Frazer's Tripartite Model and Social Justice in Australia: A Deep Dive

This discussion post critically examines Nancy Frazer's Tripartite Model and its relevance to social justice issues, specifically racial discrimination against Indigenous Australians in Australia. The post explores the core components of Frazer's model: redistribution, recognition, and representation, and how they intertwine to address social inequalities. It highlights the historical and ongoing marginalization of Aboriginal people, emphasizing the failures in achieving participatory parity due to economic, cultural, and political barriers. The analysis delves into the impact of misrecognition, maldistribution, and misrepresentation on Indigenous Australians across various social spheres, advocating for the role of social workers and community workers in advocating for equal rights and representation. The post emphasizes the importance of feedback systems to gauge the impact of policies and the need for the government to recognize Indigenous people as the original owners of the land. The post references various academic sources to support the analysis of these complex social issues.

Blog 2
Nancy Frazer's theory of the tripartite model is one of the most popular theories that must
be considered while speaking about social injustice or social evils. Racial discrimination is one
of the major social disparities taking place in Australia. There is huge discrimination done
against the non-indigenous and the indigenous people. There is always unfair treatment done
towards the Aboriginals in all the sectors. This is because Frazer emphasizes on the
amalgamation of redistribution, recognition, and representation to work together for being able to
remove social discrimination. Frazer saw social justice as rearrangement so that there is equal
participation of all the people from different social and racial backgrounds. She uses the term
participatory parity. The three important words, redistribution, recognition and representation
are the three most important aspects of this principle. Frazer thinks that these three aspects must
be present to ensure that social justice is available to all people. Nancy Frazer has called for the
addition of a third aspect that is representation in her model of justice. This is because, since the
colonization of Australia, representation and misrepresentation have kept on oppressing the
Indigenous people like the Aboriginals. Non-indigenous people and Indigenous people have not
got equal representation in society because there were economic, cultural and political barriers.
This is because though many protective measures are being developed the marginalized
people in Australia like the Aboriginals are not being entitled to those rights and privileges. It is
for this reason that there is the need for rechecking and also redistributing these laws and these
rules so that people are being able to get an equal amount of rights and opportunities to lead their
lives in a very peaceful way (McPherson 2019).

This is also evident in the case of the rising issue of injustice towards Aboriginals in
Australia. However, some laws and acts try to safeguard the overall interest of people belong
from the indigenous groups like Aboriginals, so that they do not have to suffer from any kind of
injustice but still there is huge discrimination that is still carried on. This is because the rights
and facilities are often entitled only to individuals who belong from the upper classes of society
like the Anglo people or the white skin people of Australia are the ones who get the best
privileges in comparison to the ones who belong to the lower sections of the society or the
inferior sections of the society as well. Indigenous Australians are subjected to huge
discrimination and improper cruel treatment based on their ethnicity (Rosol, Blue and Fast
2019). This is also evident from the removal of children from Aboriginal families. This was
mainly done so that these children could be trained in the modern and the so-called accepted
social standards of living (Sharam 2017). This is an example of a patriarchal authority that does
not provide equal rights and responsibilities to the Indigenous people in Australia.
In other words, these children were taken away not only from their families but also
were uprooted from their tradition, culture and their religion as well. There is huge
discrimination among the native white skin Australians and also the aboriginals in terms of
employment and other such opportunities. It is because of this reason that there is an improper
distribution of the rights to education, employment and opportunity among people based on their
social classes and their ethnicity. The Indigenous people in Australia have been suffering from
misrecognition, maldistribution, and misrepresentation in all areas of social life. It is the
responsibility of the social workers or the community workers to raise their voice against this
social injustice and ensure that Indigenous Australians are getting equal rights and
representations in society.

There must be proper feedback systems developed so that they can get feedback from the
victims of racial discrimination to know if they are being benefitted or not. This will help them to
get the opinion from these people who have been suffering from injustice and violence. It is for
this reason that Frazer talks about the redistribution of justice so that justice can be granted to all
the people from the different sections of society irrespective of their social backgrounds or their
racial orientation.
Frazer thinks that redistribution, recognition, and representation need to work together
and go hand in hand in the modern-day scenario so that they can give an equal amount of rights
and opportunities to all the people in all the sectors like education, employment, housing rights,
and others. This will ensure that the rights and opportunities are equally distributed among men
and women of all castes and creed. It is the duty of the Government and the country as a whole
to recognize the Indigenous people as the owners of this land and also bring them into the center
from the margins. They must be treated with equal respect, honor, and representation in society.

References
Douglas, H., 2018. Domestic violence protection orders and their role in ensuring personal
security. In Intimate Partner Violence, Risk and Security (pp. 216-232). Routledge.
Fraser, N., 2018. Recognition without ethics?. In The culture of toleration in diverse societies.
Manchester University Press.
Habibis, D., 2017. Indigenous homelessness: Perspectives from canada, Australia and New
Zealand [Book Review]. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 13(3),
p.197.
McPherson, C., 2019. Economically, Culturally and Politically Disadvantaged: Perspectives on,
and Experiences of, Social Justice amongst Working-class Youth in Mainland Scotland’s
Smallest Council Area through the Lens of Nancy Fraser. Human Rights for Children and Youth
(Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, 24, pp.193-220.
Mills, M., McGregor, G., Baroutsis, A., Te Riele, K. and Hayes, D., 2016. Alternative education
and social justice: Considering issues of affective and contributive justice. Critical Studies in
Education, 57(1), pp.100-115.
Montgomery, A.E., Gabrielian, S., Cusack, M., Austin, E.L., Kertesz, S.G. and Vazzano, J.,
2019. Applying the Housing First approach to single-site permanent supportive housing. Journal
of Social Distress and the Homeless, 28(1), pp.24-33.
Naidoo, I., 2018. Smh.Com.Au. [online] The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at:
<https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/the-average-homeless-person-in-
australia-is-not-an-old-man-20180810-p4zwpw.html> [Accessed 16 April 2020].

Rethinkingprosperity.Org 2020. Rethinkingprosperity.Org. [online] Available at:
<http://rethinkingprosperity.org/new-approaches-to-ending-homelessness-in-seattle/> [Accessed
17 April 2020].
Rosol, M., Blue, G. and Fast, V., 2019. Social justice in the digital age: re-thinking the smart city
with Nancy Fraser. UCCities Working Paper# 1.
Sharam, A., 2017. The Voices of Midlife Women Facing Housing Insecurity in Victoria,
Australia. Social Policy and Society, 16(1), pp.49-63.
Yade, N. and Ridley, M., 2018. Lou's place: Providing a unique framework of services to support
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