Webinar: ‘Decolonising pedagogy: How can teaching in the social sciences be more inclusive and respectful of Indigenous peoples and their knowledge?’

Decolonisation and public management in Aotearoa

In this Monash University webinar on decolonising pedagogy, I responded to Michael Mintrom and Deirdre O’Neill’s paper on policy education in Australia and Aotearoa. I offered a working definition of decolonisation as a process: in public management terms, a process of ensuring institutions are of the place they seek to stand. I set out a draft framework of whakapapa, whenua and whānau for examining public institutions. I gave six reasons it matters:

  • Te Tiriti as an agreement to kinship
  • growing demands for rangatiratanga
  • the influence of iwi
  • what COVID-19 revealed about the public service
  • the health reforms
  • a literature that assumes away the settler state

I also distinguish decolonising the state from indigenising it. The Crown can decolonise its own institutions. Indigenous approaches, and how tangata whenua organise themselves, are for tangata whenua to determine, not kāwanatanga.

Te Kawa, D. (2022). Decolonisation and public management in Aotearoa [Webinar presentation]. Decolonising pedagogy: How can teaching in the social sciences be more inclusive and respectful of Indigenous peoples and their knowledge? Monash University.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-5129-5218