Introduction to Special Indigenous Issue

Abstract

It is a pleasure to guest edit this special edition of Critical Social Work. The process of reviewing the thoughtful works of diverse contributors reminds me that we are in a time of incredible shifts, changes, opportunities, and uncertain futures. Aboriginal people in Canada are facing multiple challenges to treaties, land rights, and funding at all levels, while, paradoxically, we experience unprecedented opportunities in politics, business, education, and economic and social development. Hence, this edition illustrates that there is no “single story” (Chimamanda Adichie,TED Talks) that articulates the Aboriginal experience. The articles comprising this edition indicate that our attentions, as Aboriginal social work educators, practitioners and students, are invested in diverse directions, and we are concerned with many issues, historical and contemporary, that intersect and interface. I’m so pleased to present a small but robust collection of articles attending to contemporary social work issues and it is promising that several of these articles are written by Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal social work students who are sturdy allies who are invested in Aboriginal issues. In many Indigenous cultures, artistic expression is a medium through which traditional knowledge, culture and worldview are disseminated and contemporarily, artistic media have astonishing ways of making painful subjects more palatable. Therefore, I am pleased to include a work of fiction and two works of prose which highlight pressing concerns via creative mediums.