Kaitiakitanga: Protecting Our Planet' explores the relevance of kaitiakitanga and environmental stewardship to anthropology. It will traverse cosmological, familiar and nuanced understandings of kaitiakitanga, and also introduce students to a number of political and contested sites in Aotearoa-New Zealand, each with their own unique stories and kaitiaki who have a duty of care for natural environments. This course imagines an anthropology that is relevant now and for the future, with locations and the people of Aotearoa as well as other Indigenous communities not considered just as study sites to be extracted from but as active co-producers of knowledge. Together we will weave key anthropological concepts and Mātauranga Māori through contemporary research settings located in whenua (land) and moana (waters) that demonstrate the usefulness of transdisciplinary scholarship in addressing fundamental local and global issues.
This course introduces students to relevant and cutting-edge works and perspectives developed by local anthropologists and Indigenous scholars. In this course we will explore key Māori and anthropological concepts through contemporary settings which demonstrate the usefulness of anthropology in thinking about solutions that respond to urgent issues such as extreme weather events, climate change, loss of biodiversity, industrial exploitation, data sovereignty, food insecurity, ageing and vulnerable communities and increased infectious disease. Through a range of seminar discussions, reading materials and other resources, this course will expose students to our local growing and Indigenous anthropologies.
This course is for stage 3 students only, and students are advised that they may find course material challenging and that they may be asked to engage in significant self-reflection in order to engage properly with the academic work.