Book

In this publication of firsts, 24 Māori preeminent scholars bravely share their personal journeys, revealing what being Māori has meant for them in their academic careers. Their perspectives provide insight for all New Zealanders into how mātaurang knowledge – is positively influencing the Western-dominated learning disciplines.

‘It is a shameful fact,’ says co-editor Jacinta Ruru in her introduction to Ngā Kete Mātauranga, ‘that in 2020, only about five percent of academic staff at universities in Aotearoa New Zealand are Māori.’

‘The book demonstrates the power, energy and diversity that can be brought out into the world by Māori scholars working both comfortably and uncomfortably from within, without and across diverse academic disciplines and mātauranga Māori.’ – Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith

Not only a celebration of all knowledges in Aotearoa NZ, this book is also a greater call to action to create positive transformative change for our nation.

The Māori economy is often defined simply by the contributions of Māori in New Zealand in the areas of farming, fisheries and forestry. This book explores the ways that Māori in the privatised military industry contribute in monetary and non-monetary ways to the Māori economy.

This book received a publication support grant (PSG) from NPM, and makes a connection between the global and the local, between the political and the personal - and encourages us to take control over the food security of our whānau, providing practical advice on how to grow kai traditionally and in a kaupapa Māori way.

Home: Here To Stay is a collection of essays exploring subjects such as migration, ageing and dying, and the meanings of home to Indigenous and colonised peoples.

Even though the Māori language obtained official language status some 27 years ago, Māori are still expending energy to revitalise and normalise the language within Aotearoa New Zealand.

This book argues that there is a need to develop greater indigenous-led intergenerational resilience in order to meet the challenges posed by contemporary crises of climate change, cultural clashes, and adversity.

In today’s media, the climate crisis is kept largely separate and distinct from the violent cultural clashes unfolding on the grounds of religion and migration, but each is similarly symptomatic of the erasure of the human connection to place and the accompanying tensions between generations and cultures. This book argues that both forms of crisis are intimately related, under-scored and driven by the structures of white supremacism which at their most immediate and visible, manifest as the discipline of black bodies, and at more fundamental and far-reaching proportions, are about the power, privilege and patterns of thinking associated with but no longer exclusive to white people. In the face of such crisis, it is essential to bring the experience and wisdom of Elders and traditional knowledge keepers together with the contemporary realities and vision of youth.

This book’s inclusive and critical perspective on Indigenous-led intergenerational resilience will be valuable to Indigenous and non-Indigenous interdisciplinary scholars working on human-ecological resilience.