ESW Lunchtime Seminar
Centre for Higher Education and Equity
Research (CHEER)
Monday 22nd November, 12.00-1.30pm
Room 204, Fulton
Professor Sue Middleton, University of Waikato, NZ
presents:
‘The gown and the korowai: Maori doctoral students and
the spatial organisation of academic knowledge’
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This seminar draws on 38 student interviews carried out as part of
research project ‘Teaching and Learning in the Supervision of Maori
Doctoral Students’ in which a conceptual framework was developed
to position Maori in the intersections between the Maori (tribal)
world of identifications and obligations, the organisational and
epistemological configurations of academia and the bureaucratic
requirements of funding or employing bureaucracies.
The aim of the project was to explore how students accommodate
cultural, academic and bureaucratic demands using analytical tools
combining three intellectual traditions: Maori educational theory,
Bernstein's sociology of the academy and Lefebre's conceptual
trilogy of perceived, conceived and lived space. When important
aspects of students’ research topics, methods and responsibilities
extend beyond the reach of ‘Western’ disciplines, there are
dilemmas for thesis supervision.