Decolonising Social Work Education Memory, Haunting and Critical Hope in the Nordics

Chapter One – Positioning and dismantling

Chapter Two – Interconnectedness: A sacred curriculum of life

Michael Yellow Bird

Chapter Three – Troubling ways of knowing and remembering

Chapter Four – The haunting of plantation logics in social work education

Chapter Five – Haunted histories and contested futures

Chapter Six – Towards decolonising the social work curriculum

Chapter Seven – Towards a decolonial praxis of critical hope through engaged pedagogy

Chapter Eight – Pedagogy, positionality and decolonialism

Biography

Kris Clarke is Professor of Social Work at the University of Helsinki. Originally from Fresno, California, Clarke has worked in Finland for over 25 years. Her research interests centre on decolonisation, LGBTQ+ issues, structural social work, and abolitionist perspectives on social work.

Michael Wallengren-Lynch is a social work academic and former practitioner. Qualifying as a social worker in 2004, he has worked in New Zealand, Ireland, Pakistan, and Sweden. He currently teaches at Malmö University, Sweden. His research focuses on school-based social work, crisis and disaster management, and critical pedagogical approaches in social work education.

Michael Yellow Bird is Professor and former Dean of the Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba. He is a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation in North Dakota, USA. He has held faculty and administrative positions in social work and Indigenous studies at universities in the United States and Canada. His research and publications focus on colonisation, decolonisation, neuroscience and Indigenous Peoples, healthy Indigenous ageing, mindfulness, Arikara traditional agriculture, and the cultural significance of Rez dogs.

“Decolonising Social Work Education is a profoundly insightful and timely contribution that challenges entrenched colonial logics within our curricula. Clarke, Wallengren-Lynch and Yellow Bird weave together haunting histories, collective memory and critical hope to offer concrete pathways towards a genuinely plural, justice-centred pedagogy. Their lucid prose and compelling case studies not only unsettle complacency but inspire educators and practitioners alike to reimagine social work as a truly decolonial practice. This book is indispensable for anyone committed to equity, solidarity and transformative change in social work education.”

Professor Vasilios Ioakimidis, Global Education Commissioner IFSW, Head of Department (Social Work), University of West Attica

 

“In Decolonising Social Work Education, educators and practitioners will find a powerful and timely resource addressing social work's historical complicity with colonialism. Through insightful explorations of memory, haunting, and critical hope, Clarke, Wallengren-Lynch and Yellow Bird provide practical strategies for dismantling exclusionary structures, broadening epistemologies, and fostering community-driven knowledge. This is an invaluable gift for all of us seeking to decolonize our curricula, our academic fields and ourselves as preconditions for more just and relational practices that could birth a world in which many worlds can fit.”

Rosalba Icaza Garcia, PhD, Chair of International Relations, Scientific Director at the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University

 

“I have always believed that the subject of decolonization in social work education was only the purview of African social workers until this book introduced me to new knowledge that had never been previously shared by anyone. A groundbreaking work in the field of decolonization, and a must-read for international social work instructors and students.”

Uzoma Odera Okoye Ph.D, Professor of Social Work, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State

“Hidden agendas and their uncanny revenants are a key driver in this important book from Kris Clarke and Michael Wallengren-Lynch. Foregrounding their positionality in a strategy of decolonial becoming, they lay out the historic, ingrained methods through which the endeavour of social work has functioned and thrived. From the margins, Michael Yellow Bird’s poignant narrative of survival and flourishing in the face of ingrained, unrelenting, tacit, oppression underpins this endeavour to realign social work with a decisive shift towards pluriversal equality. The authors’ blueprint for new curricula will provide every emerging graduate in social work with the tools to address the intractable challenges of systemic injustice with courage, persistence and ‘critical hope’.”

Lillis Ó Laoire, Emeritus Professor of Irish Language, Folklore and Celtic Civilisation, University of Galway, Ireland