E hoki mai nei ki te ūkaipō—Return to Your Place of Spiritual and Physical Nourishment

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of the Perceptions of Papakāinga project, which explores the connection between place, genealogy, and identity for two Māori (New Zealand’s Indigenous people) communities: one living within an iwi (tribal) context, and one living within an urban context. The research explores how Māori-specific concepts which define home and identity are perceived and enacted across all participants, and how participants define ‘home’ in relation to fluid understandings of genealogy, community, and identity. Across the diverse experiences of participants, the concept of ‘whakapapa’ (genealogy), can be seen to act as a way to understand the connections between identity, people and place.

“Ko Au te Whenua, Ko te Whenua Ko Au: I Am the Land, and the Land Is Me”: Healer/Patient Views on the Role of Rongoā Māori (Traditional Māori Healing) in Healing the Land

“…The interconnection between Māori as an Indigenous people and the land that they occupy and inhabit has been well documented in the academic literature [ 2 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 10 , 11 , 24 , 25 , 26 ]. For Māori, that relationship is one based on a whakapapa or genealogical connection [ 1 , 5 , 10 , 27 ]. This study supports the understanding that, as an Indigenous people, the health and wellbeing of Māori is intrinsically connected to being able to access traditional lands and maintain a living, reciprocal and harmonious relationship with those lands.…”

“…Māori regard themselves as ‘belonging to the land’, rather than ‘owning’ it because land is a tangible expression of whakapapa. One of the terms Māori use to identify themselves is tāngata whenua, literally “people of the land”, an identity derived from the belief that, as a people, Māori are one of the many offspring of a union between the Sky Father, Ranginui, and the Earth Mother, Papatūānuku [ 1 ].…”

Te Ruru

“…For Whakauae, kaupapa Māori practice grounds and signposts inquiry into the persistence of Māori inequities, which is highlighted in our work across health services (e.g., Cormack et al, 2022); the Covid-19 pandemic (e.g., Boulton et al, 2022); Rongoa Māori (traditional Māori healing systems) (e.g., Mark et al, 2022); and the ongoing displacement of Māori from their home spaces (e.g. Boulton et al, 2021aBoulton et al, , 2021b. Kaupapa Māori also includes Whakauae's ethical duty of kaitiakitanga (stewardship) of research data, which means safeguarding and ensuring that the benefits that arise as consequence of our research are directed at those for whom the project was originally conceived: whānau, hapū, Iwi and Māori communities more widely (Boulton et al, 2014).…”

Ka mua, ka muri, ka mua, ka ako: Reflecting on the past to inform our futures

“…Where our relationships, to land, to water, to people, to all living creatures and to our tupuna who have passed on, are the essence of what it means to be Māori. Where the value of interconnectedness between all the elements that make up our world, forms the basis of our worldview (Boulton et al, 2021). And I think this is the space we inhabit now as Māori and, indeed, as Indigenous evaluators-grappling with what it means to undertake evaluation from within an Indigenous worldview.…”