Indigenous researchers and epistemic violence

This chapter draws from the work that the author has been doing over the past 25 years in the field of Mori and Indigenous education within the frame of kaupapa Mori theory. It demonstrates how theorizing and practice that have grown from within Mori epistemologies have applied in a number of settings as counter-narratives to the dominant discourses in New Zealand. The chapter looks at the examples of how the author was involved in an indigenous people's initiative to free ourselves from neo-colonial oppression by creating counter-narratives. It highlights how such an approach has redirected the actions of members of the oppressor' groups to discursively reposition themselves through an ongoing process of conscientization in relation to the representations of Mori as a minoritized group. In contrast, the model identified in the chapter suggests that educational reforms need to have built into them, from the outset, those dimensions that will see them sustained in the original sites and spread to others.