Confronted by Indigenous Metaphysics in the Academy: Educating against the Tide

Abstract

Discussions about indigenous philosophy are always difficult because of identities, chief among these being: what is the primary assumption that coalesces the varied philosophies of indigenous groups that then entitles me to talk about a single “indigenous” philosophy? Although I don’t make this the focus of my paper, I take as a uniting thought the holism which defines metaphysics for several indigenous groups (see e.g. Deloria, 2001; Mika, 2017; Smith, 2012). For this article, I centre on the implications of indigenous holism for both indigenous and non-indigenous students and the indigenous teacher of metaphysics in the academy. This paper often takes a turn for the anecdotal as I consider my experiences in the New Zealand context as a Maori lecturer in philosophy of education who teaches Maori metaphysics to Maori and non-indigenous students. There are difficulties that exist for me as an educator in this area and also for the students, although I have observed that non-indigenous and Maori students encounter Maori metaphysics in quite unique ways. A common feature in both cases, though, is that there is a lack of appropriate language to draw on to describe Maori metaphysics. I conclude this article by suggesting ways that philosophising can take place in correspondence with a Maori metaphysics of things as world-constituted.