Growing global citizens through indigenous partnerships
Co-authored with Anna Herrero Tejada (UNESCO Latin America) and Pip Newick (University of Waikato)
“Identity and culture are the foundation by which our children, our people find grounding in who they are and what they represent. It is an intrinsic knowing of whakapapa (genealogy) and tikanga Māori (Māori customs) that sets us apart from all other people throughout the world. As tumuaki (principal), a challenge I have is elevating the thinking and expectations of our students, to extend their reach beyond anything they could possibly imagine.”
Jade Tapine. Tumuaki, Te Wharekura o Ngaa Purapura o Te Aroha
“We need to look far ahead and look at how we can create the global citizens that we envision our kids to be. Having a future exchange programme with Mapuche students and teachers will enhance our children’s sense of global citizenship.”
Pura Hope. Pou Arahi, Te Wharekura o Rakaumangamanga
Internationally, indigenous populations are rallying against the vestiges of colonization, redoubling efforts to revitalize language and cultural identity, and resisting increased exposure to conservative economic forces and political populism. Against this backdrop, and with aspirations for improved global connectedness in mind, New Zealand’s indigenous Māori are uniquely positioned as stewards of the country’s bi-cultural heritage and, as research suggests, better able to connect cross-culturally with various populations in the Asia-Pacific compared with New Zealand Europeans (Ihi Research, 2018). As a result, public funding has been made available to nurture and promote Māori relationships with, understanding of, and capability for working and learning in Asia-Pacific country contexts.
This prioritisation of Māori connectedness contrasts with a history of entrenched educational inequity for indigenous learners in New Zealand. In mainstream state schooling Māori learners have been - and often still are - associated with a “long tail of underachievement” and “deficit theorizing” at an institutional level (Bishop, 2005; Milne, 2013). After many decades of Māori advocacy, government investment in culturally responsive pedagogies and tribe-led Māori language and cultural philosophy schools has resulted in the recent resurgence of Māori language and strong results in upper-secondary national examinations (Stuff, 2019). Although much remains to be achieved, emergent success has garnered interest from comparable post-colonial contexts with education and economic systems that are incompatible with indigenous worldviews, strengths, and aspirations.
At the confluence of government investment in Māori global connectedness and international interest in Aotearoa New Zealand’s indigenous education journey, an opportunity arose to offer Māori education leaders a pathway into international indigenous development. With the support of New Zealand’s Latin America Centre for Asia Pacific Excellence, Chile’s Ministry of Education, and UNESCO, in 2019 The University of Waikato and Waikato-Tainui established a pilot partnership project with Mapuche education leaders in Chile’s Araucania region.
The advancement of indigenous knowledge through national, regional, and international partnerships is known to strengthen the value of alternative epistemologies and counter the vestiges of colonialism in various dimensions of modern societies (UNESCO, 2017). Nonetheless, until now many of these partnerships have been facilitated and mediated by governments and international organizations, reinforcing international development models that embody unaddressed colonial narratives and power asymmetries. In a 2019 study, UNESCO suggests that the implementation failures of intercultural initiatives and indigenous partnerships, particularly in Latin America, is due to the lack of equitable participation of indigenous actors throughout the project conception, design, implementation, and evaluation processes (UNESCO, 2019). UNESCO’s research highlights the importance of binding and leading participation of indigenous peoples in the definition and implementation of their educational policies; as well as the need to promote documentation and research through community-based methodologies and practices, and through the use of indigenous languages (UNESCO, 2019).
Aotearoa New Zealand’s founding document, The Treaty of Waitangi, sets forth principles for equitable partnership between indigenous Māori and non-Māori. Although the Treaty is contested and often poorly adhered to by non-Māori, the expectation is that the Treaty is honored and upheld in all aspects of life and learning between Māori and non-Māori communities (Salmond, 2012. Orange, 2015). As such, the University of Waikato invited the regional Māori tribe, Waikato-Tainui, to take full leadership of the Māori-Mapuche educators partnership project’s kaupapa; that being the way in which the project’s people, purpose, and processes would be united within a shared philosophy for partnership between Waikato-Tainui and Mapuche. Ostensibly, as an indigenous project non-indigenous leadership would not uphold the principles of the Treaty. For this reason, Waikato-Tainui led the recruitment of four principals and four teachers from wharekura, and two tribal leaders ensured that proper international delegation protocols were adhered to. The University of Waikato then worked with Chile’s Ministry of Education and the Latin America Secretariat for UNESCO to ensure that conditions for authentic indigenous partnership - taketake ki te taketake - would be in place and that the Māori delegates would have open access to schools and Mapuche communities.
The University also provided background orientation on the comparative cultural & linguistic exclusion Mapuche experience within the Chilean education system. Mapuche, the largest of the nine indigenous groups in Chile, make up 9% of Chile’s population and historically little space has been given in to Mapuche language (Mapudungun), culture, or customs in Chilean schools. (Webb and Radcliffe, 2016) Despite the existence of the Ministry of Education’s dedicated Intercultural Indigenous Education Secretariat and Government initiatives such as the Mapuche Traditional Educators scheme, educational outcomes for indigenous students remain inequitable (Webb and Radcliffe, 2016. ELAC, 2017). Additionally, recent legislative and policy changes designed to support and mandate bilingual and intercultural education are yet to be effectively implemented at the school level. Because of this, and a shared desire to build global indigenous partnerships, there was strong interest to bring Māori and Mapuche educators together.
After 10 days in Araucania, the pilot project’s impact was most evident during the delegates’ immersion in local schools and Mapuche communities. Previously unacquainted, Waikato-Tainui delegates connected with Mapuche partners on intellectual, emotional, and spiritual levels, sharing histories of struggle and recent experiences of language and cultural revitalisation. For some Māori delegates, deep taketake ki te taketake (indigenous to indigenous) connections with Mapuche reignited their commitment to indigenous education and development. Delegates also experienced the strength of Mapuche resistance, their aspirations for self-determination, and the aspects of respective struggles in New Zealand and Chile that allowed for mutual learning and connectedness.
From the Waikato-Tainui perspective, planning for ongoing partnership, ako (reciprocal learning) and kotahitanga (solidarity) between Mapuche and Waikato-Tainui is in process. At an institutional level, relationships with the University of Waikato’s project partners in Chile, the Ministry of Education, UNESCO, and local Mapuche leaders and educators are yielding further opportunities for collaboration in an emergent indigenous to indigenous research and teaching space. This experience suggests that long-term, the authentic engagement and positive associations with people, place, and future possibilities that characterize this project are key to making investments like this impactful and sustainable for Waikato-Tainui and Mapuche alike.
References:
Bishop, R. (2005) Pathologizing the lived experiences of the indigenous Maori people of Aotearoa, New Zealand. In C. Shields, R. Bishop and A. Mazawi (2005) Pathologizing Practices: the Impact of Deficit Thinking on Education. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
ECLAC. (2017). Los pueblos indígenas en América (Abya Yala): desafíos para la igualdad en la diversidad. Santiago, Chile. https://www.cepal.org/es/publicaciones/43187-pueblos-indigenas-america-abya-yala-desafios-la-igualdad-la-diversidad
Ihi Research (2018) Asia and Asian Peoples from a Te Ao Maori Perspective. Asia New Zealand Foundation. Wellington, New Zealand.
Milne, B. A. (2013). Colouring in the White Spaces: Reclaiming Cultural Identity in Whitestream Schools (Thesis, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)). University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Orange, C. (2015). The Treaty of Waitangi. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books.
Salmond, A. (2012). Ontological quarrels: Indigeneity, exclusion and citizenship in a relational world. Anthropological Theory, 12(2), 115–141.
Stuff (2019) NCEA attainment rates fall, Māori schools buck trend. Retrieved 28th of September 2019 https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/115874781/ncea-attainment-rates-fall-mori-schools-buck-trend
UNESCO. (2017). Conocimiento Indígena y Políticas Educativas en América Latina: Análisis exploratorio de cómo las cosmovisiones y conceptos culturales indígenas de conocimiento inciden, y pueden incidir, en la política educativa en la región. Santiago, Chile.
UNESCO. (2019). Conocimientos indígenas y políticas educativas en América Latina: hacia un diálogo de saberes, segundo informe. Santiago, Chile.
Webb, A. and Radcliffe, S. (2016). Unfulfilled promises of equity: racism and interculturalism in Chilean education. Retrieved 30 September 2019 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13613324.2015.1095173
