Where’s your ‘standing place’?

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Where’s your ‘standing place’?

Bachelor of Arts student Brandon Young travels Tamaki Drive past Bastion Point often. But he knew nothing of its historic significance as the site of a major Māori land protest in the 1970s until this year.

He is one of several hundred Massey University students to complete the Tūrangawaewae paper introduced this year ¬– the first of Massey’s new Bachelor of Arts (BA) compulsory core papers that challenge and explore ideas, myths and hidden truths around identity, belonging and citizenship. Students examine the influence of popular symbols, major events and narratives on national identity – from Gallipoli to gay rights – and how minorities find a voice in an increasingly diverse and economically divided society.

The paper, fully titled Tūrangawaewae: Identity and Belonging in Aotearoa New Zealand’, is one of five compulsory papers to refresh the Bachelor of Arts degree in a bid to combat obsolete but persistent negative attitudes about its value and relevance. Massey’s Director BA (External Connections) Professor Richard Shaw says the new papers also add a thematic structure and coherence to a degree with abundant and often baffling choices, as well as fostering a community of BA scholars.

“We’ve built this paper around the Māori notion of tūrangawaewae, or ‘standing place’. We explore diverse personal and collective identities of New Zealand’s past and present, as well as myths and assumptions about who we are as a nation.” Professor Shaw led a team at Massey, which did extensive research in a thorough review of the BA, including surveying current and former students, employers and business leaders and which resulted in the new papers.

Introducing Tūrangawaewae has been a well planned and researched exercise, says Professor Shaw, who is a politics lecturer in the School of People, Environment and Planning, says. Course content and lectures offer a depth and breadth of insights from across the humanities and social sciences disciplines, including sociology, politics, psychology, history, linguistics and more. While compulsory papers are a new concept in the BA, he is confident they will be of benefit to students and will add kudos to the degree.

A central rationale for the BA refresh at Massey is the importance of addressing the needs of graduates faced with fast-changing realities in the local and global workplace.

“The more research we do about the coming world of work,” Professor Shaw says, “the more obvious it is to us that demand is growing for the sorts of attributes associated with BA graduates, such as cultural competency, critical thinking and problem solving skills. In fact, employers are telling us that the constructively critical, probing and questioning approach we take in Tūrangawaewae encourages precisely the attributes they are looking for in new employees.”

Things we should all know?

Mr Young, a 23-year-old student at the Auckland campus studying philosophy and psychology after six years in the workforce, says despite his initial reservations, the Tūrangawaewae paper has been a revelation. He’s had his eyes opened to key events in relatively recent New Zealand history he’d never heard of, from the occupation of Bastion Point in the 1970s and the 1981 Springbok Tour to gaining a deeper understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi and settlement process. Things all New Zealand citizens should know about, he says.

“I was sceptical at first. But there’s no way I’d change anything about this paper – there was so much stuff that was completely new to me. It’s helped me see things and understand the massive changes in New Zealand society,” he says. “And it encourages you to take a look at your place in it.”

For Larissa Pakura (Ngāti Whātua) enrolling at Massey was a giant step as the first person in her family to go to university. As well as majoring in business psychology, she’s discovered a passion for philosophy. Wary of the compulsory paper at first, Tūrangawaewae was a surprise, adding a rich understanding to other papers.

“It was very eye-opening and challenging – a grassroots paper – and really relevant to everything that’s happening in New Zealand today,” she says. It was even more so for her Pakeha classmates, who told her they appreciated learning in-depth about key events in New Zealand history. “I don’t know how anyone could come out of a university and not know this stuff!” Ms Pakura says.

Kathi Collins, 57, who is half-Samoan, is studying part-time doing a psychology paper and the Tūrangawaewae paper while she trains as a volunteer in hospital chaplaincy.

She says the Tūrangawaewae paper has been fundamental to her studies, enriching other areas of learning and life. “It’s the glue that holds everything else together,” she says. “It’s about attitudes, and what forms them.”

It has challenged some of her thinking and ideas as a Christian, and she appreciated that. “It’s important not to be fixed in our attitudes,” she says. “If we are not challenged we don’t grow. We freeze. We need to be open and flexible because our society is so diverse and changing.”

Professor Shaw says the addition of what he terms an “intellectual kete” of core papers signals a reality check for the University as a response to fast-changing realities of the 21st century, from the impact of technology on jobs, to climate change, terrorism, migration, the quality of political debate and the influence of social media on everything.

“It’s also a way of championing the intrinsic worth of a degree that nurtures critical, creative thinkers vital to a healthy democracy and economy.”

ENDS

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