University of Auckland to host mātauranga Māori symposium in 2022

Tuesday, 14 December 2021

The university at a centre of a debate about the relationship between mātauranga Māori and science will host a symposium on the subject early next year in an attempt to restore dignity to the discussions.

It comes after a letter was published in theNew Zealand Listener in July 2021, signed by seven University of Auckland academics, claiming mātauranga Māori “falls far short of… science itself”, amid discussions on how to include it in the national secondary school curriculum.

In a statement on Tuesday, University of Auckland vice-chancellor Dawn Freshwater said the debate had since descended into “personal attacks, entrenched positions and deliberate misrepresentations of other people’s views, including my own”.

“This important and topical debate deserves better than that,” she said.

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In November, the Royal Society Te Apārangi said it was investigating whether two of the letter’s authors, biological scientist Garth Cooper and philosophy emeritus professor Robert Nola, should be expelled from the society for writing it.

It sparked yet another heated debate about whether the university, and now the Royal Society, were stifling academic freedoms by attempting to punish them for their comments on mātauranga Māori.

Freshwater said the symposium will be held in the first quarter of 2022, and she hopes it will include representation from all viewpoints on the subject.

“I recognise it is a challenging and confronting debate, but one I believe a robust democratic society like ours is well placed to have.”

She said the university has responsibilities as a “custodian of academic freedom and free speech”, and credited the seven authors with writing their letter “in good faith”, sparking the debate that ensued.

“This is exactly what should happen in a world-class, research-led university like ours,” she said.

“Academics have for centuries fearlessly led the public discussion of ideas, including ideas that are controversial and even offensive. These debates have ultimately led to a more informed society which is more democratic, resulting in societal change.

“There is no contradiction in the university’s support for the rights of our academics to disagree on matters that can be considered controversial, while at the same time acknowledging and being respectful in any debate that might follow.

“These are complex issues that require careful thought and constant vigilance.”

Freshwater said that over the past year, the university had been undergoing a programme to “review and refresh” its commitment to academic freedom and freedom of expression.

The programme’s leader, Professor Peter Hunter, said: “The university has a mechanism for debating controversial issues – our ‘Hot Topics’ forum.

“It is vital that we are able to openly critique and debate all issues in a rational and collegial manner. That is surely a key function of a university.”

The letter in the New Zealand Listener was written in response to an NCEA working group’s proposed changes to the Māori school curriculum, which would “promote parity for mātauranga Māori with other bodies of knowledge”.

It was co-signed by University of Auckland staff Kendall Clements, Garth Cooper, Michael Corballis, Douglas Elliffe, Elizabeth Rata, and emeritus professors Robert Nola and John Werry.

They said that while indigenous knowledge may play some role in the preservation of local practices and in management and policy, it “falls far short of what can be defined as science itself”.

Mātauranga Māori should not be accepted as an equivalent to science, they wrote, adding: “It may help … but it is not science.”

One of the authors, Michael Corballis, who died in November, defended the piece on The Hui in August, saying the intention was to complain about the idea that “science is colonising and evil”.

“Our main purpose was not to explain mātauranga Māori; our main purpose was to complain about the fact that kids are being taught that science is colonising and evil,” he told The Hui.

“It may have been a mistake to add stuff on mātauranga Māori. We were there primarily to defend science and that’s what our article is for.”