These Are Indigenous Lands

Abstract

The recent upsurge of interest regarding environmental social work is unfolding against a backdrop of centuries of continuous struggle on the part of Indigenous peoples to protect their lands and waters. In this article, we consider the ways in which environmental social work frameworks engage the realities and resistances of Indigenous peoples in the context of settler colonialism. We contend that to ethically engage with environmentalism, social workers living and working on Indigenous territories must understand and resist settler colonialism, our implication in upholding its structure and practices, and its contribution to ecological destruction. Drawing upon the work of Indigenous scholars, we briefly describe Indigenous peoples’ conception of their relationships to land and sovereignty and how settler colonialism as a structure is organized with the explicit aim of eliminating these relationships. We then review prominent texts addressing several competing environmental social work frameworks, considering how each takes up (or not) histories of colonialism and Indigenous dispossession and addresses Indigenous identities, relations to land, and assertions of sovereignty. We conclude by offering principles and practices that might foreground the disruption of settler colonialism and respect for Indigenous sovereignty as necessary frameworks for Canadian environmental social work.

Being a social worker in the unrecognized villages in Israel

“…In Canada, first the colonizers said that the original peoples were too backward to have any rights. When they resisted displacement, they were "pacified" with treaties that deprived them of all rights and the matter became an "Indian problem" (Hiller & Carlson, 2018). The case of the social workers in the unrecognized villages is reminiscent of that of the social workers in Northern Ireland during the period of the Troubles who had to risk their lives to protect their clients and their clients' interests (Duffy, 2019).…”

“…Our role as social workers is to allow these peoples to do so on their own. However, social work curricula do not emphasize opposition to injustice by a colonial regime, despite its relevance, nor does social work education make room for postcolonial social work or for indigenous knowledge (Hiller & Carlson, 2018). Giorgio Agamben, who coined the term "bare life," argued that in the political context "life" refers more or less only to the biological aspect (bare life) and does not hint at any obligation to quality of life (Agamben, 1998).…”

Orienting social work to incorporate place-based principles: A practical guide to the use of place in social work practice

“…Indigenous social work practice and scholarship examine how settler-colonial and neoliberal exploitation of resources, land, and labor are directly detrimental to the health and wellbeing of indigenous people and people of color (Hiller & Carlson, 2018;Rowe et al, 2015). These calls for more attention to place and land in social work identify environmental (i.e., place-based) concerns as factors related to poor health and wellbeing which are tied to marginalization (e.g., construction of highpolluting chemical processing plants near communities of color, building oil pipelines through indigenous territories) and are therefore critically relevant to social work practice and research (Hiller & Carlson, 2018;Rao & Teixeira, 2020). Social work as a profession is sustained by processes of power which dictate resource distribution, service priorities, laws and guidelines managing practice expectations, social hierarchies that contribute to marginalization, and numerous other power dynamics (Kemp, 2011;Ratliff, 2019).…”

“…Carel Germain (1978aGermain ( , 1978b linked space and time to ecological social work practices, and indigenous social work pedagogy and practices are consistently grounded in relationships and interactions with land and the environment (Gray et al, 2008;Hiller & Carlson, 2018). Only recently have mainstream social work scholars begun to point to the role of place in the health and wellbeing of people and how place intersects with marginalization and disparities.…”

Westphalian Vs. Indigenous Sovereignty: Challenging Colonial Territorial Governance

“…This perspective also involves the relationships between people and the land. Indigenous sovereignty is considered an expression or extension of the relationship that Indigenous people have to their land (Hiller and Carlson 2018). For the Yawuru in Australia, self-determination over land 'cannot be disconnected from the broader rights and responsibilities of looking after country and fulfilling one's cultural obligations as Yawuru' (Yap and Yu 2018, 99).…”