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A yarn among social workers : Knowing, being, and doing social work learning, expertise, and practice
Fleming, Charmayne Young, Shirley Else, Joanne Hammond, Libby McLaren, Helen
Fleming, Charmayne
Young, Shirley
Else, Joanne
Hammond, Libby
McLaren, Helen
Abstract
Many social workers engage in Yarning and truth-telling. This worldview is important considering that Australian social work literature is historically informed by white western thought. This white lens has obstructed the self-determination of Aboriginal social workers and their communities. We came together as Aboriginal social workers and non-Aboriginal allies. Our authorship engaged dialogue and Dadirri (deep listening) with one another in reciprocal relationships. We thematically analysed, reordered, and preserved our Yarn in written text. Yarning with the use of Dadirri respected oral traditions of knowledge sharing and, in itself, was a decolonising act. Our aim to document Aboriginal knowledge and experience as social workers through Yarning, involved truth-telling about social work, social work learning, expertise, and practice.
IMPLICATIONS
• A priority for decolonisation in social work is to value Yarning as a significant feature of knowledge sharing and a legitimate form of authorship.
• Decolonising social work requires things to be done differently, e.g., prioritising Indigenous social workers in developing frameworks for education and practice, and leading the implementation of these frameworks.
Keywords
Aboriginal, Australia, Social Work, yarn, decolonising, truth-telling
Date
2023
Type
Journal article
Journal
Australian Social Work
Book
Volume
76
Issue
3
Page Range
330-342
Article Number
ACU Department
Faculty of Health Sciences
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
License
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.