“This is how we show up for our relatives”: Understanding how Indigenous relative caregivers embody traditional kinship to resist the colonial child welfare system

Abstract

This study responds to the gravity of the ongoing removal of Indigenous children, the intractability of colonization in the child welfare system, the glaring absence of Indigenous voices and their distinct experiences in the professional, empirical child welfare literature, and dearth of studies that implement Indigenous methodologies. Grounded in Indigenous Storywork and Aknulha (Mother/Aunty in Oneida) methodologies, this qualitative study sought to understand (10) Indigenous relative caregivers’ experiences with the colonial child welfare system, how they live their traditional kinship beliefs and practices amidst ongoing colonialism and their desires for Indigenous child welfare. Findings identified specific forms of colonialism still inflicted upon Indigenous children and families in the modern child welfare system. The child welfare system perpetrates ongoing removal and separation, a form of colonial violence as a vehicle for implementing assimilative practices. Relative caregivers also exposed how the child welfare system continues to impose the modern colonial gender system, continuing a legacy of government sponsored civilizing educations programs to assimilate through racializing and genderizing Indigenous families. Second, this study revealed, what Lugones (2007) called “sites of resistance”, the knowledge of Indigenous relative caregivers who are actively living our traditional intergenerationally transmitted kinship knowledge and practices to resist the child welfare systems and protect our children from ongoing colonialism, removal and separation. Implications for tribes, social work and child welfare are presented.