Kris Clarke

In a world gripped by intersecting crises and deepening inequalities, can social work break free from its colonial entanglements to imagine a more just and compassionate future? Decolonising Social Work Education: Memory, Haunting and Critical Hope in the Nordics confronts the enduring legacies of colonialism that continue to shape the foundations of social work education. Through the lenses of haunting, memory, and critical hope, it challenges the discipline’s historical complicity with systems of domination and calls for a radical reimagining of its pedagogical core. Grounded in pluriversal knowledges and informed by decolonial thought, this book advocates for a transformative, relational curriculum—one that resists neoliberalism, carceral logics, and epistemic injustice. Drawing on examples from the Nordic context, it offers a bold vision for social work rooted in justice, equity, and ecological interconnectedness. With humility, reflection, and collective imagination, it charts a path towards a liberatory future where social work becomes a force for healing and transformation.

Taking a new and innovative angle on social work, this book seeks to remedy the lack of holistic perspectives currently used in Western social work practice by exploring Indigenous and other culturally diverse understandings and experiences of healing. This book examines six core areas of healing through a holistic lens that is grounded in a decolonizing perspective. Situating integrative healing within social work education and theory, the book takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from social memory and historical trauma, contemplative traditions, storytelling, healing literatures, integrative health, and the traditional environmental knowledge of Indigenous Peoples. In exploring issues of water, creative expression, movement, contemplation, animals, and the natural world in relation to social work practice, the book will appeal to all scholars, practitioners, and community members interested in decolonization and Indigenous studies.

Taking a new and innovative angle on social work, this book seeks to remedy the lack of holistic perspectives currently used in Western social work practice by exploring Indigenous and other culturally diverse understandings and experiences of healing. This book examines six core areas of healing through a holistic lens that is grounded in a decolonizing perspective. Situating integrative healing within social work education and theory, the book takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from social memory and historical trauma, contemplative traditions, storytelling, healing literatures, integrative health, and the traditional environmental knowledge of Indigenous Peoples. In exploring issues of water, creative expression, movement, contemplation, animals, and the natural world in relation to social work practice, the book will appeal to all scholars, practitioners, and community members interested in decolonization and Indigenous studies.