A talk by Carl Mika, Associate Professor, Co-Director, Centre for Global Studies, University of Waikato, New Zealand. Recorded on Tuesday, 23 February, 2021, as part of the Cambridge Philosophy of Education Seminars.
In much of the relevant literature and in general discussion, Maori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) place emphasis on the interconnection of things in the world. This is perhaps the most important founding principle of Maori thought - to such an extent that its implications for everyday systems and functions will continue to be fleshed out for some time.
Not only is this principle of utmost importance for those wishing to preserve the integrity of Maori thought in its own right; it also has consequences in an era of colonisation, where Maori are at the blunt end of an assumption that the clarity of singular things in the world is the appropriate way of interacting with them. In universities, for instance, students are encouraged to write dissertations (as one example) with a type of certainty, arising from that clarity of a thing and of the self, that might be perplexing from the Maori standpoint of interconnection. Alongside addressing a Maori proposition of interconnection more broadly, this talk will consider how a Maori version of uncertainty - sustained through interconnection - might find its place in some facets of education.
SPEAKER BIO:
Carl Mika is an associate professor in the Division of Education at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. He is also adjunct professor at RMIT, Melbourne. He has published on Maori and other indigenous philosophy, in particular that which deals with holism. He has a PhD in German Studies from the University of Waikato, and works with certain philosophies from the tradition of German Romanticism as well as phenomenology. He is also Co-Director of the Centre for Global Studies, University of Waikato.
23 фев 2021
