unfit to exercise the duties of parenthood, or an interdicted person, are entrusted to a trustee who acts as their legal representative and administrates their economic affairs.

Broadly speaking, it means defence, protection, safeguarding.



Doing Words

The idea is to consider a number of very important terms which, because they are susceptible to being used or interpreted in a wide variety of ways, can be both used and abused in the language of the social-assistance services. The terms chosen, which only form a partial list, are all 'double-edged', both in terms of their intrinsic meaning and their pole of reference. In this case, our definitions will not be based on a dictionary, but on the practical experience of institutional transformation.
Here are some examples:

Complicity

The construction of a strong relationship based on reciprocity and trust, which enables the person who is the focus of the intervention to deal with the gap between reality and desire and the inevitable frustrations that arise in the daily lives of persons who live in extreme conditions.
This has nothing to do, therefore, with the connivance and/or prejudice, or the acritical defence of their 'girls' by operators. Such an attitude is likewise based on a logic of objectification, as if the 'girls' were persons who, though most certainly endowed with rights, did not also have duties and obligations.
Because not based on some abstract scientific objectivity, but on a real inter-subjective relationship, with objectively distinct and separate roles, this approach is the only way to establish relationships which are effective and, above all, responsible. This approach aims at building an existential equilibrium and finds its only verification in being tested against reality.


Taking care

Building ties and relationships within which subjectivity can be expressed,

composing a mosaic in which each person can exist and be recognised as both an active and passive participant.

Creating multiple relationships, both within and outside of institutional networks. Such relationships are always misconstrued or distorted when interpreted according to categories such as dependence/domination (the transfert/counter-transfert of analysis).

Identifying within the network a hierarchy of values which are subjective and not absolute as the necessary step for overcoming the antinomy of winning/losing and expressing a choice for life. The affirmation by Chris Wolff's Cassandra: 'between living and dying I prefer existing', is still central to the life-stories of immigrant women who, in order to survive, are willing to support even the most contradictory situations.


Bias

Assuming the point of view of one party (women) as the interpretative key which makes it possible to express the inarticulate and make emerge that dissatisfaction which is always hidden and denied in the name of some all-inclusive 'something' which ultimately satisfies no one.
In this perspective, words such as caring for, relationship and subjectivity can reveal unsuspected meanings and enter into the relative nature of daily life, thereby taking on connotations which are not only different but, at times, in total opposition to one another.

Transculturalism

The need to take into account and deal with an individual's existential experience, the culture in which they were educated and the dominant models which they have acquired, because these are all elements which impact on their behaviours, actions and way of relating with the world.