Researching social work with Indigenous people in Australia: Across worldviews, across time, across the table

The use of comparative research by social work dates back to the profession's origins. However, its nature has changed over time, reflecting the profession's changing contexts. With the globalisation of social work, professional practice has expanded outside of the profession's western origins to encompass cross-worldview settings. Each contextual expansion has meant a greater complexity of the comparative research factors to be considered. In this chapter, the key conceptual and process challenges encountered while conducting the Australian Research Council-funded project From Colonisation to Conciliation: A Collaborative Examination of Social Work Practice with Indigenous Populations will be examined. This overview will explore the myriad complexities encountered in a project that endeavoured not only to compare characteristics, attitudes and positions of populations from different cultural worldviews, but also to explore the legacy and dynamics of the sometimes contentious relationship between their members: western-trained social work professionals and the social work academics responsible for their training on the one hand and Indigenous recipients of social work services on the other.