Tuhituhi Tonu: Arts-Based Educators Working Across Settler–Indigenous Difference

This research is located at the intersections of decolonisation/indigenisation and arts education. The key question is: What new pedagogical ideas emerge when using critical aesthetic inquiry to support ngā toi Māori (Māori arts) and mainstream (English-medium) arts-based educators in relational engagement across settler–Indigenous difference? The work of two groups of specialist arts educators provided the site for the research: Māori educational leaders of ngā toi in the Far North district of Aotearoa New Zealand, and a group of non-Indigenous and Indigenous arts educators in the four areas of arts education in the New Zealand Curriculum: visual arts, dance, drama, and music. Research methodologies included semi-structured interviewing as the starting point for extracted poetic narratives, and a/r/tography. Data collection occurred during a series of noho marae wānanga (live-in community-based learning forum) and follow up conversations. As a non-Māori researcher, I was challenged to respond to the orooro (vibrations), mauri (vitality), auahatanga (creativity) and mana (dignity and authority) of marae learning contexts. Participant voices are presented as aesthetic texts, shaped through creative researcher–participant collaborations. Sound data, artworks, dance work, and photography are presented along with various ngā toi Māori artforms, including tukutuku (lattice work), kōrero paki (storytelling), taonga pūoro (music), waiata (song), and whitiwhiti kōrero (woven conversations), to make visible processes of sensation and perception as they occurred during relational research encounters. I show how research, teaching, and learning grounded in principles of aesthetic inquiry, as a way to manifest an ethic of care along with an expanded understanding of arts literacy, are essential elements for enabling expansive and generative thinking for the serious work of decolonising and indigenising education.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Grantor dc:publisher

ResearchSpace@Auckland

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Gain, Priya Natasha

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Jones, Alison
• Hoskins, Te Kawehau

• arts-education
• settler-indigenous
• aesthetic-education

Statement dc:rights

• Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2292/76115

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/76115