Decolonising Universities? Myth-Histories of the Nation and Challenges to Academic Freedom in Aotearoa New Zealand

Can decolonising the university create possibilities for new stories to come into being, in the wake of the devastation wrought by colonisation? In Aotearoa New Zealand a particular instance of decolonising universities is under way. This is one that highlights how engagement with decolonising approaches may end up harming academic work. In New Zealand, public universities have involved themselves in negotiating a delicate compromise between activism and the demands of the state. This compromise brings into question the robustness of institutional autonomy and academic freedom. Conjoining the activist idea of decolonising with language that refers to a distinctive form of state governance foregrounding a political relationship between the Crown (executive government) and Māori, several universities have committed themselves to a ‘Treaty partnership’ with Māori. The idea is rooted in recent interpretations of the colonial Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi, signed in 1840. The Treaty is and has been a contested text, event and idea. When universities invoke a particular idea of the Treaty as if it is a consensus view in order to advance social objectives, they risk thwarting the role and responsibility of academics, and particularly historians, to the common good as ‘critic and conscience’ of society.