Cultivating a Racialized Practitioner Ethic: A Guide for the Human Services

Abstract

In this article, we ask critical questions and reflect upon ethics and praxis for racialized practitioners working alongside Indigenous communities in the human services field. Acknowledging the lack of scholarship across the human services focusing on experiences of racialized practitioners, we include literature from Indigenous and decolonizing studies, social work education, child and youth care (CYC), critical race studies, and women’s and gender studies. This article traces the journey of two racialized, women of colour practitioners in their development of a set of decolonial ethics for working alongside Indigenous peoples and communities. With a focus on the lived implications for racialized practitioners who face ongoing ethical dilemmas in their human services work alongside Indigenous peoples, we look to collaborative and critical conceptualizations for more just and ethical praxis. Core concepts explored include: notions of embracing risk, troubling allyship, and cultivating a decolonial love ethic.