Maori Education: from Wretchedness to Hope

Abstract

This research examines three focus questions: (1) What is the nature of the journey from wretchedness to hope in Maori education in Aotearoa New Zealand? (2) How is the journey from wretchedness to hope in Maori education in Aotearoa New Zealand experienced as a lived reality? (3) How can 'the lived experience' of the journey from wretchedness to hope in Maori education in Aotearoa be understood in epistemological, ontological and methodological terms? The examination draws on diverse bodies of knowledge to analyse and explore the journey from wretchedness to hope in Maori education in Aoteroa New Zealand. Four major themes frame the examination. The first is a structural analysis; the second, a discipline based analysis from the study of education; the third, a cultural analysis; and the fourth, an analysis informed by mana wahine. The structural analysis examines and explores how the wretchedness of colonisation became institutionalised in Aotearoa and what the implications of this are. The discipline-based analysis examines and explores the study of education as a discipline, and is informed by educational theory, practice, praxis, reflection, policy and experiential learning. The cultural analysis examines the nature of matauranga whanau / hapu / iwi and explores how these bodies of knowledge inform Maori education in Aotearoa New Zealand. Finally, mana wahine is used to inform the examination from the position of the nature and status of Maori women as a specific example of how a central feature of matauranga whanau I hapu I iwi was made wretched by colonisation and is now being reclaimed through programmes of decolonisation. The examination is theorised from the local, to the national and then to the global level and is illuminated through an exploration and analysis of the author’s praxis as a Maori feminist academic and of the univertsity as a site of struggle. The examination reveals that dehumanisation and wretchedness are experienced in education by whanau / hapu / iwi Maori as a result of the colonisation of this country. The dehumanisation is found in the institutionalisation of monolingualism and monoculturalism in the education system and the emergence of racism at the institutional, collective and personal levels of society to support the unequal power relations dehumanisation requires. The impact of this is a 'wretchedness' in which whanau / hapu / iwi have been repositioned as 'other', marginalised, disempowered and reconstituted as a minority group in their own lands and in which matauranga whanau / hapu / iwi has been relegated to the private domains of life. The examination reveals that hope and transformative praxis, comprising radical paradigm shifts, have emerged from the decolonisation of Maori education in Aotearoa. Rather than being bound by the wretchedness of colonisation for eternity, hope inspires and leads whanau / hapu / iwi in Aotearoa to break free from this legacy and to create new futures and solutions through the articulation of transformative praxis. As well as providing national solutions the initiatives comprise global exemplars of transformative educational praxis. The 'hope' is explored through an unravelling of the threads of decolonisation, self actualisation and conscientisation. Two major sources inform the 'hope' explored in the study: the dreams and visions of our ancestors; and the mother earth energies exhibited by Maori women in our journeys towards enlightenment.