Postgraduate Diploma in Tikanga and Law

LAWS801 Kōwae Ako 1 (30 credits)

• The kōwae ako will begin by introducing tauira to the kaupapa of the programme and critically, will begin a process of personal ‘deconstruction’ to prepare the group for the journey ahead. This will involve preparing tauira to leave the comfort zone of their worldview and to become aware of the existence of the underlying beliefs, assumptions and practices that shape their worldview. The remainder of the kōwae ako will introduce participants to tikanga, te reo and the Māori world through experiential engagement with two key environmental contexts; coastal environments and inland bush environments.

LAWS802 Kōwae Ako 2 (30 credits)

• This kōwae ako continues to develop a core understanding of tikanga across different contexts. It centres around experiential, narrative and landscape-based learning of tikanga and develops understanding of the systemic nature of tikanga. It will utilise the area of dispute resolution to demonstrate that tikanga is both procedural and substantive. Tauira will learn about what causes disputes and how disputes are consequently resolved using procedural and substantive aspects of tikanga.

LAWS803 Kōwae Ako 3 (30 credits)

This kōwae ako is centred around Māori communities as the constitutional source of tikanga. He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi will be drawn on as constitutional documents to frame this kōwae ako. Tikanga as a core part of Māori knowledge systems is literally constitutive of Māori communities and those communities in turn provide the authentic context for tikanga.

• In building this understanding, this kōwae ako will examine the processes and outcomes of colonisation on Māori communities and on te reo and tikanga. Law will be analysed as a tool of colonisation and tikanga, as a form of law, will be analysed as a tool of decolonisation. This will include examination of strategies for therevitalisation of Māori knowledge systems, of which tikanga is a part. This kōwae will also focus on a variety of methodologies for engaging with tikanga in modern context. Thus participants will understand the importance of Māori knowledge systems to the wellbeing of Māori as a people and will consider the impact of their loss.

LAWS804 Kōwae Ako 4 (30 credits)

This kōwae ako is the key site of engagement between tikanga and settler legal paradigms in this programme. Tauira will examine the points of intersection between tikanga and state law, historically and in the modern era, consider different ‘rules of regulation’ that each system has drawn upon in those sites of intersection, and consider how aspects of tension have or have not been resolved in that intersection. They will examine the broad landscape of areas in which tikanga is currently drawn upon in the state paradigm, such as resource management law, public law, criminal law and others and consider how tikanga concepts contrast/and or complement state legal principles and whether tikanga could offer alternative responses or fortify current practices.

• This kōwae ako will also address the risks for tikanga and for Māori communities of deepening the relationship with the state legal paradigm. This examination will be grounded in the context of the Tiriti relationship between Crown and Māori.