Not without consequence: Tangata Whenua Tiriti educators in tertiary learning spaces
Author: Rachel Dibble
Supervisors: Martin Andrew Helen Mataiti
22 May 2024
Dibble, R. (2024). Not without consequence: Tangata Whenua Tiriti educators in tertiary learning spaces (Unpublished document submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Professional Practice). Otago Polytechnic | Te Pūkenga, New Zealand. https://doi.org/10.34074/thes.6487
Abstract
Tiriti o Waitangi education is not without consequence. The ākonga | learner experience is layered, with (at least) ethnicity, gender and age contributing to the positionality of understanding the content. It is important to recognise that contemporary facilitation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi education in tertiary learning spaces has happened in a variety of ways. Facilitation in a two-day workshop has been a common experience, while in an Otago Polytechnic academic programme, this has been layered across several weeks focusing on how the programme facilitates content as explicit, integrated and applied. The focus of this Master's of Professional Practice thesis comes from an educator’s experience of teaching the content as the sole facilitator in the room. It also arose from observing and participating in education with two facilitators in the room. A Kaupapa Māori approach underpins the research, which focuses on good practice for Tiriti facilitators in tertiary learning spaces. Whakawhiti kōrero | sparkling discussions align with a semi-structured style of participatory interviews. Kānohi ki te kanohi | face to face interviews and online interviews were held, with a small group of experienced tertiary educators within Aotearoa New Zealand. Arts-based research intertwines a response to both method and methodology approaches and pūrākau weaves with autoethnography and poetic inquiry as both analysis and response. For the participants and the researcher, praxis and practices weave together words and wairua, with an invitation to the reader to engage in an indigenous analysis process that evolves in reaction to writing the findings. The findings are a result of the series of interviews focusing on gender and ethnicity, which emphasise that for many tangata whenua Tiriti educators, facilitation of Tiriti o Waitangi content with two facilitators in the room, is good practice, and is not without consequence.
Mahia te Mahi: Hard Head Heard Heart
Narratives of HeaRT[d] mahi
the hard mahi of challenge and conflict
the heart mahi of remembering and decolonising
the head mahi recognising those who have gone before and raised up the profile for tangata whenua to work in this space
the heart mahi of my tupuna, the ancestors
the head mahi of skilled educators
the hard mahi of resilience in survival
the heard mahi of education, of liberation, of conscientisation: mahia te mahi
it is
not without consequence.
Keywords
Tiriti o Waitangi educator, poetic inquiry, Kaupapa Māori, conscientisation, autoethnography
Licence
A copy of this thesis is publicly available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International
