Decolonizing Trauma Studies

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Decolonizing Trauma Studies: Trauma and Postcolonialism" that was published in Humanities

In Decolonizing Trauma Work, Renee Linklater explores healing and wellness in Indigenous communities on Turtle Island. Drawing on a decolonizing approach, which puts the “soul wound” of colonialism at the centre, Linklater engages ten Indigenous health care practitioners in a dialogue regarding Indigenous notions of wellness and wholistic health, critiques of psychiatry and psychiatric diagnoses, and Indigenous approaches to helping people through trauma, depression and experiences of parallel and multiple realities. Through stories and strategies that are grounded in Indigenous worldviews and embedded with cultural knowledge, Linklater offers purposeful and practical methods to help individuals and communities that have experienced trauma. Decolonizing Trauma Work, one of the first books of its kind, is a resource for education and training programs, health care practitioners, healing centres, clinical services and policy initiatives.

Annotation This Special Issue aims to explore the complex and contested relationship between Trauma Studies and postcolonial theory, focusing on the possibilities for creating a decolonized trauma theory that takes account of the suffering of minority groups and non-Western cultures, broadly defined as cultures beyond Western Europe and North America. The issue builds on the insights of, inter alia, Stef Craps's book, Postcolonial Witnessing, and responds to his challenge to interrogate and move beyond a Eurocentric trauma paradigm.

Decolonizing Data yields valuable insights into the decolonization of research methods by addressing and examining health inequalities from an anti-racist and anti-oppressive standpoint.

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.

This monograph analyses Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, On Beauty, NW, The Embassy of Cambodia, and Swing Time as trauma fictions that reveal the social, cultural, historical, and political facets of trauma. Starting with Smith’s humorous critique of psychoanalysis and her definition of original trauma, this volume explores Smith’s challenge of Western theories of trauma and coping, and how her narratives expose the insidiousness of (post)colonial suffering and unbelonging. This book then explores transgenerational trauma, the tensions between remembering and forgetting, multidirectional memory, and the possibilities of the ambiguities and contradictions of the postcolonial and diasporic characters Smith depicts. This analysis discloses Smith’s effort to ethically redefine trauma theory from a postcolonial and decolonial standpoint, reiterates the need to acknowledge and work through colonial histories and postcolonial forms of oppression, and critically reflects on our roles as witnesses of suffering in global times.

Multicultural counseling and psychology evolved as a response to the Eurocentrism prevalent in the Western healing professions and has been used to challenge the Eurocentric, patriarchal, and heteronormative constructs commonly embedded in counseling and psychology. Ironically, some of the practices and paradigms commonly associated with “multiculturalism” reinforce the very hegemonic practices and paradigms that multicultural counseling and psychology approaches were created to correct. In Decolonizing "Multicultural" Counseling through Social Justice, counseling and psychology scholars and practitioners examine this paradox through a social justice lens by questioning and challenging the infrastructure of dominance in society, as well as by challenging ourselves as practitioners, scholars, and activists to rethink our commitments. The authors analyze the ways well-meaning clinicians might marginalize clients and contribute to structural inequities despite multicultural or cross-cultural training, and offer new frameworks and skills to replace the essentializing and stereotyping practices that are widespread in the field. By addressing the power imbalances embedded in key areas of multicultural theory and practice, contributors present innovative methods for revising research paradigms, professional education, and hands-on practice to reflect a commitment to equity and social justice. Together, the chapters in this book model transformative practice in the clinic, the schools, the community, and the discipline. Among the topics covered: Rethinking racial identity development models. Queering multicultural competence in counseling. Developing a liberatory approach to trauma counseling. Decolonizing psychological practice in the context of poverty. Utilizing indigenous paradigms in counseling research. Addressing racism through intersectionality. A mind-opening text for multicultural counseling and psychology courses as well as other foundational courses in counseling and psychology education, Decolonizing "Multicultural" Counseling through Social Justice challenges us to let go of simplistic approaches, however well-intended, and to embrace a more transformative approach to counseling and psychology practice and scholarship.

Riding on the success of Indigenous Social Work Around the World, this book provides case studies to further scholarship on decolonization, a major analytical and activist paradigm among many of the world’s Indigenous Peoples, including educators, tribal leaders, activists, scholars, politicians, and citizens at the grassroots level. Decolonization seeks to weaken the effects of colonialism and create opportunities to promote traditional practices in contemporary settings. Establishing language and cultural programs; honouring land claims, teaching Indigenous history, science, and ways of knowing; self-esteem programs, celebrating ceremonies, restoring traditional parenting approaches, tribal rites of passage, traditional foods, and helping and healing using tribal approaches are central to decolonization. These insights are brought to the arena of international social work still dominated by western-based approaches. Decolonization draws attention to the effects of globalization and the universalization of education, methods of practice, and international ’development’ that fail to embrace and recognize local knowledges and methods. In this volume, Indigenous and non-Indigenous social work scholars examine local cultures, beliefs, values, and practices as central to decolonization. Supported by a growing interest in spirituality and ecological awareness in international social work, they interrogate trends, issues, and debates in Indigenous social work theory, practice methods, and education models including a section on Indigenous research approaches. The diversity of perspectives, decolonizing methodologies, and the shared struggle to provide effective professional social work interventions is reflected in the international nature of the subject matter and in the mix of contributors who write from their contexts in different countries and cultures, including Australia, Canada, Cuba, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and the USA.