Decolonising and Reframing Critical Social Work

For social work students, practitioners and scholars, this book presents fresh insights and alternative discourses of practice. Drawing on Indigenous knowledge and perspectives, the authors trace how the colonial foundations of social work have a living legacy, decentring dominant binary categorisations of professional knowledge in the process. They use multiple standpoints and frameworks to story and re-story ways of saying (knowing) and doing social work and being a social worker. Combining an ethos of reciprocity, cultural responsiveness, spirituality, creative scholarship and contemporary practice examples, this original work is expansive in its scope, intent and potential to positively transform the field.

Dr Juliana RyanLecturer, Teacher Education and Ethics
La Trobe University

Early in my academic writing I issued an invitation for Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples to walk together as equals and reject the process of colonisation and challenge the social norms that enable it to continue. Credit to the authors who have made a decisive move to engage with decolonisation in this book.

Each author demonstrated cultural respect by introducing themselves, their identity, heritage, and background to writing this book. The authors encourage readers to do the work to learn from existing scholarship and knowledge holders, noting the need to familiarise themselves with the work of First Nation’s Scholars, such as Wanganeen’s (2010) work on loss, grief, and trauma.

Significantly the authors make it clear that there is a duty of care for all social workers to tread carefully and respectfully in their practice so they can move beyond socially embedded thinking to consider multiple perspectives before expecting collaboration with First Nations or unfamiliar communities and organisations.

Lorraine Muller (PhD x2) is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in the College Medicine and Dentistry at James Cook University, Australia. She is Indigenous Australian and her areas of expertise are Indigenous Australian knowledges and practices, and non-Indigenous mainstream Australian culture having extensively studies the values and principles that construct both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian cultural identities.