August 31, 2018

INDIGENOUS EVENTS AT THE SSWR CONFERENCE

American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Global Indigenous (AIANNH Indigenous) Cluster
For its 2018 annual conference, the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) established the American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Global Indigenous Populations Cluster facilitated by Drs. Tessa Evans-Campbell, Mike Spencer, and Karina Walters. As SSWR Vice President and conference coordinator for SSWR this year, Dr. Walters worked to incorporate themes consistent with the cluster, including an indigenous opening to honor Opening Plenary speaker, Dr. Linda Tuhiwai Smith of the University of Waikato and author of the acclaimed book, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. The three invited symposia for the 2018 conference also featured AIANNH indigenous themes and speakers.

Indigenous conference participants and research allies welcomed opening plenary speaker Dr. Linda Tuhiwai Smith and celebrated the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples in SSWR with the new American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Global Indigenous Populations (Indigenous) Research Cluster and Special Interest Group with a Grand Entry at the Opening Plenary. All indigenous people and allies were invited to participate. The Grand Entry featured the Washington, DC, area local American Indian community Color Guard and the local drum group-Uptown Boyz Singers, followed by an invocation by a tribal elder and an Oli from Native Hawaiian relatives to welcome Dr. Tuhiwai Smith. The conference was in Piscataway Territory.

Additional presentations, poster sessions, symposia and roundtable discussions took place in the new AIANNH Indigenous Cluster during the four day conference, including a meeting of the AIANNH (Indigenous) Special Interest Group (SIG).

If you are interested in being involved in the ongoing activities of the SSWR American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and Global Indigenous Populations (Indigenous) Research Cluster and Special Interest Group, please contact Tessa Evans-Campbell (Snohomish), Mike Spencer (Kānaka Maoli), and/or Karina Walters (Choctaw) for more information.

This information first appeared in Mike Spencer, (2018, January 8). Indigenous Events at the SSWR Conference [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://justliving808.com/2018/01/08/.