Kaitiakitanga Consciousness of Place

Abstract

This research examines the question, how Tōtaranui Māori practices of kaitiakitanga contribute to education. Two key variables are explored. The first considers the way in which local Māori think about their connection to place and the second, about the way they care for that place. In Māori terms connection to place refers to tūrangawaewae while care and guardianship is about kaitiakitanga. How these two variables are instilled, through formal education institutions and/or through cultural (Māori) institutions and protocols within a specific tribal area are the new knowledge components of this research.

This thesis aims to examine local Māori ‘consciousness of place’, by examining their ability to continue traditional kaitiakitanga despite the influence by Europeans and the Crown’s efforts to assimilate Māori traditional learning. The effects of the dissenting views between local government and Māori on kaitiakitanga will be explored. This relationship could lend support to the premise that local Māori practices need to be better understood and with the relevant knowledge decision-makers are more likely to make better decisions. The intention is to confirm the need for consciousness of place pedagogy.

Education is about acquiring knowledge and preparing oneself or others to become part of a community. According to Dewey (1944), education in its broadest sense is the means through which the aims, culture and values of a group of people live on from one generation to the next. Tōtaranui Māori practices and processes deliberately transmit accumulated knowledge, skills, customs and values from one generation to the next. It is about revitalising Māori traditional education and validating mātauranga ā iwi within the education system (Marsden, 2003; Mead, 2003a).

My argument is that educational institutions, not just schools but marae, wānanga, local and central government should be able to reconstitute historical knowledge and appropriately the knowledge of the local hapū and whānau of the region they work in (Ministry of Education, 2011). Significant to this research is, Kaupapa Māori, which provides a traditional and contemporary insight into Māori views and transformative praxis. The research is within a Kaupapa Māori narrative paradigm, while also modelling Tōtaranui local Māori practices of kaitiakitanga and consciousness of place as new education knowledge component (Royal, 2006).