In 2001, when Te Wānanga o Raukawa needed a formal process to guide behaviour on campus, they turned to tikanga and developed Te Kawa o te Ako. It is non-hierarchical and non-coercive. Everyone entering the Wānanga agrees to kaupapa for an ideal learning and teaching environment. Anyone can challenge anyone’s behaviour, and a process is provided for putting things right, allowing people to continue their relationship with the Wānanga. For 20 years, Te Kawa o te Ako has been teaching us how kaupapa can guide us to our decolonising and liberatory potential. We can explore it as a model of the potential of tikanga for contemporary problems like interpersonal violence.

Te Wānanga o Raukawa is growing experience at addressing problems, some serious, without using and reinforcing State systems of violence. Some of the lessons from this are surprising. Te Kawa o te Ako combines a liberatory, kaupapa approach that considers us all rangatira, with what could be seen as an authoritarian approach to drug and alcohol use. Te Kawa o te Ako has succeeded in creating a culture for ako by explicitly prioritising that culture, sharing responsibility for the culture with all staff and students, and enforcing consequences for behaviour that disrupts ako. Te Kawa o te Ako is both preventative—avoiding problems and addressing problems before they escalate—as well as restorative. Lessons from Te Kawa o te Ako contribute to the discussion on community accountability, transformative justice and eliminating violence. (Author's abstract). Record #7906