How does ‘‘Whiteness’’ affect the assumptions, presumptions, and perspectives that guide social work practice with Indigenous people and peoples?

How White is Social Work in Australia? Maggie Walter, Sandra Taylor, & Daphne Habibis School of Sociology and Social Work, University of Tasmania, Australia Abstract How White is social work in Australia? This paper analyses this question, focusing on social work practice and education. In asking the question, the aim is to open space for debate about how the social work profession in Australia should progress practice with Indigenous people and issues. The paper combines Bourdieu’s concept of the habitus with ‘‘Whiteness’’ theory to argue that the profession is socially, economically, culturally, and geographically separated from Indigenous people and that the consequences for how social workers engage with their Indigenous clients have yet to be fully explored. Decentring Whiteness requires recognition of epistemological and ontological assumptions so deeply embedded that they are invisible to those who carry them. This invisibility permits White privilege to exist unacknowledged and unchallenged within societal formations. In shifting the focus away from the ‘‘Other’’ to the ‘‘non Other’’, an examination of Whiteness asks social workers to examine their own racial location and the role of White privilege in their lives. It requires us to go beyond intellectual commitments to antiracism and antioppression, and to make racial issues personal as well as political. Keywords: Indigenous; Whiteness; Racism; Social Work Education; Habitus; Social Work Theory How does ‘‘Whiteness’’ affect the assumptions, presumptions, and perspectives that guide social work practice with Indigenous people and peoples? This question is one many social workers may not have considered, despite our use of a reflexive praxis framework in working with clients from different cultural backgrounds. Yet, the predominant Whiteness of Australian social work is a crucial issue for the profession and practitioners to engage with to progress our practice with Indigenous people and communities.