Ethics: Decolonizing social work

What does it mean?

By Gail Baikie, MSW, RSW, PHD(C)

Within Indigenous peoples’ context, social work is highly problematic. Especially so given the notable absence of our profession in advocating for Indigenous collective rights and against human rights violations, and for our significant role in the abduction of generations of Indigenous children from their families, communities, and cultures.

Most recently the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015) on Indigenous residential schools in Canada, specifically in the Calls to Action, challenged social workers to become educated on the effects of colonization and to recognize and respect Indigenous ways of helping and healing. Furthermore, Cindy Blackstock, an Indigenous social worker and child welfare advocate who successfully championed a human rights complaint against the federal government claiming discrimination against First Nations children, highly criticized the profession for ignoring the plight of First Nations children for decades.

Social work is grounded in Euro-western colonialism. It therefore the responsibility of our profession and of each individual social worker to engage in the process of repairing our relationship with Indigenous peoples.

This work must begin with focused efforts to decolonize institutionally, professionally, and personally. Failure to do so means that we will be complicit in the perpetuation of harms, including an inequitable socio-economic status; as social workers this would be ethically unconscionable.

What does decolonization mean? First, it is important to be clear on the concept of colonization. Colonization, in the context of Turtle Island (North America), is fundamentally about the takeover of Indigenous land by European nations. Settler colonialism is a theory and term that denotes that settlers take over land from Indigenous peoples and then establish independent states from the original colonial power. This means that Canada continues to be a colonial state.

But colonization doesn’t begin or end with the acquisition of land and natural resources. It also means control over Indigenous lives through the imposition of political, social, economic, and cultural colonial institutions. Perhaps even more disconcerting is the infiltration of Indigenous minds and spirits with colonial ways of knowing, being and doing.

It is important to recognize that social welfare institutions such as child welfare, health care, and correctional services are colonial, as are professions such as social work. Social work education and professional development training has been and continues to be a primary tool perpetuating dominant Western colonial values, beliefs, perspectives, and practices through the imposition of predominantly Western science, theories, practices, and ethics. Dominant social work knowledge is fundamentally grounded in rational-empirical Enlightenment thought and Judeo-Christian ideology which is widely perceived to be the only and “right” way to practice social work despite often being (at the very least) culturally and contextually irrelevant and (even more seriously) harmful to Indigenous peoples.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP, 2007), to which Canada is a signatory (2015), affirms the collective rights of Indigenous peoples to be both politically, socially, economically, and culturally self-determining and to live as Indigenous peoples within the host state. First and foremost, this means Indigenous peoples as collectives are autonomous and must be supported as such. In terms of social work, this will mean, for instance, that many Indigenous nations will assume jurisdiction over their own child welfare services. It could eventually mean that Indigenous social workers may choose to regulate their own social work practice. Despite renewed Indigenous autonomy, the mainstream will continue to co-exist with Indigenous social welfare institutions. Indigenous peoples will also continue to belong and interact within mainstream society and, therefore, with the social work profession.

Decolonization is necessary in order to make room for Indigeneity within (as well as alongside) Western-based institutions and professions.

Reconciliation is critical to the decolonization process. It denotes relationship or mutuality along with an obligation on the part of the party who has created harm to acknowledge and redress that harm. Clearly, two forms of relating are no longer options: (1) no relationship or segregation, or (2) assimilation which entails expectations that Indigenous peoples conform to mainstream Western society. Instead, we must find a third, ethical means of relating that, first and foremost, respects the collective rights of Indigenous nations to be self-determining and to walk their own path in their own way, without interference. It also meets mainstream society’s obligations to create meaningful, and action-oriented relations that dismantle colonial institutions, policies, programs, practices, ideologies, and perspectives while welcoming and respecting Indigeneity.

But how does a social worker engage in decolonizing praxis (thought and action)? This is a challenging question. Perhaps if we knew the answer we would solve many of the world’s problems. However, what we do know is that ‘relationship’ is key to the process and that is something we should know something about as social workers. Indeed, potentially we could take a leadership role in reconciliation efforts. Some things a social worker can do towards decolonizing the profession and their praxis:

• Seek opportunities to inform and educate oneself about colonization and Indigeneity from local Indigenous perspectives without burdening Indigenous peoples

• Develop meaningful ongoing relationships with Indigenous peoples, communities, and organizations

• Critically reflect on one’s worldview (assumptions, values, and beliefs) and what influences it, while mindfully and intentionally making decisions that resist and dismantle the Western mind-frames that dominate one’s thinking and guide one’s actions

• Strive for interactions and actions that will be judged by Indigenous peers, communities, and peoples as having been done in a culturally relevant, good way

• Strive to ensure that one’s praxis (theories and practices) in both process and outcome is helpful and useful to Indigenous clients, peers, communities, and Indigenous peoples generally

• Strive to ensure one’s praxis affirms Indigenous cultures and rights including land sovereignty

• Strive to ensure that those involved or implicated share a sense of having learned, gained new understandings (perspectives, consciousness), and developed stronger positive relationships with Indigenous peoples

• Strive to ensure that one does not create harm to Indigenous peoples (for example, the appropriation of Indigenous traditional knowledges)

• Strive to align one’s praxis with Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing without appropriating Indigeneity when working with Indigenous peoples, communities, and organizations

• Make space for Indigenous paradigms (ways of knowing, being and doing) within Western contexts including, when necessary, getting out of the way of Indigenous peoples doing this work

Working in the context of decolonizing relationships, structures, perspectives, and practices is difficult, but is also necessary and rewarding work. It is a contemporary social work obligation and role. Being a bystander is not an option. Social workers have the capacity to embrace this challenge; after all, we are no strangers to complexity and uncertainty in practice.

GAIL BAIKIE, RSW, is a social work educator and scholar of Indigenous (Inuit) and settler decent. She has over fifteen years of practice experience supporting health and healing in Indigenous communities in the North and Atlantic regions. Since 2003, Gail has worked as an assistant professor at the School of Social Work at Dalhousie University. Her interest in social work praxis in the borderlands in-between Indigenous and Western worlds and worldviews has led to scholarship in the areas of Indigenous and decolonizing methodologies in research, education, and professional practice. She has pioneered the development of decolonizing critical reflection, a tool and theory for decolonizing the mind.