Overcoming ‘Being’ in Favour of Knowledge: The fixing effect of ‘mātauranga’

Abstract

It is common to hear Māori discuss primordial states of Being, yet in colonisation those very central beliefs are forced into weaker utterances. In this process those utterances merely conform to a colonised agenda. ‘Mātauranga’, a tidy term that overwhelmingly refers to an epistemological knowing of the world, colludes nicely with its English equivalent, ‘knowledge’, to further colonise those core contemplations of Being. Its plausibility relies on an orderly regard of things in the world. In education, historical and current practices of schooling pave the way for things in the world so that they amount to mātauranga for Māori, and even the term ‘ako’ will conspire in its own way. Both Novalis and Heidegger have the ability to identify subtly colonising philosophies, and may even propose some theoretical solutions for Māori.

Struggling with the reccuring reduction of being to knowing: placing thin hope in aesthetic interventions

“…To those of us that have been socialized in the modern/Cartesian mode of being reduced to knowing (Andreotti, 2016;Mika, 2012;Mika et al, forthcoming) it may be very difficult (perhaps impossible) to imagine how a different way of being may be invoked, without (unconsciously) attempting to think/plan/project/imagine our way towards it. Namely, there is an (insurmountable) ontological difference between merely, hypothetically, imagining 'How would it be if I were burning?'…”

“Thereness”: Implications of Heidegger's “presence” for Māori

“…Counter-colonial thought or poetics, like Heidegger's Destruktion, holds both a critical question and a possible response, but it takes into account a Mäori metaphysics for doing so. A Mäori recounting of metaphysics values the void as highly as clarity (Mika, 2012), and the void, as much as clarity, imbues things in the world. Marsden (2003) observes that korekore (Being or voidness) is so thoroughly negative that it becomes partially positive.…”

Indigenous Onto-Epistemologies and Pedagogies of Care and Affect in Aotearoa

“…For Māori, the Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa, their whakapapa (geneology) [3] positions both people and morethan-humans, such as birds, trees, mountains and rivers, as fellow descendants of Papatūānuku, the Earth Mother, and Ranginui, the Sky Father, and as cohabitants within shared naturecultures (Penetito, 2009). Carl Te Hira Mika (2012) explains that Māori do not see themselves as separate from the environment:…”

“…These conceptualisations of well-being include acknowledgement of sentient, emotional connectedness through recognition of whakapapa, genealogical/layered interdependence with the more-than-human and with the wairua (spiritual interconnectedness) that connects and transcends the living and no longer living (Mika, 2012).…”

“…[3] It should be noted that all translations into English need to be treated as objectifying, representational interpretations, which have colonised Māori ways of knowing, being and doing (Mika, 2012).…”