D ECO LO N I SAT I0 N THROUGH CRITICAL CAREER RESEARCH AND ACTION: MAORI WOMEN AND ACCOUNTANCY

The call for a just social order in Aotearoa (New Zealand) includes the transformation of mono-cultural institutions such as the accountancy profession. Maori women accountants in this research expressed concern about maintaining their identity as Maori while participating in the corporate culture ofthe firms in which they are employed.These women helped form a Maori accountants ’ network and special interest groups to support and encourage Maori in the profession. They are working within the organisation and the discipline of accounting to create new knowledge and practice, through which their professional careers as account-ants may be enhanced without the diminishing of those values that give life to te ao Maori (a Maori perspective). orldwide there are approximately 250 million indigenous peoples who live in more than 70 countries (Burger, 1990). Colonisation has been their common experience. Processes to address the undesirable consequences of colonisation include consciousness-raising activities at the community level, programs of education and economic develop-ment, and pressure for legal and constitutional reforms at a national and an international level. A ‘Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ’ is considered annually by United Nations member states and at meetings of the inter-sessional working group of the Commission on Human Rights (Quentin-Baxter, 1998). Maori, the indigenous people of Aotearoa (New Zealand), are activ