Education: Engaging with post-development

As Gibson-Graham (2005) points out, the “challenge of post-development is not to give up on development … the challenge is to imagine and practice development differently” (p. 6). A less prescriptive and more open ended permissive curriculum, such as the New Zealand curriculum purports to be (Abbiss, 2011), could provide the forum for students, as future leaders of development, to explore alternatives to development, in addition and alongside mainstream development thinking. Pedagogies that promote contested debate would provide students the opportunity to consider the place and value of their own traditional livelihoods and culture in the context of future development. In such a space, students would also be free to explore the promise of mainstream development and its impact on their, and their communities, lives.

The Cook Islands education system already, in theory, provides such opportunities for its senior secondary students by its adoption of an outcomes based, at least nominally, permissive New Zealand curriculum (Abbiss, 2011). A curriculum that professedly

encourages students to "critically analyse values and actions based on them" (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 10) and “ask questions, and challenge the basis of

assumptions and perceptions" (ibid, p. 12). However, as Abbiss (2011) warns, the extent to which any educational transformation is realised in practice depends on whether students are given access to, and the chance to debate, the spectrum of different development ideologies that exist in the classroom. This is likely to be very dependent upon the strength of development beliefs of educational leaders, school principals and teachers in the

classroom and the flexibility of ideological debate they are competent to, and perhaps more importantly prepared to, deliver in the classroom.

Abbiss (2011), commenting specifically on the New Zealand curriculum that is provided to senior secondary students in the Cook Islands, argues that while the curriculum purports to encourage critical and creative thinking20_{, this thinking is often only promoted within the}

bounds of the dominant ideology21_{. Debate that might challenge neoliberalism, is often}

absent (ibid). As Abbiss (2011) points out:

Teachers, as members of different communities, can be expected to have a range of beliefs about teaching and learning … Different agendas are likely to be given effect in different schooling contexts and by different teachers. (p. 133)

Abbiss provides an example: a level eight history curriculum objective might promote postmodern viewpoints whereas a level eight economies objective may reinforce accepted neoliberal thinking. In other words, it is possible for different parts of the curriculum to “reflect different ideological positions” (p. 127). For ‘alternatives to development’ and grassroots, alternative, indigenous development, operating in a more hopeful post-

development setting to be considered, it is important that students are not only presented

20 _{Students will be encouraged to value innovation, inquiry and curiosity, by thinking critically, creatively, and}

reflectively. Through their learning experiences, students will develop their ability to critically analyse values and actions based on them.(New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 10).

21 _{Critical and innovative thinking is encouraged as ways of increasing profits and productivity within}

with narrow, western only development as modernisation viewpoints. Abbiss (2011) sums up by stating:

The actions of the professionals who work in schools will ultimately determine the extent to which changes that are made in social science teaching and learning in the 21st century are cosmetic and maintain the status quo, or are of a more transformative nature. (p. 134)

Abbiss (2011) points out the type of curriculum narrative presented to students can also impact on students’ understanding and perception of their own culture For example, when a “western progress narrative” (p. 129) is repeatedly presented, indigenous students may consider the adoption of western culture necessary; in effect believing it superior to their own. Conversely, within a “social justice narrative” (p. 129), students can build deeper understandings of the importance and value of their own knowledge, language and culture in their own lives . A critical indepth exploration of Cook Islands culture by students in the classroom would allow their own culture to be problematised and not “essentialised”22 _(p.

129). Cook Island students, although sharing common cultural values and language, would be able to express and consider the variety of sentiments on topical issues like SD. Such an approach moves past superficial learning that might treat culture as a historical and static relic. Instead, students could view culture as dynamic and having contemporary relevance.

22 _{This caution by Abbiss (2011) on the use of cultural essentialism sits alongside Burnett’s (2007) warning}

about cultural essentialism in education in sections 3.3.4 and 10.4. It also aligns to my methodological discussion on the need to avoid cultural essentialism when researching, outlined in section 4.6 and the tendency of so-called culturally responsive western pedagogies to employ cultural essentialism, discussed in section 7.8.3. These cautions are underpinned by the following four intended or often unintended

consequences of essentialism, described by Phillips (2010):

1. “The attribution of certain characteristics to everyone subsumed within a particular category”; 2. “The attribution of those characteristics to the category”;

3. The presumption of a “homogenised and unified group”; and

4. “The treatment of its supposedly shared characteristics as the defining ones that cannot be questioned or modified without undermining an individual’s claim to belong to that group”. (p. 47) Note however, these cautions about the use of essentialism should not be confused with indigenous people’s absolute right to draw on the term essentialism when describing the requirement for genealogy to define their indigenous identity. For example, my co-supervisor Huia Jahnke, Professor of Maori and Indigenous Education at Massey University, explained to me that to be New Zealand Maori it is essential you have a whakapapa (genealogy). She made it clear you cannot claim to be Maori without whakapapa. In this sense, the notion of essentialism is viewed positively by Maori.

2.5.1 Challenging normative western development discourse as part of the education process

At the education policy level, in the Global South, it may be that more open debate is required about the normative positioning of Eurocentric development ideology and values being allowed to pervade and dominate classroom learning. Tikly (2004) believes educators and curriculum developers must question the continuing role neoliberal policy and the demand for human capital to support economic growth targets has in influencing current curricula. Tikly (2004) asks, “How can curricula and the way that they are delivered in different learning contexts be used in a way to foster critical thought and social

transformation?” (p. 194). Beckmann and Cooper (2004) believe that the ability to think critically is a prerequisite for a democratic, socially just society. Rikowski (2003) argues for a “critical space” 23 _{(para 7) in education where the current deterministic, binary thinking}

about what constitutes development might be challenged.

Put into the context of indigenous students’ learning as Sachs (2013) describes it a “decolonization of the imagination” (p. 23) ,may be required so that the students are able to rethink their place in the world by placing their culture at the centre of their thinking. Escobar (2000) sees this process as a “journey of the imagination” (p. 14) whereby the world is reconstructed from the “perspective of and along with those subaltern groups that continue to enact a cultural politics of difference as they struggle to defend their places, ecologies and cultures” (p. 14). Escobar (2000) argues that the unmaking of the third world is dependent on cultural difference, which is, as he argues, “at the root of

postdevelopment” (p. 225). Education has a role in getting students to analyse and potentially challenge normative, modernistic, neoliberal, capitalistic globalising discourses as the dominant and only development ideologies imaginable.

2.5.2 Discussion

Hopeful post-development narratives reveal most people in the Global South do want the ability to take advantage of at least some of the material benefits participation in the global

23 _{Critical space consists of those social places and spaces where critique is possible. Critique focussed on how}

the core processes and phenomena of capitalist society (value, capital, labour, labour-power, value creation and capital accumulation and so on) generate contradictions and tension in ‘everyday life’ – for individuals,

economy provides. People realise pragmatically that this requires some form of income and at least a partial participation in the global capitalist economy becomes necessary.

Consequently, education’s role in building human capital at both individual24 _and

government25 _{levels, to support economic growth objectives, is likely to remain but does}

not necessarily have to subjugate the curriculum.

Concern that macro-economic development has failed to provide the expected trickle down benefits for all the peoples of the Global South has renewed interest in alternatives to development and grassroots alternative development (Rist, 2002). The ability of indigenous livelihoods and culture to provide food security and some semblance of sustainably in rural communities has been recognised. The ability of traditional livelihoods and culture to build at least some resilience against the whims and downturns in

international economic, financial and labour markets has been identified. The increasing awareness of the role culture could play in development has led many, especially those in the Pacific, to call for students to be exposed to more culturally responsive curricula, a theme picked up in chapter 3.

The inclusion of a culturally responsive critical pedagogy in such a curriculum, that allows students to explore hopeful post-development frameworks inclusive of indigenous and western development ideology, warrants further consideration. The provision of a bicultural space, where students learn about both the benefits of participation in global economies and the benefits of their own indigenous livelihoods and cultures in providing livelihood resilience and wellbeing, would seem beneficial. A critical pedagogy that enables students to adopt western ideas and technology that enhances their livelihoods and

strengthens their culture, while being able to reject western hegemony that is detrimental would appear helpful. As Escobar (1995) propounds, the “greatest political promise of minority cultures is their potential for resisting and subverting the axiomatics of capitalism and modernity in their hegemonic form” (p. 225) .

Using the Pacific as an example, a culturally responsive pedagogy that allows students to engage with, and make sense of, the interplay of the indigenous, intentional and immanent

24 _{Individuals want to upskill themselves by obtaining western qualifications to increase their chances in the}

labour market, to support themselves and their family.

development factors that together make up Maiava and King’s (2007) concept of a tripartite Pacific development model would be useful. It would support Gegeo’s (1998) plea for development that comes from within the Pacific and is not based on western development models. An alternative development26 _{that is local, small scale, bottom up,}

participatory and involves civil society.