Māori Equity in New Zealand’s Polytechnics by Khalid Bakhshov A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Auckland University of Technology 2020 Acknowledgements Without the support of colleagues, friends and family it is doubtful that I would have ever reached the end of this doctoral thesis. But, firstly, I must start my thanks with my main supervisor, Dr Georgina Stewart. She patiently guided me through this journey, encouraging me to fully explore my philosophical instincts. In supervision, session after session, she helped me develop a voice in the writing process that was my own. Her constant engagement with philosophy and tireless pursuit of expression led me through challenging self-scrutiny that a thesis inevitably demands. The patient structured support was invaluable to me. I hope she enjoyed the challenge as much as I did. I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Nesta Devine for her wealth of experience and encouragement from a distance in supporting the supervision process. I would also like to acknowledge the initial support given to me through the University of Auckland, where I started my thesis. Thanks to all my friends in Whangarei, who all supported and encouraged me, as friends do, in pursuing the topic. They gave me, in their very different ways, their insider accounts that spurred me to undertake this study. Thank you, Hamish, Danny and George. At a personal level I will always be grateful for the support of my partner Johan Carvill and her family. Johan has provided me with personal support all the way through the process, putting up with ups and downs and in my final year financially supporting us. It is incredible to think that we got through this despite a death in her family, the birth of our daughter, Freya and moving from Whangarei to Auckland! If that was not enough, my mother also fell seriously ill back in London. I was lucky enough to see her before the brain tumour put her in a specialist home in the middle of global pandemic. Finally, the arrival of my daughter, Elektra, from Greece who moved in with me and forged a new life in Aotearoa-New Zealand made life rich if somewhat distracted. I would also like to thank all my siblings but especially thank my sister, Shaheena, and brother, Nadim, who both also studied philosophy. To my brother Nadim, with whom I spent my youth and early adult life arguing endlessly about philosophy and science, and to my sister for our ii shared experiences of injustice, and a philosophical commitment to confront injustice, while maintaining what it means to have a sense of humour. But most of all I would like to thank my dad, who has long since passed away, but who introduced me to Aristotle, Marx and politics before I was 10. Without his love for world politics I would not have taken this journey at all. I always miss him. I wish to dedicate this thesis to Johan, my partner, and Alex, my son, who continues the quest for knowledge for knowledge’s sake. I leave you with some words that I grew up with: “These stories I have recounted to you will remind you of what is within you”- Ibn Arabi. iii Attestation of Authorship I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person (except where explicitly defined in the Acknowledgements), nor material which to a substantial extent has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institution of higher learning. Signed: Date: 9th October 2020 _____________________ Khalid Bakhshov iv Abstract This thesis takes a poststructuralist approach to examining outcomes for Māori students in polytechnic education in contemporary Aotearoa-New Zealand, as a site of equity in tertiary education policy. I use the term ‘postmodernism’ to capture the decline of modernism, which was associated with belief in the superiority of science and Western European culture, and which came increasingly under critique by poststructuralists in the post-WWII period. The failure of the radical political Left and an incredulity towards the ‘grand narratives’ of capitalism is described as the ‘postmodern condition’. Poststructuralism has slightly different philosophical roots, representing a move beyond the structuralist paradigm, which ruled in social science during the modernist era. Poststructuralism is characterised most distinctively by the philosophy of Michel Foucault. The third related term used in the thesis is (post) qualitative, which refers to an emergent movement beyond ‘traditional’ qualitative research methodologies that retain allegiance to modernist frameworks. An effort has been made to reflect poststructuralist sensibilities in study design by collecting empirical data using ‘standard’ interview methods, which were then processed by writing fictionalised narratives. Teaching and other polytechnic staff have responsibility for giving effect to Māori equity policy, so this study investigates how staff, including Māori staff, in polytechnics experience and enact Māori equity policies. The importance of equity is a central feature of a second-tier tertiary offering and defines, to a large extent, its raison d’être. Moreover, how Māori navigate the education system provides a special challenge to Aotearoa-New Zealand’s settler colonialism through a potential crisis in legitimation. Technology and technical education share a root in the ancient Greek notion of technê. A better understanding of the etymology and genealogy of technê reveals important philosophical contributions to our common assumptions about technical education and undergirds an historical account of technical education and the development of the New Zealand polytechnic sector. The economic philosophy of neoliberalism is a radical version of classical liberalism that was used to reconfigure the New Zealand economy and public sector, v including education systems, in a rapid process initiated between 1984 and 1990. Consequently, the polytechnics were reconstructed as autonomous institutes, responsible for their own strategic direction and meeting government priorities whilst maintaining financial sustainability. Post neoliberal reform, polytechnics were expected to address inclusion by widening participation in higher education and developing meaningful policies for Māori. There was a policy consensus that achieving Māori equity would need to involve changing the educational milieu from a largely European model to one more responsive to, and inclusive of, Māori culture and values. The neoliberal experiment disrupted the New Zealand consciousness of being a fair-go society. It posited the free market as a more efficient and effective mechanism for equity. It reconstituted the polytechnic sector, professionals, and students with a new entrepreneurial economic rationale. It remade not only what people do, but who people are, in the polytechnic sector. Learning is constructed not as a right but as a duty. The subjectivities of the learner and the professional have become new sites of exploitation and, therefore, sites of resistance. Equality remains useful to think with but wedded to a comprised political project. To move beyond neoliberalism’s impasse with equity requires a different way of thinking as a philosophical enterprise. vi Table of Abbreviations vii Table of Contents Māori Equity in ............................................................................................................................ i New Zealand’s Polytechnics ........................................................................................................ i Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... ii Attestation of Authorship ......................................................................................................... iv Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... v Table of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................. vii Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... viii Prelude ..................................................................................................................................... xii Story 1: Inside the Polytechnic Crisis - Seeking Counsel ...................................................... xii Chapter One: Finding a Place to Stand ...................................................................................... 1 Context and background of the research topic ..................................................................... 3 Equity and equality in education policy ............................................................................. 3 Modernity, the Enlightenment, colonialism, and capitalism ............................................ 5 A brief history of Māori colonisation and education ....................................................... 13 The effects of the last 30 years of neoliberal education policy ....................................... 15 Research question ................................................................................................................ 16 What brings me to this question? ......................................................................................