Education as Anaesthetic, Learning Beyond Time and Space - A Conversation with Carl Mika

This week it was a huge pleasure to be able to welcome Carl Mika,
Professor of Māori and Indigenous Philosophies from Aotearoa, the
country now known as New Zealand. As you can probably guess from
the title of this episode, this conversation with Carl went
pretty deep pretty quickly! That's because underlying the most
apparently basic concepts like learning or logic that people use
all the time are some pretty fundamental assumptions about the
way the world is. And they're certainly not universal to all
humans. So what does educating our young people in how to read
their worlds mean in this case?
Carl Mika is from the Tuhourangi iwi and is Professor of Māori
and Indigenous Philosophies, and Head of School of Aotahi: School
of Māori and Indigenous Studies, University of Canterbury. His
published work includes Indigenous Education and the Metaphysics
of Presence was published in 2017, Routledge), along with many
articles and chapters, on the issues of colonisation and
reductionism; Māori concepts of nothingness and darkness in
response to an Enlightenment focus on clarity; mātauranga Māori
and science. Carl teaches and researches in educational
philosophy and mātauranga Māori, the law, and global studies, as
well as aspects of Western philosophy.
In 2024, Carl was awarded the University of Canterbury Research
Medal. Also In 2024, he was recipient of the University of
Canterbury Faculty of Arts Kairangahau Māori Award for research
in Māori philosophies (both traditional and contemporary) and
Māori methodologies. He is also a Fellow of the Philosophy of
Education Society of Australasia (PESA). You can find further
links to Carl's work here:
https://profiles.canterbury.ac.nz/Carl-Te-Hira-Lewis-Mika