2014 Seminars

This research is a retrospective auto ethnographical account detailing the life history of my son Jonathon Kyle te Rau Aroha Brewin, born 10/10/75 and died 21/7/85. This is a story full of the many concepts related to happiness, joy, love and deep, deep sadness.

Almost 30 years ago, Jeffrey Sissons, noted historian, proposed two major types of histories principally relating to northern tribal region of New Zealand: (1) founding and (2) conquest. Founding traditions ‘concern marriage, birth and residence; they establish relations between hapū [kin groups] with respect to land’, he wrote (1988, p.200).

Soon after separating Ranginui and Papatūānuku, Tāne travelled into the heavens with the various celestial bodies, to suspend them in the sky bringing light unto the world. Within the basket ‘Te Mangoroa’ Tāne carried the stars, from which he drew forth the brightest and placed them against the chest of Ranginui.

Some economists argue for diversity in the way collective resources are managed rather than one having an unquestioning faith in leaving things to the market. Our team supports this thinking and look at how ethics and Māori knowledge can be used equally alongside economics in managing collective Māori assets.

For many years indigenous knowledge has been considered incompatible with western science, mainly due to the differences in knowledge inquiry and transfer, as well as more fundamental beliefs about the inseparable nature of material and non-material aspects of the universe held by the former. Increasingly however, commonalities between the two are being recognised.

Māori are more likely to be assessed and treated by a health practitioner trained within a western cultural system that pays little attention to Māori worldviews and continue to experience misdiagnosis, non-voluntary admissions, inappropriate psychometric testing, high suicide rates, limited choices, differences in medication regimes and poorer treatment outcomes.