Prof. Jacinta Ruru talks with fellow Māori academics about being Māori in a university. A highlight of 2021's Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival.

Otago law professor Jacinta Ruru talks with fellow academics Renee Smith and Rawiri Tapiata about being Māori in a university.

A highlight of 2021's Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival.

Hear Prof. Jacinta Ruru, Renee Smith and Rawiri Tapiata in discussion with Marcus Akuhata-Brown

Two books on Māori leadership have been published recently: Ngā Kete Mātauranga - Māori scholars at the Research Interface and Te Kai a te Rangatira.

The first details the success stories of 24 Māori academics, exploring how they have worked to bring their mātauranga Māori (or Māori knowledge) into their respective fields of scholarship and teaching. It seeks to demonstrate how mātauranga Māori can enrich Western-dominated disciplines of knowledge in the research sector.

The second book, Te Kai a te Rangatira, widens the focus from the university to the community, containing 100 interviews with Māori people who have a track record of service, leadership and contribution.

Prof. Jacinta Ruru discusses the rationale for the book she co-edited: Ngā Kete Mātauranga - Māori scholars at the Research Interface.

Jacinta Ruru:

I think we had two audiences here. One was our Māori whanau. We really wanted to speak to tell a real story of celebration. Māori are succeeding in the university sector. Māori can dream to do whatever they wish to do in any discipline and can succeed there. So there was a real story of pride in who we are as Māori.

The other audience is our leaders across Aotearoa New Zealand and particularly those tertiary educational institution leaders. To call for that decolonisation, the importance of being the collective, rather than the individual. We need our tertiary institutions, Aotearoa New Zealand leaders to really understand that.

Those Māori who are not in Māori studies, but out there in the disciplines - in the Wild West really (I'm talking about my own experience of 20 years alone in the law faculty - we're not enabled to work together in a collective way. We all talk about being lonely, isolated. We talk about our study. When you were studying, did you have any Māori teaching you? If you did it was probably one or two that came across you.

Jacinta Ruru:

And that's still happening today. We're having students coming into the tertiary sector that are not being taught by Māori. They could go through their whole degree and not read any Māori-authored work. So Māori work is not being prioritised in the curriculum. They're not hearing Māori ideas…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details