Why isn’t my professor Māori? A snapshot of the academic workfWhy isn’t my professor Māori? A snapshot of the academic workforce in New Zealand universitiesorce in New Zealand universities

Abstract

This article provides insights into the ethnicity of academics employed by Aotearoa New Zealand's eight universities, with a particular focus on Mäori academics. We show that, despite values espoused by universities in terms of diversity and within their equity policies regarding Mäori staff, there has been no progress in increasing the Mäori academic workforce. Mäori academics were severely under-represented at universities between 2012 and 2017, comprising approximately 5% of the total academic workforce. This raises questions about the will of universities to build a sustainable Mäori academic workforce, their level of commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the notion of partnership, and the efficacy of academic equity and diversity policies. We highlight

Pūtahitanga: the intersection of western science and mātauranga Māori in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand’s physical oceanography

“…Instead, an initiative could involve no-strings promotion of science and scientific ideas to early school-age students (O'Connor and Stevens 2015). From there it needs continued support at high-school and university levels, as well as visible role models (McAllister et al 2019;Naepi 2019).…”

“…'Fund a scholarship' is a typical response but this requires a meaningful and engaged senior Māori scientist to supervise and/or mentor. As noted by McAllister et al (2019) and Naepi (2019), Māori and Pasifika are poorly represented in the research/academic sector. A consequence is researchers with Māori interests and perspectives are highly over-subscribed in terms of projects they are asked to contribute to, and get co-opted into.…”

Understanding Indigenous Exploitation Through Performance Based Research Funding Reviews in Colonial States

“…This is far from a history which has ended. Forms of indigenous exclusion still exist (McAllister et al, 2019). Potentially crucially for performance based funding reviews, "In the same way that indigenous peoples and their epistemes remained invisible when the nation-states were being shaped, indigenous scholarship remains invisible and unreflected in most academic discourses" (Kuokkanen, 2011: 156).…”

“…The underrepresentation of indigenous researchers in Western universities and other higher education institutes has serious consequences for building research environments which foster feelings of inclusion and for advancing research programmes where collegiality is operationalised as opposed to simply being a line in a policy document. In New Zealand, indigenous M aori faculty make up only 6% of the university academic workforce despite being 14.9% of the population in general (Kidman and Chu, 2015;McAllister et al, 2019). The situation is equally disturbing in the United States where Native American peoples make up only 0.5% of the academic faculty in higher education despite comprising roughly 2% of the population (Walters et al 2019).…”

“…The situation is equally disturbing in the United States where Native American peoples make up only 0.5% of the academic faculty in higher education despite comprising roughly 2% of the population (Walters et al 2019). Likely the product of adverse academic experiences for indigenous peoples, such underrepresentation is unsurprising given the inequities faced by indigenous faculty who often have a different occupation shape and career trajectory to their peers (Middleton and McKinley, 2010), are more likely to witness or experience discrimination (Henry et al, 2017), are much less likely to be on permanent contracts, and who have much shorter careers than other researchers in the ethnic majority (Kidman and Chu, 2015), who experience hurtful public censures from non-indigenous academics (Calhoun, 2003), and who face identity related tokenism (e.g., increased scrutiny, stereotyping) and exclusion (feeling invisible, lack of belonging) (Henry et al, 2017;McAllister et al, 2019;Naepi, 2019;Settles et al, 2019). Such feelings and experiences can have devastating impacts on indigenous faculty trying to prove their worth in colonial institutions pushing neoliberal agendas of excellence.…”