Decolonizing the Business School: Reconstructing the Entrepreneurship Classroom through Indigenizing Pedagogy and Learning

Abstract

Decolonization is an ongoing process of addressing power imbalances and knowledge hierarchies that require critical self-reflection from those teaching in business schools today (Joy & Poonamallee, 2013; Smith, 2012). As educators, if we are to take decolonizing seriously, we must create space for Indigenous Peoples to reconnect and engage with their own knowledge systems and ways of knowing. We present a teaching and learning case in entrepreneurship that explores an indigenizing process that makes visible Indigenous knowledge frameworks, practices and language in a business school classroom. Drawing on the suggestions from extant literature that research examining business school education should include micro-level studies, we examine the use of a virtual learning platform by Indigenous students engaged in entrepreneurship education. Three specific questions are addressed: (a) What might indigenizing look like? (b) How is learning created that supports active indigenizing practices? and (c) What is the role of the business school educator in the indigenizing journey? In answering these questions, we explore how Indigenous knowledge and wisdom can thrive alongside Western knowledge in a decolonized business school, and, in so doing, be part of the wider movement of decolonization of academia and society. Kia rangona te mātauraga Māori i roto i te whare ākoranga pakihi. Me tuwheratia e nga kaiako he wāhanga kia rongohia nga ākonga. Me wetewetehia ngā herenga o te ao Pākeha. Ma tēnei, ka puāwai ngā whakaaro Māori.*