traditional knowledge conference 2008 te tatau pounamu

ConclusionCurrent research and educational practices often operate within a pattern of power imbalances thatfavour cultural deficit explanations or victim blaming of indigenous students’ and their families’educational performance and achievement (Shields, Bishop & Masawi, 2005). The particular modes ofthinking and acting that have defined much research such as this are concepts such as neutrality,objectivity and distance that emerge from examining participants rather than examining therelationships and interactions between and amongst people. Education, for example, is perceived as aprocess of shaping individuals within a system rather than as Sidorkin (2002) suggests shaping contextsof relations that include the individuals. Indeed, building relationships is the work as it constitutes howwe learn best and allows students from a range of cultural backgrounds to interact and learn in moreproductive ways. In line with Sidorkin (2002) this research continues to show us that the sort ofrelationships we build with people provides the basis for how we are able to engage with them. Just asin cultural rituals of encounter teachers cannot truly know what their relationships with students are likewithout first ensuring contexts where students themselves can bring their own prior experiences to theirlearning. Positioning ourselves and thus living and learning within the culture itself, has providedholistic and flexible metaphors to guide us in this respect (Bishop et al., 2003; Berryman, 2008).For non-Māori, pōwhiri often require a shift in mind set away from the familiar ways in which weintroduce ourselves in non-Māori spaces to a respectful sense of these new cultural spaces. There havebeen very public instances of resistance, animosity, anger, frustration and panic by Māori and non-Māori alike when it has been expected that people can move out of their cultural comfort zone and actaccording to different cultural protocols. However, on participation, many have found the experience tobe both worthwhile and rewarding, finding the experience useful in focusing on the little they know orunderstand about how different a Māori worldview is from a Western worldview. For many, theexperience has provided the first steps to identifying their own cultural identity. For others these are thefirst steps on a journey of learning to work respectfully within another worldview (Māori) in ways thatare relational to and interdependent with Māori but also self-determining for Māori.Glossaryakohapūhongihuihunaongaiwikaumātuakaupapa Māorikaupapa whakaarokawakotahitangamanuhirimaraemokopunanoaPākehāpakekepōwhirirangatahirangatirataitamarikitamariki mokopunatangata whenuataonga tuku ihotātau tātautikangatūpunalearn; teachsub-tribal kin grouppress noses in greetinggathering; meetingin-lawstribeeldersMāori philosopy; Māori way of doing thingstheorymarae protocolworking in unityvisitorsMāori communal centregrandchildrenfree from ritual restrictionNew Zealander of mainly European descentadultsformal rituals of encounteryoung adultsleadersadolescentsyounger children of both gendershostsvalues, beliefs, traditions, history, customs and ritualsthe concept of sharing propertycorrect procedure; customancestors139