Manaakitanga and the academy

Abstract

Critical to all aspects of academic life, academic hospitality is said to be key to creating healthy learning communities. Yet, for many outsiders, strangers and newcomers, academia can be a sight of asserting territory and superiority. Students and academics are trained to function within an institutionalized setting where success is measured through the rigid rigour of scientific enquiry and rewarded on an individual basis. The solitary journey that is heralded by the academic institution fails to recognize the fundamental need for belonging, community and kinship, leaving limited space within the academy in which to practice manaakitanga or hospitality. We argue that the Māori concept of manaakitanga not only captures the virtuous elements of hospitality, namely generosity, openness and hospitableness, that can often be excluded in hospitality literature but also serves as a mechanism for resistance in a context that serves to fragment and divide. In this article, we draw on our personal and collective experiences to describe ways in which Indigenous worldviews and perspectives are commonly met with hostility in academia. We detail our response to such inhospitality through the formation of ‘Knowledge in Indigenous Networks’ (K.I.N.), an Indigenous academic collective that is underpinned by manaakitanga. We conclude this article by identifying six sites for critical engagement with the notion of academic hospitality that will assist academic institutions to enact the value of manaakitanga.