Wānanga is a traditional method of Māori knowledge transmission, and has been described as a place, a school, an act, and a form of governance, practice, and pedagogy. Much of the writing on wānanga focuses on the ancient “lore” of Whare Wānanga (Houses of Learning), but more recent work has explored how that pedagogical tradition is relevant to Māori education today, particularly at tertiary level. There is, however, a growing body of writing on wānanga as a research methodology relevant to Māori and iwi (tribal) communities. This paper discusses the increasingly popular use of wānanga in Māori research practice, examining the definitions, roots, and evolution of wānanga as a concept, place, and indigenous method of knowledge construction and transmission. Drawing on wānanga experiences in two different tribal contexts, this paper explores how wānanga works as a practice embedded in, and shaped by, local knowledge, language, place, people and tikanga.
Whakapapa is the Māori term for genealogy. It has been described by some as the skeletal structure of Māori epistemology because all things have their own genealogies. In research, whakapapa has been presented in tribal histories, Māori Land Court records, and consistently as a framework for mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) and Māori research methodologies. This essay offers a brief overview of the ways in which whakapapa has been understood and negotiated in research particularly after the arrival of Europeans. Some early ethnographers, for instance, applied their own genealogical methods of dating to whakapapa, which influenced various Māori approaches from the twentieth century. With the advent of literacy and print, Māori experimented with new ways to record genealogy, and yet the underlying oral, ethical, and cultural practices that are crucial to whakapapa have remained integral to how it still lives and operates in Māori communities today.
Indigenous peoples think about oral history differently. This is the key assertion of this opening chapter, which draws on a specific Māori tribal context and community to show how native peoples maintain and employ our own interpretations of oral history. This chapter highlights the tensions and divisions between oral history and oral tradition, revealing how these disciplines have been instrumental in the colonial displacement of indigenous historical knowledge as traditions, myths, and folk songs. Drawing on a personal tribal journey and experience, this chapter reveals how indigenous perspectives remain largely absent in today’s popular oral history definitions, particularly in regard to the form, methods, theories, and politics of the discipline.
Indigenous genealogies encompass complex layers of connection within and between human, environment and spirit, realms [...]
For many indigenous peoples, oral history is a living intergenerational phenomenon that is crucial to the transmission of our languages, cultural knowledge, politics, and identities. Indigenous oral histories are not merely traditions, myths, chants, or superstitions, but are valid historical accounts passed on vocally in various forms, forums, and practices. Rethinking Oral History and Tradition: An Indigenous Perspective provides a specific native and tribal account of the meaning, form, politics, and practice of oral history. It is a rethinking and critique of the popular and powerful ideas that now populate and define the fields of oral history and tradition, which have in the process displaced indigenous perspectives. This book, drawing on indigenous voices, explores the overlaps and differences between the studies of oral history and of oral tradition, and urges scholars in both disciplines to revisit the way their fields think about orality, oral history methods, transmission, narrative, power, ethics, oral history theories, and politics. Indigenous knowledge and experience hold important contributions that have the potential to expand and develop robust academic thinking in the study of both oral history and tradition.
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