Archives

• Special Issue: Indigenous Resistance

  Vol. 14 No. 1 (2026)

  The world news is flooded with articles about self-serving and compromised political leaders, inveterate files of human trafficking, wanton killing and torture of innocent citizens in the Middle East, the apprehension and deportation of legal US residents, environmental ruination, unbridled corporate greed causing unprecedented disparity, religious zealots encouraging the onslaught of Armageddon; death to science, rationality, and empathy. Many people have made these topics a large part of life, and other than commiserate with members of their social circle, are at a loss of what to do. Cultural cessation and death of normalcy are not woven into their ancestral memory.

  We bear witness to culminating effects that began when spirituality was institutionalized and used as a forerunner for invasion, when nature was commodified and people became disenfranchised from ancestral lands, when laws of sustainability were broken and consciousness and quiescence dissolved into a ferment of status and possession. At every fork in the road to social development the business model of profit maximization and peak extraction was picked over economic collectivism. We now face the karmic consequences amassed across centuries of exploitation of `aina (Hawaiian word for land that feeds us) and fellow humans.

  The long trajectory of dystopic capitalism is now cresting and the suffering we see all around signals the finale of a global empire founded on colonization. This moment of great turning poses both crisis and opportunity to replace a paradigm that’s run its course and carried us to the threshold of doom.  Indigenous societies were the first victims of audacious imposition and after centuries of censorship, managed to survive and adapt without forsaking ancestral ways and reverence for Earth Mother. Against the chronic threat of erasure, we grew resilient by the power of beloved community and ethereal energy of land and sea. Indigenous formulae for existing in harmony, paired with the post-traumatic intelligence gained from outlasting genocide, positions us to lead the world through this tumultuous passage and reset our existence in ways that pose a greater chance of realizing human possibility.

  - Journal of Indigenous Social Development Editorial Board

• Special Issue: Abstracts from the 2025 International Indigenous Voices in Social Work Conference

  Vol. 13 No. 4 (2025)

  This summer, August 12 to 15, 2025, the seventh International Indigenous Voices in Social Work was held in Calgary, Canada. Entitled, One Child Every Child: Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Doing, Connecting, and Being for the Well-Being of Our Future Generations. This event had more than 500 participants attending, supporting, and facilitating topics from Indigenous ceremonial practices, health and well-being, leadership, and system reform. These participants were from all over the world, including Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Norway, Taiwan, the United States, and Canada, sharing common global perspectives while remaining rooted in local and regional ways.

  It was apparent that this conference remains a key contribution to strengthening Indigenous voices in social work. Being heard by attending members from the International Federation of Social Workers as well as many regional organizations, speakers continue to highlight and advance our Indigenous ways as important contributions for advancing practices that tend to be more holistic, land-based, and relational.

  The Journal of Social Development emerged from the first conference. We are proud to be a continued contributor to this important, ongoing event. In this issue, we provide a few abstracts, reflections, and key findings from the more than 85 presentations that took place, as a means for others to get a sense of the conference, advance some of the shared ideas and experiences, and honour the amazing work of Indigenous communities and social workers. Hopefully, this issue will be an enticement for people to carry these ideas forward, reach out to development relationships, and support the ongoing relationship between the Journal of Indigenous Social Development and the International Indigenous Voices of Social Work Conferences.

  -Michael Hart, JISD Co-Editor-in-Chief

• Vol. 13 No. 3 (2025)

• Vol. 13 No. 2 (2025)

• Indigenous Resurgence Amidst Climate Disruption

  Vol. 13 No. 1 (2025)

  Climate change brings environmental, social and cultural disruption to peoples and communities globally the impact of which Indigenous peoples experience most intensely – from atoll islanders’ diminished access to traditional reef fishing sites, to drought induced bushfires resulting in loss of lives and livelihoods. Climate disruptions perpetuate long standing marginalisations and oppressions. Indigenous resurgence, resistance and resilience complement the Western scientific literature. JISD centers Indigenous knowledge, perspectives, action and lived experiences of climate disruption responses. Indigenous knowledge is key to reversing the trajectory of climate disaster – not merely for Indigenous communities but all of humankind.

• Special Issue on Love

  Vol. 12 No. 1 (2023)

• Vol. 11 No. 2 (2022)

• Special Issue: Beyond Colonization to the Fore of Social Development

  Vol. 11 No. 1 (2022)

• Special Issue: World Indigenous Suicide Prevention Conference 2021

  Vol. 10 No. 2 (2021)

• Vol. 10 No. 1 (2021)

• Indigenous Communities and COVID-19: Impact and Implications

  Vol. 9 No. 3 (2020)

• Vol. 9 No. 2 (2020)

• Special Issue: Indigenous Research Methodologies

  Vol. 9 No. 1 (2020)

• Vol. 8 No. 1 (2019)

• Vol. 7 No. 2 (2018)

• Vol. 7 No. 1 (2018)

• Special Edition for the National Indigenous Social Work Conference

  Vol. 6 No. 2 (2017)

• Vol. 6 No. 1 (2017)

• Vol. 5 No. 2 (2017)

• Vol. 5 No. 1 (2016)

• Vol. 4 No. 1 (2015)

• Vol. 3 No. 2 (2014)

• Vol. 3 No. 1 (2014)

• Vol. 2 No. 1 (2013)

• Vol. 1 No. 1 (2012)