Countering the dominance of a global north in early childhood education through an Indigenous lens in the global south

This article challenges the global coloniality of the doctrine of domination that re-presents itself in Aotearoa/New Zealand as an uneven ‘partnership’ between Māori (the Indigenes) and the colonizer (the British). That domination is maintained through the western positivistic one-size-fits-all ‘global north’ policies and practices in a colonial education system which is hegemonic and racist. The work of Kōhanga Reo (Indigenous language nests) in the early year’s education stream means a continuous flow of productive unsettlement, in order to survive, in order to dismantle the hegemonic structures and in order to transform Indigenous children’s lives. Through the southern lens of a ‘counter-global coloniality’, some of the historical antecedents of the doctrine of ‘civilization’ and philosophical underpinnings of Kōhanga Reo are sketched in terms of their ability to transform pedagogies of oppression and neoliberal futures. It is argued that Indigenous knowledge and languages can mediate the power relations of colonial dominance and Indigenous subordination, because they provide the keys to unlock and liberate the spaces, places and minds of coloniality.