The enduring legacy of Indigenous parrhesiastes

Abstract

Indigenous academics are often faced with a balancing act between the danger and risk of critiquing the institutions within which they reside, and the duty or obligation they feel to do so. As Indigenous Māori academics located within three different business schools across Aotearoa New Zealand, our work in both research and teaching is often highly critical of the institution, which can leave us exposed, vulnerable and grasping to hold onto a fragile sense of identity in the academy. We use the conceptual framework of parrhesia as a critical response to the institutional landscape of business schools and higher education in general. Parrhesia can be described as free speech directly critiquing hegemonic norms and practices. In this article, we share our experiences as episodes of parrhesia, as voice and action derived from our Indigenous worldview, to illustrate the utility of Indigenous parrhesiastes. Finally, we suggest that parrhesia offers us as Indigenous academics mode and mechanism with which we can challenge institutional power structures in different ways to effect change through the advance of safe and purposeful inclusion of Indigenous epistemologies, identities and pedagogies in the academy.