School of People, Environment and Planning<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How we think and speak about our environment, including the cultural viewpoint through which we see it, can fundamentally affect decisions around how we use it. Is a waterway running into a stream a \u2018drain\u2019, where storm water and effluent can be discharged, or a \u2018spring\u2019, which implies pure water in need of protection? As a profession, environmental planners have an important role in such decisions, and so how they are taught to think about the environment is of crucial importance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Traditionally, the planning profession in New Zealand has been based primarily on a P\u0101keh\u0101- dominated world view, with little emphasis on te ao M\u0101ori (the M\u0101ori world view). In an innovative move, Massey University\u2019s Resource and Environmental Planning Programme is working to change this imbalance by ensuring the next generation of planning professionals are taught with a M\u0101ori perspective in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having taught first-year environmental planning for more than a decade, Dr April Bennett found herself frustrated by the traditional way planning was taught. \u2018I was really interested in the kaupapa [agenda] of using planning to protect the environment, but I just couldn\u2019t connect with it,\u2019 she said. \u2018I realised that the way that I was teaching environmental planning was part of the problem. I was unconsciously teaching the course from a colonial planning foundation. That approach is normalised and taken for granted in the planning academy.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a planning professional, Dr Bennett had seen first-hand the effects of this approach when working in the field. As well as the issues around the way aspects of the environment were talked about, planning professionals and M\u0101ori clients had particular difficulties when working together. \u2018I work with iwi, and when we went out, often planners wouldn\u2019t know the tikanga [customary protocol] of how to meet with a M\u0101ori client appropriately,\u2019 she said. \u2018For example, they would launch straight into the items of business without beginning with karakia [prayers] or inviting participants to do mihimihi [introductions] so that people could get to know one another.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This led to the realisation that change needed to happen right from the beginning of a planner\u2019s career. \u2018In order to produce different practitioners who would be more equipped to operate knowledgeably and sensitively in the M\u0101ori world, we had to change our practice,\u2019 she said. \u2018Students needed to learn tikanga in the planning academy so that they could be better planners who were able to operate in te ao M\u0101ori when they went out into the profession. If we want to change the type of graduates and planning practitioners that we produce, and how they engage and work with M\u0101ori, then we have to change the academy, because they learn how to be planners here. It is a site of significant transformative potential, but the change has to start with the academics who teach planning.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
This led to a total redesign of Massey\u2019s first- year environmental planning course, so that it is now taught from a wellspring of M\u0101ori ideas. The course is structured using the concept of whakapapa (to place in layers) and there is heavy use of te reo M\u0101ori (the M\u0101ori language) in the content and delivery. For example, in a case study of the Manawat\u016b River called \u2018te mate o te wai\u2019 (the death of water), students must critique the planning approach to restoring the river by first understanding all the layers of human connection and environmental change that have led to the river being polluted. The intention is \u2018that students will be in a better position to understand these concepts and then to change their practice.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although innovative, there has been some resistance to this approach, as well as acceptance and support. There are students who struggle with the sometimes deliberately unsettling pedagogy in the course, and the challenges of learning te reo and tikanga M\u0101ori and how to operate appropriately in the M\u0101ori world. \u2018The planning academy comes from a foundation of colonisation and so we all unconsciously teach planning from that tradition. Even I, a M\u0101ori academic and planning practitioner, was not immune to being institutionalised in this sense. We have to be honest with ourselves and make our practices visible, so that we can then change.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Bennett is hopeful for the future of planning education, and says the changes are here to stay. \u2018It hasn\u2019t been easy to stay the course, but my colleagues are very supportive and as a programme we are embarking on our own kaupapa of change. I hope that we will make different kinds of planners and that this work will ultimately benefit M\u0101ori, the wider community and the environments to which we all connect.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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DR APRIL BENNETT T\u016bwharetoa, Waikato, T\u016bhoe, Ng\u0101ti Raukawa ki te Tonga School of People, Environment and Planning How we think and speak about our environment, including the cultural viewpoint through which we see it, can fundamentally affect decisions around how we use it. Is a waterway running into a stream a \u2018drain\u2019, where storm water … Continue reading Transforming planning education through te ao M\u0101ori<\/span>