Location
Expo Center
Session Number
3
Description
After the development of a library vision and strategy in 2017, and a restructure in 2018, we had little idea of the impact that one of the statements in our vision was going to have on our cultural journey for the next 5 years – and beyond. The statement “Te Tiriti o Waitangi underpins all we do” was a bold claim which had to be honoured. Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) is a treaty signed in 1840 between Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, and the Crown (the Queen of England and the British Government). In recent years there has been recognition that colonisation has not advantaged our indigenous people and that the principles of partnership in the treaty had not been honoured. This paper relates the story of how Te Tumu Herenga | Libraries and Learning Services began a journey to decolonise our thinking, to educate our staff and to transform our organisation.
The journey has been slow, and at times hard, as we sought firstly to engage with our Māori staff in a spirit of partnership. Then, we had to take the principles of a 180 year old treaty and extrapolate and apply those to our thinking and our work, at the same time as engaging and educating our wider staff, most of whom were not Māori (Māori make up about 17% of the NZ population). Such journeys are not for the faint hearted as they require ongoing learning, ongoing communication, and ongoing financial commitment. However, that journey has given us new perspectives on our own history and brought a richness to our organisational culture which we could never have achieved on our own; it has also validated the diversity of other cultures within our own organisation where we have many, many immigrants from all over the world. Our Te Tiriti journey is now reflected in the University’s new vision and strategy, embedding an institutional approach to partnership with Māori. We are looking forward to the next stages in our ongoing partnership with tangata whenua (Māori indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand), and seeing how that shapes our resources, our services and relationships. We are also looking forward to contributing our learnings to the University-wide journey which is only just beginning.
Included in
Learning from the past to guide the future: partnership in practice
Expo Center
After the development of a library vision and strategy in 2017, and a restructure in 2018, we had little idea of the impact that one of the statements in our vision was going to have on our cultural journey for the next 5 years – and beyond. The statement “Te Tiriti o Waitangi underpins all we do” was a bold claim which had to be honoured. Te Tiriti o Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi) is a treaty signed in 1840 between Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, and the Crown (the Queen of England and the British Government). In recent years there has been recognition that colonisation has not advantaged our indigenous people and that the principles of partnership in the treaty had not been honoured. This paper relates the story of how Te Tumu Herenga | Libraries and Learning Services began a journey to decolonise our thinking, to educate our staff and to transform our organisation.
The journey has been slow, and at times hard, as we sought firstly to engage with our Māori staff in a spirit of partnership. Then, we had to take the principles of a 180 year old treaty and extrapolate and apply those to our thinking and our work, at the same time as engaging and educating our wider staff, most of whom were not Māori (Māori make up about 17% of the NZ population). Such journeys are not for the faint hearted as they require ongoing learning, ongoing communication, and ongoing financial commitment. However, that journey has given us new perspectives on our own history and brought a richness to our organisational culture which we could never have achieved on our own; it has also validated the diversity of other cultures within our own organisation where we have many, many immigrants from all over the world. Our Te Tiriti journey is now reflected in the University’s new vision and strategy, embedding an institutional approach to partnership with Māori. We are looking forward to the next stages in our ongoing partnership with tangata whenua (Māori indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand), and seeing how that shapes our resources, our services and relationships. We are also looking forward to contributing our learnings to the University-wide journey which is only just beginning.