3 “It’s All About Context” – Knowing, Not Knowing and Everything In-between (3/9) -- Rural and Northern Social Work Practice:

3 “It’s All About Context” – Knowing, Not Knowing and Everything In-between Colleen McMillan; Natalie Compagna; and Hilton King This chapter focuses on unlearning, learning, and understanding why context is paramount before practicing in northern and rural Indigenous Canadian communities. Context is explored and written in this chapter from the worldview narratives of a First Nation social worker, followed by a euro-western educated settler and academic, and lastly a recently graduated social worker living and working in a rural and northern community. These three first-person narratives explore context through historical associations with land, ethics and values, knowledge creation and why reflective and reflexive work is needed for a social worker to practice in northern and rural communities. The practice tensions embedded in these issues between the First Nation and euro-western worldviews are shared through case scenarios that highlight the work needed to ensure the social worker helps rather than harms. We conclude the chapter by offering an “epistemological Wampum Belt” as a transformative way for the two worldviews to move forward, contextually mindful of the uniqueness of rural and northern social work. Learning Objectives By the end of this chapter you will have had the opportunity to: - Appreciate the importance of context as a critical prerequisite for social work practice in rural and northern communities - Question learned knowledge: identify spaces in one’s learning where harm can be unintentionally reproduced - Deeply understand oneself and social location regarding western and Indigenous knowledge and how the two intersect in social work practice - Learn and unlearn, and in the process, come to a place of cultural, contextual, and epistemological humility “Context starts in the history’’: Land Acknowledgements as Relationship This chapter is collaboratively written from three distinct worldviews: the first narrative is written by an Indigenous person who is a social worker, the second narrative by a euro-western educated academic and social worker, and the final by a recent Master of Social Work graduate working and living in a rural and northern community. We intentionally chose to write in this way to highlight the differences between worldviews and how disconnection among kinds of knowledges can occur and be transferred to a social work practice. We also wrote this way to show that collaboration between different worldviews can be achieved, when guided by core social work values such as respect, diversity, cultural appreciation, and dignity. Lastly, we believe writing this chapter in the more traditional or western way, as in using one “voice,” is disingenuous to the messages we want to share. Understanding different worldviews and exploring Indigenous and euro-western histories represents a critical first step to fully understanding living and working in northern and rural Indigenous communities. A case highlighting tensions