Pasifika 'Whole of Life' Education: Decolonial Communities-based Approach (Upolu Luma Vaai) 20/7/22

Описание: Upolu Luma Vaai is Principal and Professor of Theology & Ethics at the Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji, the first degree offering regional educational institution in the Pacific.

In his seminar, Professor Vaai explores the importance of the Pasifika communities-based indigenous philosophy of relationality and how it has shaped transboundary thinking and praxis for centuries, and how it would assist in creating a 'whole of life' education approach. Living in the Moana without boundaries, houses without walls, knowledge without centres, we are never people of closed systems, therefore transdisciplinarity is not a new concept.

Unfortunately mainstream education has firmly embedded a compartmentalized learning system that treats and confines knowledge strictly to departments, systems, and categories. While this is helpful in terms of specific employment targets and market driven interests, it has fostered an unhelpful dichotomy that formalizes and gives power to a certain centre of knowledge at the expense of communities, spiritualities, values, and indigenous cultures labelled under "informal knowledge." If we need alternative holistic approaches to education that seriously consider transdisciplinarity and transboundary flow, then we need a 'whole of life' philosophy to underpin a decolonial learning approach.

The seminar was moderated by Dr Allanah Ryan from Massey University in New Zealand. Dr Ryan is also a member of the NITRO-Oceania Executive.

The seminar was held online on July 20, 2022 and was organised by NITRO-Oceania: the Network of Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Research Organisations in Oceania. For more information see: https://nitro-oceania.net/