Recognition, Reconciliation and Restoration: Applying a Decolonized Understanding in Social Work and Healing Processes

Abstract

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.