Race, Empire and Education Collective

Te Kawehau Hoskins specifies what it would take to indigenise our universities, as a distinct and potentially different project from that of decolonising.  In doing so she highlights the power of advancing indigenous knowledges, thinking and practices as the foci of attention, rather than as an action which can only follow from decolonial critique and deconstruction.  

Indigenising the university, and arguably other aspects of our society, is more than just inclusion of indigenous epistemologies and ontologies into the “mainstream”, but rather an unseating of such norms and belief systems.  This Te Kawehau argues, is the responsibility of all, rather than just indigenous peoples to lead and support.  

This talk was edited from a wider kōrero (discussion) within the Te Tiriti Futures and Anti-Racism Seminar Series in 2022.   While the context of her argument—within the unique settler colonial history of Aotearoa New Zealand is the focus of Te Kewehau’s core argument—how might we think differently and distinctly about the project of indigeneity in other settler colonial contexts, and our own educational institutions?