On the 13th of March, 2007 a failure of the tephra dam at Te-wai-a-moe, the Crater Lake of Mt Ruapehu in the North Island of Aotearoa/New Zealand, caused a lahar to travel down the Whangaehu River channel. The lahar event had been predicted after an eruptive event at Mt Ruapehu eleven years before. As a result of the early prediction, the lahar event and potential risk was well studied, and twenty four management options were proposed to mitigate risk. After a period of consultation with stakeholders, including local iwi, the Minister for Conservation ratified a non-intervention option which emphasised monitoring and prohibited engineering intervention on the mountain. The media event associated with 2007 lahar event drew considerable attention to the 1953 Tangiwai tragedy which occurred following a similar lahar event at Mt Ruapehu. The 2007 lahar media event constructed Tangiwai as a site of risk that belonged to science, technology and Pakeha tragedy, dominating understandings of Tangiwai as an important spiritual place for local iwi and their relationship with Mt Ruapehu. The lahar event also highlighted the dominant western science based hazard management paradigm and its interactions with matauranga Maori. Inherent in the dominant western science paradigm is the natural/social split born of the scientific Enlightenment and the removal of non-humans as actors. Bruno Latour (2004) calls for a move beyond the natural/social dualism and recognition for the importance of non-humans in contesting and recreating worlds; this thesis considers Charles Royal’s tangata whenua paradigm as an answer to Latour’s call.

This thesis provides a view of Deloria's thoughts on science and metaphysics, presenting his criticism of Western science and of his proposed alternative to what he presents as a historically evidenced epistemic attitude of exclusion. Deloria refers to Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, suggesting that the institution of Western science operates according to a paradigm that is both very different from that of traditional Indigenous knowledge practice and fundamentally exclusionary. A potential of communication between Western science and Indigenous knowledge is possible through paradigm shifts as well as through reference to epistemic anarchy. My presentation of Deloria's description of Indigenous metaphysics includes an account of an agential ontology and place-grounded epistemology with reference to Daniel R. Wildcat, Baruch Spinoza, Scott L. Pratt, and others. Ultimately, Deloria breaks with Feyerabend's epistemological anarchy in light of our contemporary environmental predicament and advocates a more restrained, relational epistemology.

In this doctorate, I provide a balanced and collaborative approach to knowledge/value change between the contesting worldviews of indigenous knowledge and western science, termed 'synergistic'. My search for synergy is comparative and reconciliatory. This endeavours to overcome the popular pre-occupation with conflict and opposition. Rather, both difference and similarity are recognised. Through the comparison of such synergy, I argue that Māori development requires for its further advancement a focus not only on difference and conflict, but also on affinity and convergence. My primary concern is to establish a better understanding of the synergistic, adaptive strategies or indigenous innovation of Māori kaitiaki, environmental stewards. I investigate conflicting and converging Māori and western scientific conservation and use values in Aotearoa/New Zealand environmental governance and management regimes under the Resource Management Act 1991, with specific regard to indicator development. The balance of values were compared in ecological environmental governance, from five Aotearoa governmental authorities and three Māori river communities, utilising Māori and western social science methods. My focus on indicators pinpoints contesting knowledge/value change between the marginalisation of indigenous knowledge and dominance of western science. This seeks to highlight the potential viability of Māori kaitiakitanga, stewardship in global and national terms of sustainability. However, potential synergy is held back by a prevailing viewpoint of the indigenous worldview as backward, past-oriented and non-synergistic. An oppositional dogma predominates, which is a key problem to overcome. It spans world and national literature, resulting in considerable gaps in knowledge on synergy, conceptually, methodologically, empirically and analytically. This is addressed by an authoritative Māori synergistic standpoint from my own cultural lens and decolonised theorising, termed 'nuanced problem solving'. I articulate both worldviews in knowledge/value change through comparative, evolutionary, multi-dimensional, cross-cultural and inter-disciplinary research on synergy. My nuanced problem solving encapsulates the two main parts of the doctorate, whereby synergy is correlated between theory and social practice. Part one deals with value comparison in theory utilising high abstracted concepts and methods at the global level of environmental governance. Part two deals with value balance in social practice utilising medium abstracted and concrete empirical and analytical research at global, national, regional, district and cross-tribal levels of environmental governance. Potential synergy cross-cuts each part from high abstracted thought down and from the practical flax roots up. I argue that Māori advancement fluctuates between them. Drawing on cultural and theoretical leanings of the Māori synergistic standpoint, both a strong correlation with existing theory and expanded synergistic theorising was found. Due to the expansiveness of the research, these correlated findings only provide an embryonic understanding of potential synergy. A postscript describes my other work on synergy with five external agencies concerning foreshore, lakeside, wastewater, land disposal and carbon marketing kaitiakitanga. I argue that additional research on synergy is needed in order to further advance Māori.

Family planning initiatives have been critical to development strategies since the 1950s. Family planning has been justified on various grounds including its contribution to poverty alleviation, improved maternal and infant health and the advancement of women's rights and choices. More recently, the discourse of 'women's empowerment' has been used in the advocacy of family planning. This discourse integrates a number of earlier justifications for fertility control promoting family planning as a strategy to enhance women's access to higher standards of living and improved health. It associates family planning with advances in women's rights as individual citizens in 'modern' economies and their greater involvement in paid work. This thesis investigates whether this empowerment discourse is evident in family planning programmes in Fiji and its relationship to the socio-economic development of that country. Critical analyses of the operation of power, development strategies and western assumptions about family size, human rights and economic wellbeing inform this research. In particular, Foucault's concept of 'biopower' is used to analyse narratives about family planning articulated by health practitioners, women's rights activists and officials in the Ministry of Health. The analysis of key informants' statements is complemented by consideration of official statistics, and existing empirical data such as documents and pamphlets. The thesis argues that an empowerment discourse is strongly evident in Fiji with respect to the statements made by key informants and available written sources. It looks critically at the narratives that construct family planning as empowering for women, particularly the tropes of choice, health and full citizenship. Close analysis of these narratives demonstrate that the 'stories' uniformly position women as potentially empowered 'modern' subjects. However, critical analysis of these stories about choice, health and citizenship found that family planning strategies were sometimes disempowering. The generic stories embodied by the empowerment discourse did not allow for the diversity of women's needs; this finding supported critiques of one-size-fits-all development strategies. I demonstrate that while the empowerment discourse provided women with the opportunity to control their fertility, engage in paid work and be empowered, it simultaneously created new challenges and different forms of subordination. This thesis found that the empowerment discourse was an unmistakable example of biopower at work

The aim of this study is to explore if Western researchers with different academic backgrounds comply with requests articulated by Indigenous scholars in establishing relationships with Indigenous Sámi reindeerherders. I examine if the researchers’ motivations, attitude and their possible decolonizing approaches are in accordance with the requests of Indigenous scholars, and how these differ between social and natural scientists.The results illustrate that the researchers’ general mind set,as well as their decolonizing approaches-ifexisting-only partly meet the requests of Indigenous scholars. However,the herders are still interested in participating in research projects,even though the outcomes of these projects often do not seem to have direct positive effects on the reindeerherding community.The differences between social and natural scientists are not strongly pronounced and may possibly be caused by other factors than the academic background only

<p>This study investigated the effect of an Argumentation Instructional Model (AIM) on the preservice teachers&lsquo / ability to implement a Science-IK Curriculum in selected South African schools. I examined what instructional practices the pre-service teachers engage in when they introduce scientific explanation and whether those practices influence learners&lsquo / ability to construct scientific explanations during a natural science unit of a South African school curriculum. My study began with a pilot study of 16 pre-service science teachers who completed a B.Ed university module, Science for Teaching, which included an IK component. Data collection for main study took place from 2010 to 2011, and used questionnaires, face-to-face and reflective interview protocols, case studies, lesson plans and classroom observation schedules. I took videos and audios of each of the pre-service teacher&lsquo / s enactment of the focal lesson on argumentation and then coded the videotape for different instructional practices. The study investigated firstly, what currently informed teachers&lsquo / thinking, knowledge and action of IK. Secondly, the research questioned how teachers interpreted and implemented IK in the science classroom. A sample of the three pre-service teachers were followed into their classrooms to investigate how they specifically implemented Learning Outcome Three using argumentation instruction as a mode of instruction and what approaches relevant to the inclusion of IK were developed. The study found that the three pre-service teachers used three very different approaches through which IK was brought in the science curriculum. An assimilationist approach, that brings IK into science by seeking how best IK fits into science. A segregationist approach that holds IK side-by-side with scientific knowledge. Lastly, an integrationist approach makes connections between IK and science. The approaches developed by the pre-service teachers were found to be informed by their biographies, values, cultural backgrounds and worldviews. Meticulously, the study explored how shifts were being made from a theoretical phase at the university where the pre-service teachers engaged IK to an actual phase of implementation in their school science classrooms. Finally, I attempted to explain why the pre-service teachers interpreted and implemented IK in the way they did.</p>

<p>This study investigated the effect of an Argumentation Instructional Model (AIM) on the preservice teachers&lsquo / ability to implement a Science-IK Curriculum in selected South African schools. I examined what instructional practices the pre-service teachers engage in when they introduce scientific explanation and whether those practices influence learners&lsquo / ability to construct scientific explanations during a natural science unit of a South African school curriculum. My study began with a pilot study of 16 pre-service science teachers who completed a B.Ed university module, Science for Teaching, which included an IK component. Data collection for main study took place from 2010 to 2011, and used questionnaires, face-to-face and reflective interview protocols, case studies, lesson plans and classroom observation schedules. I took videos and audios of each of the pre-service teacher&lsquo / s enactment of the focal lesson on argumentation and then coded the videotape for different instructional practices. The study investigated firstly, what currently informed teachers&lsquo / thinking, knowledge and action of IK. Secondly, the research questioned how teachers interpreted and implemented IK in the science classroom. A sample of the three pre-service teachers were followed into their classrooms to investigate how they specifically implemented Learning Outcome Three using argumentation instruction as a mode of instruction and what approaches relevant to the inclusion of IK were developed. The study found that the three pre-service teachers used three very different approaches through which IK was brought in the science curriculum. An assimilationist approach, that brings IK into science by seeking how best IK fits into science. A segregationist approach that holds IK side-by-side with scientific knowledge. Lastly, an integrationist approach makes connections between IK and science. The approaches developed by the pre-service teachers were found to be informed by their biographies, values, cultural backgrounds and worldviews. Meticulously, the study explored how shifts were being made from a theoretical phase at the university where the pre-service teachers engaged IK to an actual phase of implementation in their school science classrooms. Finally, I attempted to explain why the pre-service teachers interpreted and implemented IK in the way they did.</p>

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study investigated the effect of an Argumentation Instructional Model (AIM) on the preservice teachers‘ ability to implement a Science-IK Curriculum in selected South African schools. I examined what instructional practices the pre-service teachers engage in when they introduce scientific explanation and whether those practices influence learners‘ ability to construct scientific explanations during a natural science unit of a South African school curriculum. My study began with a pilot study of 16 pre-service science teachers who completed a B.Ed university module, Science for Teaching, which included an IK component. Data collection for main study took place from 2010 to 2011, and used questionnaires, face-to-face and reflective interview protocols, case studies, lesson plans and classroom observation schedules. I took videos and audios of each of the pre-service teacher‘s enactment of the focal lesson on argumentation and then coded the videotape for different instructional practices. The study investigated firstly, what currently informed teachers‘ thinking, knowledge and action of IK. Secondly, the research questioned how teachers interpreted and implemented IK in the science classroom. A sample of the three pre-service teachers were followed into their classrooms to investigate how they specifically implemented Learning Outcome Three using argumentation instruction as a mode of instruction and what approaches relevant to the inclusion of IK were developed. The study found that the three pre-service teachers used three very different approaches through which IK was brought in the science curriculum. An assimilationist approach, that brings IK into science by seeking how best IK fits into science. A segregationist approach that holds IK side-by-side with scientific knowledge. Lastly, an integrationist approach makes connections between IK and science. The approaches developed by the pre-service teachers were found to be informed by their biographies, values, cultural backgrounds and worldviews. Meticulously, the study explored how shifts were being made from a theoretical phase at the university where the pre-service teachers engaged IK to an actual phase of implementation in their school science classrooms. Finally, I attempted to explain why the pre-service teachers interpreted and implemented IK in the way they did. / South Africa

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study investigated the effect of an Argumentation Instructional Model (AIM) on the preservice teachers‘ ability to implement a Science-IK Curriculum in selected South Africanschools. I examined what instructional practices the pre-service teachers engage in when they introduce scientific explanation and whether those practices influence learners‘ ability to construct scientific explanations during a natural science unit of a South African school curriculum. My study began with a pilot study of 16 pre-service science teachers who completed a B.Ed university module, Science for Teaching, which included an IK component. Data collection for main study took place from 2010 to 2011, and used questionnaires, face-to-face and reflective interview protocols, case studies, lesson plans and classroom observation schedules. I took videos and audios of each of the pre-service teacher‘s enactment of the focal lesson on argumentation and then coded the videotape for different instructional practices. The study investigated firstly, what currently informed teachers‘ thinking, knowledge and action of IK. Secondly, the research questioned how teachers interpreted and implemented IK in the science classroom. A sample of the three pre-service teachers were followed into their classrooms to investigate how they specifically implemented Learning Outcome Three using argumentation instruction as a mode of instruction and what approaches relevant to the inclusion of IK were developed. The study found that the three pre-service teachers used three very different approaches through which IK was brought in the science curriculum. An assimilationist approach, that brings IK into science by seeking how best IK fits into science. A segregationist approach that holds IK side-by-side with scientific knowledge. Lastly, an integrationist approach makes connections between IK and science. The approaches developed by the pre-service teachers were found to be informed by their biographies, values, cultural backgrounds and worldviews. Meticulously, the study explored how shifts were being made from a theoretical phase at the university where the pre-service teachers engaged IK to an actual phase of implementation in their school science classrooms. Finally, I attempted to explain why the pre-service teachers interpreted and implemented IK in the way they did.

The central theme of this paper concerns the way Eastern and Western (sometimes termed Oriental and Occidental) thought view the formation of the world; the means of arriving at these conclusions and the concepts or pre-conceived ideas upon which they are based. Western thought has been limited to views that have developed out of modern science, post-1500; they are mechanistic science, evolution, Whitehead's philosophy pertaining to God and modern physics. For the purpose of this paper, the emphasis in Eastern thought is placed on Mahayana Buddhism, especially the Madhyamika school of philosophy. In India it developed in contact with many other philosophical schools, and it if it is to be understood, some of these systems of though must also be studied. Therefore, the Vedanta school of Indian philosophy, Early Buddhism, and one of the creation stories of the Upanishads are used when they help to explain the Buddhist view. Mahayana Buddhism also spread to China and Japan where in developed in contact with Confucianism and Taoism, and so these are considered when they help to explain Chinese Buddhism. While this paper is focused on the views pertaining to the formation of the world, an important aspect of the study is to show what Eastern though understands by the terms "higher" and "lower" knowledge. As a further clarification, a chapter has been devoted to illustration how the respective interpretations of the world, in Eastern and Western cultures, are carried out in the everyday lives of the people. And finally, an effort is made to employ Eastern concepts in establishing a new basis for the organization and clarification of the concepts of present day science.