Yarning as decolonising practice

Yarning has become part of decolonising my practice. Yarning is a way to divest from colonised ways of being and working and of showing respect for First Nations ways. It also supports me in grappling with what is irreconcilable within settler coloniser–Indigenous relations and moving towards returning land and life to Indigenous peoples. This paper shows how I have adapted Bessarab and Ng’andu’s (2010) model of yarning as a research practice and applied it to therapeutic conversations in combination with narrative practices including therapeutic letters and outsider witnessing. It describes work with Mim and Lucy, including transcripts of practice and therapeutic letters that embodied yarning as a decolonising practice.