MAORI571-23B (NET)

Decolonising Theory and Indigenous Studies

30 Points

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The University of Waikato
Academic Divisions
Te Pua Wananga ki te Ao Office
Te Pua Wananga ki te Ao

Staff

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Convenor(s)

Hayley Cavino

Hayley Cavino
See Moodle
h.cavino@waikato.ac.nz

Lecturer(s)

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: ngawaiata.henderson@waikato.ac.nz

You can contact staff by:

  • Calling +64 7 838 4466 select option 1, then enter the extension.
  • Extensions starting with 4, 5, 9 or 3 can also be direct dialled:
    • For extensions starting with 4: dial +64 7 838 extension.
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What this paper is about

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Tēnā koe. I am really delighted that you have enrolled in this course. The course will strengthen your theoretical grasp of Critical, Decolonial, Māori and Indigenous Studies and prepare those of you going on to a thesis with key theoretical ideas that can underpin your work. These ideas will inform a wide range of research topics that you might be pursuing later in your Masters or Doctoral studies. There is considerable opportunity in this course to build up a knowledge base that is aligned to your own area of interest. While the topics may look daunting, theory, as I will show you, is about making sense, about connecting ideas and about using those ideas to help interpret, delve deeper, and even anticipate different possibilities. Graduate and post graduate work sets the foundations for you to understand how theories of knowledge are used to create new knowledge and to dismiss knowledge. There are theories at play in everyday political, social and cultural discourses. We also apply theories in everyday life. Theories help us go about our daily lives and help understand perhaps why we see and assess things in life in particular ways. This course will give you some confidence with the idea of theory and help you discover some wonderful decolonial and Indigenous theorists.

Decolonising Theory and Indigenous Studies will address some of the significant theoretical ideas that have informed and shaped the field of Decolonising Methodologies, Decoloniality and Critical Indigenous Studies. The emphasis in this course is on understanding "theory" and developing skills and confidence to engage actively with theoretical ideas and debates in the field of Indigenous Studies and then apply these ideas to your own research. Indigenous Studies is an international and transdisciplinary field that exists because Indigenous Peoples exist and that generates knowledge from Indigenous knowledge and from the interrogation and decolonising of other forms of knowledge. Indigenous Studies is committed to the political and intellectual self­determination of Indigenous Peoples. The course will assist you to think and write theoretically, drawing on theories and using them to analyse and structure your argument, interpret research and real world events.

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How this paper will be taught

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This class is a reading heavy paper ­- completing the readings each week is important. The paper is taught exclusively on line but with regular zoom drop­ins where we meet as a group to discuss. It will be extremely helpful for you to also participate in some mini coffee/tea groups among yourselves even if you do it virtually (consider using WhatsApp or some other application that enables you to be in regular contact). Conversations are a very important way for you to grapple with ideas and readings and help you test your own ideas out loud. These conversations need to be safe to express views and perspectives and work best when everyone participates and supports each other to learn. It is important to come with an open mind as the position you think you have may change as you learn and converse with others. Our ideas are strengthened by being exposed to other ideas. The on line material provides you with a Starter Kit of core and supplemental readings and videos but as you develop your own topic areas, thinking and writing you will need to both apply our readings and begin to branch out and develop your own individualized reading.

Your attendance at kanohi ki te kanohi Zoom Sessions is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED and IMPORTANT and will count towards your final grade (see the assignment 'Reading Log' for more). Please note that I will not repeat content covered in these weekly sessions for individual tauira. I will endeavour to record all sessions ­- you MUST either attend or view the session recording before asking for any additional Zoom (these are scheduled at my discretion) ­- doing so will enable you to successfully complete assignments.

Please note that I am located in Tauranga this year but am engaged in other mahi during normal office hours. ­ Zoom sessions are therefore likely to be scheduled in the evening or weekend NZT.

OPTIONAL Small Group Conversations: These are informal, self-directed groups. You can meet on line or in person.

This paper is taught online with a weekly zoom session and opportunities for coffee groups to meet on campus or virtually. On the Moodle each topic represents one weeks work. You can move around the resources which includes video recordings for you to watch and articles but think about each topic as one that invites you to develop knowledge and understanding about that specific TOPIC not just about the resources available within the topic. Also remember some of the references will provide a coherence across all the topics.

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Required Readings

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The course will introduce you to a wide range of readings. Most of the readings are listed as REQUIRED (generally, three a week) - we will read these pieces as a group. All other readings are recommended or supplemental. There is no compulsory text although the sources listed in the recommended readings are a great way to cover the range of ideas that Indigenous Studies encompasses.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

A sampling of the Starter List of Required Readings can be found below. All readings will be available on moodle.

REQUIRED Articles (sample, see the moodle for readings specific to each week):

Brayboy, Bryan McKinley Jones. 2006. Toward a Tribal Critical Race Theory in Education. The Urban Review, 37:5. 425­446.

Coulthard, G. S. (2007). Subjects of empire: Indigenous peoples and the ‘politics of recognition’in Canada. Contemporary political theory, 6(4), 437­460.

Hokowhitu, Brendan. 2004. Tackling Māori Masculinity: A Colonial Genealogy of Savagery and Sport. The Contemporary Pacific. 16:2. 259­284.

Hokowhitu, Brendan. 2009. Indigenous Existentialism and the Body. Cultural Studies Review. 15:2. 101­118.

Lorde, A. 2003. The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. Feminist postcolonial theory: A reader, 25, p.27.

McIntosh, T. (2006). Theorising marginality and the processes of marginalisation. AlterNative: An international journal of indigenous peoples, 2(1), 44­65.

Memmi, A. (2013). The colonizer and the colonized. Routledge.

Memmi, A. (2006). Decolonization and the Decolonized. U of Minnesota Press.

Mika, Carl. 2012. Overcoming 'Being' in Favour of Knowledge: The Fixing Effect of 'mātauranga. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 44:10. 1080­1092.

Mika, Carl. 2015. Counter­colonial and Philosophical claims: An Indigenous observation of Western Philosophy. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 47:11. 1136­1142.

Million, Dian. 2009. Felt Theory: An Indigenous feminist approach to affect and history.Wicazo Sa Review 24:2. 53­76.

Teresia Teaiwa, 2014. The ancestors we get to choose: White Influences I won't Deny. Theorizing Native Studies, edited by Audra Simpson and Andrea Smith, Duke University Press, 2014: 43­55.

Silva, N. K. (2000). Kanawai E Ho'Opau I Na Hula Kuolo Hawai'i: The Political Economy of Banning the Hula. The Hawaiian Journal of History. 34. 29­48.

Smith, LT, Maxwell, TK, Puke, H., Temara P. 2016. Indigenous knowledge, methodology and mayhem. What is the role of methodology in producing Indigenous Inights? A discussion fro Mātauranga Māori. Knowledge Cultures. 4:3. 131­156.

Te Punga Somerville, Alice. 2007. The Lingering War Captain: Māori Texts, Indigenous Contexts. Journal of New Zealand Literature. 24:2. 20­43.

Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2021). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Tabula Rasa, (38), 61­111.

Watene, Krushil. 2016. Valuing Nature: Māori Philosophy and the Capability Approach. Oxford Development Studies. 44:3. 287­296. In addition we will read exerts from: Fanon, Said, Cesaire, Cabral, Quijano, Thiongo'o, Grande, Barker and others!

SUPPLEMENTAL/RECOMMENDED Reading
Articles:

Foucault, M. 1982. The subject and power.Critical Inquiry. 8:4. 777­795.

Henry, Ella, Pene, Hone. 2001. Kaupapa Māori: Locating Indigenous Ontology, Epistemology and Methodology in the Academy. Kauanui, J. Kehaulani. 2008. Native Hawaiian decolonization and the politics of gender. American Quarterly. 60:2. 281­287. Organization. 8:2. 234­242.

Moreton­Robinson, Aileen. 2006. Towards a new research agenda? Foucault, Whiteness and Indigenous Sovereignty. Journal of Sociology 42:4. 383­395.

Tallbear, Kim. 2013. The Genographic Project: The Business of Research & Representation. Native American DNA. University of Minnesota Press. 143­176.

Journals:

AlterNative International Journal of Indigenous Peoples

Cultural Studies Review Vol. 15:2. 2009. Special Issue: Critical Indidgenous Theory.

Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society

International Journal of Critical Indigenous Studies

Journal of Critical Ethnic Studies

NAIS Journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association

Books:

Anderson, Kim. 2016. A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood. Women's Press.Toronto.

Barker: J. 2011. Native Acts: Law, Recognition, and cultural authenticity. Duke University Press.

Barker, Joanne. 2017. Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. Duke University Press. Durham.

Driskill, QL, Finley, Chris, Gilley, Brian Joseph, Morgensen, Scott Lauria. (Editors) 2011. Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics and Literature. University of Arizona Press.Tuscon.

Freire, Paulo. 1996 revised. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum. New York.

Foucault, M. 2013. Archaeology of Knowledge. Routledge. New York.

Grande, Sandy. 2004. Red Pedagogy Native American Social and Political Thought. Rowan and Litllefield, Lanham.

Maracle, Lee. 1988. I am Woman A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism. Press Gang Pubishers, Vancouver.

Mignolo, Walter and Walsh, Catherine E. 2018. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Duke University Press. Durham.

Moreton Robinson, Aileen, (Editor) 2016. Critical Indigenous Studies: Engegaments in First World Locations. University of Arizona Press.Tuscon.

Simpson, Audra., Smith, Andrea. 2014. Theorizing Native Studies. Duke University Press. Durham North Carolina.

Womack, Craig S., Justice, Daniel Heath, Teuton, Christopher, B. 2008. Reasoning Together: The Native Critics Collective. University of Oklahoma Press. Norman.

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Learning Outcomes

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Students who successfully complete the course should be able to:

  • Draw on the theoretical ideas that inform Decolonising and Critical Indigenous Methodologies to analyse an event
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  • Identify how the intellectual genealogy of ideas influences the ways we understand the world
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  • Identify the theoretical ideas that you will apply in your own research
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  • Understand theoretical terms commonly used in Decolonising and Critical Indigenous Studies
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Assessments

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How you will be assessed

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I enjoy designing assessments that are practical and that I think will be helpful in your learning. I also enjoy marking assessments that are dynamic, creative, and most of all, legible (I place a high value on quality of ideas and an ability to translate tricky concepts into everyday language - let me see you on the page! Write/speak in our own voice). Assessments are an opportunity to solidify your understandings. They also help me understand where you need more support and how well you are coping with the course content. I can adjust our material and address areas of concern as a result of what I see in the assessment tasks. It is very important you submit assessments on time. I would prefer to have an assessment on time that is slightly underdone to having an unexpected late submission. It is therefore, also important, to anticipate and seek an extension earlier and not the day of, or the day before, it is actually due. Please note that when I say something is a HARD deadline, it means that I will not mark work received after that date/time.
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The internal assessment/exam ratio (as stated in the University Calendar) is 100:0. There is no final exam. The final exam makes up 0% of the overall mark.

The internal assessment/exam ratio (as stated in the University Calendar) is 100:0 or 0:0, whichever is more favourable for the student. The final exam makes up either 0% or 0% of the overall mark.

Component DescriptionDue Date TimePercentage of overall markSubmission MethodCompulsory
1. A Whakapapa of Ideas - a personal intellectual genealogy
14 Aug 2023
No set time
30
  • Email: Convenor
2. A Decolonial reading of an event, idea or thing
22 Sep 2023
No set time
35
  • Email: Convenor
3. Reading Log
20 Oct 2023
8:00 PM
35
  • Email: Convenor
Assessment Total:     100    
Failing to complete a compulsory assessment component of a paper will result in an IC grade
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