ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of water in healing. Starting with a story about water and Indigeneity, the chapter unpacks how humans’ relationship with water has become out of balance. Decolonizing our relationship with water begins with reimagining social work theory, which continues to be constructed along anthropocentric settler colonial binaries, to be more inclusive of sacred landscapes and elements. The belief in settler dominion over nature has deep roots in the colonial experience of removing Indigenous Peoples from lands and waters. Recognition of the broader dimensions and interconnections of human and natural life is key to opening up holistic pathways between social work and active resistance to contemporary settler colonialism on the structural, community, and individual levels. Indigenous understandings of the healing properties of water are outlined. The social work concept of therapeutic landscapes is examined. The healing properties water as a therapeutic landscape is illustrated through the example of Irish holy wells.
