New Zealand needs – and its Māori inhabitants deserve – a Private First Class Tier One University dedicated to the study of Indigenous Cultures from around the world.
Chris Crandall, Ed.D.
The traditional beliefs and practices of indigenous cultures around the world have been subsumed within the post-modernist paradigm of globalization and progress.
However, as the unipolar world slowly fades into a new multi-polar reality, many new iterations of traditionalist-based practices are emerging within academia as schools of thought, with theories and philosophies that are unique to traditional cultures.
One often perceives academia from a Western perspective, meaning that the foundations and structures of academic thought have been designed from a Western emic or mind frame.
A prominent Eurasianist philosopher has termed this Carolingian reductionism, meaning that the manner in which the superstructure of academia has been crafted, is oriented from a central locus within the former Holy Roman Empire – Europe – and has expanded outwards to be projected upon the global commons.
Considering the current rate of ecosystem destruction and extinction crisis that the world now faces, this writer is proposing the beginning of a movement to found a new private self-standing Māori University.
The imperative nature of a private university lies within the reality that government funding often comes with strings attached, which then shapes the direction and decisions of administrators and professors, and hence research and publications.
Furthermore, corporate influence also plays heavily into academic research and the direction it takes. Thus, the necessity of raising funding to craft a large endowment that is free from monetary influence in order to prevent academic capture.
In the legal sphere, the private nature of a university also permits it far more autonomy in its decision-making process, as well as its choice of professors and administrators.
This issue transcends the left-right, liberal-conservative and nationalist-globalist dichotomies often at odds with one another in New Zealand’s dynamic political system.
Indeed, an innovative Māori Centered University would be mutually complementary and beneficial for all of the citizens of New Zealand as well as the global commons, as this new research institution could advance traditional values, cultural protections and environmental theories based in rigorous academic practice that fuses ancient traditions with cutting edge technologies. Instead of linear progression, traditional values would come full circle.
Traditional practices such as preserving and protecting primary forests and ecosystems for spiritual values, while combining next generation technologies to support studies of their importance has the potential to save countless rivers, forests and species, thereby preserving native cultures which are spiritually and physically part of the land itself.
Existing modals often prevent innovation, as they protect what has already been established, yet New Zealand has an opportunity to become an innovative leader in the field of Higher Education as opposed to a follower. It is time for New Zealand’s Indigenous Inhabitants to cast its own higher education model.
By attracting first class merit based administrative and professorial talent from both New Zealand and abroad to craft and teach new interdisciplinary studies, a Māori Centered University would be rooted in an ontology unique to New Zealand – a place of existence or sense of being – as well as a teleology – which provides a purpose or direction.
Academia is the fountain head of modern culture, where ideas are given credibility to become accepted into the mainstream perspectives of a given society. Universities are much like the rectrix or the tailfeather of a bird, that guides and steers towards a given goal.
Thus, New Zealand needs to move beyond simply advancing Māori Studies Departments and Programs, and instead craft legislation, policies and support to assist in establishing a privately funded and robustly endowed Māori Centered University.
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