Pasifika 'whole of life' education: A decolonial communities-based approach

Abstract: Upolu Luma Vaai will explore the importance of the Pasifika communities-based indigenous philosophy of relationality and how it has shaped transboundary thinking and praxis for centuries, and how it would assist in creating a 'whole of life' education approach. Living in the Moana without boundaries, houses without walls, knowledge without centres, we are never people of closed systems, therefore transdisciplinarity is not a new concept. Unfortunately mainstream education has firmly embedded a compartmentalized learning system that treats and confines knowledge strictly to departments, systems, and categories. While this is helpful in terms of specific employment targets and market driven interests, it has fostered an unhelpful dichotomy that formalizes and gives power to a certain centre of knowledge at the expense of communities, spiritualities, values, and indigenous cultures labelled under "informal knowledge." If we need alternative holistic approaches to education that seriously consider transdisciplinarity and transboundary flow, then we need a 'whole of life' philosophy to underpin a decolonial learning approach.

Speaker bio: Upolu Luma Vaai is Principal and Professor of Theology & Ethics at the Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji, the first degree offering regional educational institution in the Pacific.

His research interests focus on the intersection of Pacific indigenous relational philosophies/theologies and development within the framework of decoloniality.

He is involved in multiple regional and international initiatives for multiculturalism, anti-racism, peace, anti-corruption, ecological justice, and decolonizing education, research, and development.

He is member of the International Academy for Multicultural Corporation; Oceania chair of the Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies, Oxford University; Member of the G20 Interfaith Anti-Racism Initiative; Member of the G20 Interfaith Environment Working Group; Lecturer and facilitator of the Global Ecumenical Theological Institute of the World Council of Churches; Member of the Berkeley Centre of Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; expert member of the Anti-corruption Academic Initiative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes; Advisory board of the Laudato Si Institute, Oxford University. He is currently leading the establishment of the regional Pasifika Communities University of the Pacific Churches.