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Mauri Ora: In Pursuit of Tohungatanga Wisdom and Peace in Higher Education

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Thesis(49.23 MB)

Date

2022

Authors

Supervisor

Gibbons, Andrew
Phipps, Alison
Williams, Kaa
Williams, Tawhirimatea

Item type

Thesis

Degree name

Doctor of Philosophy

Journal Title

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Volume Title

Publisher

Auckland University of Technology

Abstract

This study could be rationalised down to an autoethnographical study of decolonising the university. However, this language, lacks the spirit and honour that has been at the heart of this wānanga (deep transformative learning experience). Instead, it required the gentle tones, artistry and imagining elicited through storytelling, poetry, performing and visual arts. It is a tale that reveals the need and the power of healing. Healing that comes from the whenua (land) to heal the people. Foreign spaces, language and rituals are what one expects when you explore abroad, study abroad and work abroad. But what happens when these foreign elements implant themselves in your homelands? Growing and pollinating their ideals and values into Indigenous land, people, minds, and spirits; overgrowing indigenous formal higher learning of the whare wānanga with the seeds and fruits the university? This is my tale as an emerging indigenous female academic developer, starting in my second year in the role. It has been a seven-year journey of me discovering who the university is, through its values, emotions, ideals, language, practices, and people. It has been a harrowing journey in supporting staff’s desires to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi). With my basket filled with fruits of tikanga (Māori ways of being a good person) grown from the marae (traditional Māori communities), wānanga (esoteric wisdom from school of higher learning) gifted by tohunga (wisdom keepers) and my stubbornness that peace is achievable, sprinkled with creative and healer whakapapa (inheritance) I begin my relationship with the university as an academic developer. Engaging the university with my marae eyes and heart, the familiar āhua (appearances) of our atua (divine elemental beings) reveal themselves, guiding me in the art of healing relationships, healing trauma, and healing myself. Pain becomes my greatest teacher and whānau (family) are my salvation as we, the people of the university, become the hope we are searching for. Through whakawhanaungatanga (allyship) the staff of the university explore their own way to remembering peace.

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https://hdl.handle.net/10292/15200

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Doctoral Theses