ERIC Number: EJ1380480
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0954-0253
EISSN: EISSN-1360-0516
Available Date: N/A
A Critical Analysis of Maori Cosmologies and the Tyranny of Epistemic Western Centrism
Skerrett, Mere
Gender and Education, v35 n2 p156-170 2023
In this article, I traverse Maori positionality informing Maori worldviews, alongside geohistorical navigational trajectories of knowledge. Drawing on ancestral travel which utilized sophisticated readings of stars, currents, winds, clouds, contexts and colours of the biodiversity to navigate, the concept of wayfinding as methodology and method is used to recentre matauranga Maori (Maori knowledge). Matauranga Maori accumulates in the continuum of time, past, present and future. There are many ways to capture knowledge. This article draws on 'wayfinding' through a critical analysis of matauranga Maori and its denigration through imperialism. It is argued that unless educationalists lead a collective challenge, the masculinist, materialist, secular, individualistic, extractive western colonial project will continue to inflict harmful discourses on Indigenous peoples and lands. Decolonizing western epistemologies and ontologies challenge both this ongoing damage as well as the histories of denigration by seeking to restore and re-centre Maori ways of being, knowing, doing and relating.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Ethnic Groups, Pacific Islanders, Indigenous Populations, Decolonization, Colonialism, Indigenous Knowledge, Females, Sex Role, Marriage, Ownership, Land Settlement, Language Usage, Navigation, Cultural Influences, Astronomy, Natural Resources
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: New Zealand
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A