Indigenization, Indigenous Social Work and Decolonization: Mapping the Theoretical Terrain

This opening chapter attempts to map the complex theoretical terrain of Indigenous social work, a term used to describe First Nations (in North America) or Aboriginal (in Australia) social work and seen by people in North America and Australia and New Zealand as specific to a form of practice with minority Indigenous populations in mainly Western societies. Embracing Indigenous social work means being comfortable with uncertainty and diversity rather than attempting to condense complex histories and cultures into measureable units of analysis. Indigenous social work is far more comfortable with, and deals better with, uncertainty and complexity than Western social work (Gray, Coates and Yellow Bird, 2008).