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International social work is about thinking globally when acting locally and vice-versa. Most of all, it is a field that requires acknowledging differences and a 'welcoming' of theories and practice models of one's own singularity (cultural, political, economic) for direction in understanding social work. These contextand population-specific approaches build the core identity of the social work profession. However, limited opportunity for these specific approaches, along with knowledge and skill gaps, underscore International Social Work post-secondary curriculum on a global scale. Thus, the authors are centrally concerned with conducting a research-informed study to strengthen International Social Work courses. In this article, the authors outline the development of Indigenisation theory and offer ways of thinking and interacting with social work concepts and methodologies in an International Social Work teaching and learning context. This article offers a pragmatic approach of considering a dialectic of Westernisation-Indigenisation, to connect the local and the global as well as the North and the South by aiming to develop the concept of Indigenisation in International Social Work. Through a tri-continental partnership (Europe, North America, Africa), the authors outline their current and future plans to create a research study to develop curriculum and conduct field work, to focus efforts on decolonizing social work practice and education. This partnership offers a two-directional relationship between global thinking and local acting, therefore modelling Indigenisation theory and its application on an international scale.

This chapter will demonstrate the need for decolonization of social work practice especially in indigenous communities in Turtle Island (North America) and for the positive abolition of globalization, capitalism, neo-colonialism, war, patriarchal subjugation of women, and the immediate cessation of relentless extraction of fossil fuels and minerals through mining that disfigures indigenous culture and life. There is a need to halt the serious effects of global warming and climate change, as preconditions for effective and holistic social work practice. To identify strategies for constructive social work transformation and empowerment, the chapter illuminates the historical process of colonization of indigenous peoples, especially in Turtle Island and its lingering effects that have produced cultural genocide, environmental devastation, social disintegration, familial fragmentation, and personal dysfunction.