Colouring the pedagogy of doctoral supervision: considering supervisor, student and knowledge through the lens of indigeneity

Abstract

According to David Lusted, doctoral pedagogy is a ‘process of production and exchange’ that, at best, leads to transformations in all its players. Taking Lusted’s three abstract ‘agencies’ of pedagogy as our starting point – teacher/supervisor, student, and knowledge – we draw on data from interviews with indigenous (Māori) doctoral students and their supervisors to particularise the players by situating them within the context of Aotearoa/New Zealand. In so doing, we draw attention to the ways in which matters of history and locality colour this core pedagogy of doctoral education. We also highlight the dynamic boundaries between the academy and its outside communities, between traditional academic knowledge and traditional indigenous knowledge, and the possibilities for transformation of all involved.

Keywords:

• cultural difference
• doctoral education
• indigenous students
• pedagogy
• supervision

Acknowledgments

This article draws upon the Teaching and Learning in the Supervision of Māori Doctoral Students research project undertaken by Elizabeth McKinley and Barbara Grant (The University of Auckland, Principal Investigators), Sue Middleton (University of Waikato), Kathie Irwin (formerly Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiarangi) and Les Williams (Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga) and funded in 2007-2008 by the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (project no. 9250, http://www.tlri.org.Aotearoa/New Zealand/).

Notes

1. The term ‘post-colonial’ is used here to mark an uneasy present in which descendants of settler peoples live in consciousness of the problematic effects of colonisation on their relations with themselves and their colonised ‘others’. Such uneasiness, however, is a potentially constructive aspect of post-colonialism offering settlers ‘an opportunity for self-reflection (Bell, 2006, p. 253).

2. This description does not do justice to the complexity of the historical encounter between Māori and Pākehā (descendants of British settlers). For more on this, especially in relation to education, read Jones and Jenkins (2008).

3. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, most institutions require doctoral students to have two supervisors (called advisors in the United States) or a supervisor and a panel. ‘Advisors’ are also sometimes used – they may be formal (usually members of the institution’s staff) or informal (members of the wider community). The latter kind of advisor is usually unrecognised – and unrecompensed – by the institution.

4. All names are pseudonyms.

5. All had to self-identify as Māori to participate in our study. While we follow common practice in our use of the collective noun (Māori) to describe Aotearoa/New Zealand’s indigenous peoples, this is a colonial artefact as those peoples identify themselves by ancestral links to approximately 60 distinctive tribes. A common link, though, is te reo Māori, the shared language. Our interviewees came from a wide range of tribes, mostly being affiliated to more than one.

6. A widely distributed movie, Once Were Warriors portrayed the effects of alcoholism and domestic violence within a Māori family living on the margins in urban Aotearoa/New Zealand.