Indigenous Voices in Social Work: Not Lost in Translation
June 4-7, 2007
MAKAHA RESORT
This inaugural conference focused on the intersection of social work and Indigenous peoples and was sponsored by the University of Hawaii’I, School of Social Work.
Conference Mission
To promote Indigenous voices in social work by enhancing awareness and the application of Indigenous practices aimed at healing social problems facing Indigenous families, children, and communities.
Objectives
- Promote Indigenous healing practices in areas of behavioural health in a redefined contemporary context; validate practices through evaluation and incorporate them into curricula.
- Develop a regional network of academicians and community practitioners who are invested in Indigenous social work practice and research.
- Generate sustainable and collaborative activities such as an international data bank of social and health indicators for Indigenous people.
- Consider Indigenous trans generational processes including the transmission of healing practices; story-telling as a means to promote coping, resiliency, and survival.
- Establish an international journal on Indigenous social work.
Dean Jon Matsuoka ’s welcome message stated in part:
“This gathering of Indigenous social workers is timely given the upswell of interest locally and regionally and the set of issues that confront us. In Hawaii’i we are constantly faced with the problem of different versions of history in which rival claimants struggle to assert contending visions of the past. So many of the narratives of Indigenous people are really the narrative of colonialists and cultural hegemons whose rendition of history have served to justify colonial mastery. The delusions are often reproduced a the level of social work education and practice, which tends to valorize its own history of destroying and normalizing professional project” (Matsuoka 2007).
The Dean’s vision for the conference was to:
“…rally the collective intelligence and passions of the conference participants into a productive, less derivative, more dignified approach to enabling and empowering Indigenous communities”.
Dean Matsuoka also saw the conference as a possible “template for something new in the world”.
     
Photos by Jackie Graessle
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