Māori-led education for sustainability – collective learning through observatories

This ummer intern project will document Māori community engagement with open days and public observatories as a means of achieving the goals of transformative education in a more culturally appropriate and publicly accessible form.

Northland has a long history of agricultural extension services and open days on farms, but those legacies were threatened by neoliberal reforms over the last three decades. Te Uri o Hau, Ngāti Wai and Ngāpuhi have reinvented those approaches for cultural and environmental health purposes and in intergenerational learning initiatives. Their intent is to promote a transition to sustainability, but also to implement responsibly strategic cultural objectives and Treaty settlements.

A secondary intent is to demonstrate indigenous forms of leadership in a publicly visible way that will invert the conventional gaze of education for sustainability – to educate Pakeha about the advantages of collective action, practices, and ownership in realizing environmentally appropriate development.