Aro-Mind

The recent announcement that the collaboration between Massey and Victoria Universities - in the form of the New Zealand School of Music - is going to end brought back memories of my days at the then Victoria University School of Music. It reminded me of my teachers - David Farquhar, Jack Body, Ross Harris, Alan Thomas, Elizabeth Kerr and more - it reminded me of my student friends - Danny Poynton, Helen Bowater, John Psathas, Jonathan Crayford and many more - it reminded me of special times - visiting Douglas Lilburn, sitting with Peter Sculthorpe during a performance of his 'Mangrove', participating in master classes by Lou Harrison and Bela Siki and much more. Thinking of my time at that Music School also reminds me of the way I left that school - under a cloud, I suggest. It was during music school that my consciousness as a Māori person suddenly burst into life and I became conscientised as to the plight of Māori in this country since the 19th century. I wrote a critica...

The purpose of Indigenous Development Research is to enable transformation and positive change in Māori communities. The reason that there needs to be 'high Māori involvement' in this research is so that Māori communities themselves may identify issues for research and craft research questions. It is so that approaches to knowledge creation drawn from those communities (approaches suggested by traditional knowledge and the identity, history, experiences and circumstances of those communities) may be uplifted, and it is so that answers to research questions may be fashioned within the context of the particular community for whom the research is ultimately conducted. Finally, the reason for high involvement of Māori (i.e. the community) in the research is so that the outcomes and benefits of research may move quickly into the hands who enable change in our communities. We wish to empower change agents with high quality and reputable knowledge that enables the very best decisions ...

One of the most important things about knowing two cultural and intellectual traditions is the understanding that there are alternative ways of seeing and explaining things. It's value lies not just in having two ways of seeing and explaining things, but it lies also in the understanding that there are different ways of seeing things. For someone like this, it is not too much for them to then imagine that perhaps there might also be three ways or four or more ways to look at something. This appreciation that there are diverse ways of seeing things is extraordinarily important in the multicultural world we live in today. The chief problem with the monocultural person is the absence of this appreciation, the absence of an experience of diverse ways of seeing and explaining things. This is the person who having never known anything else but the one way of seeing things makes the mistake that there is only one way, their way.

The goal of Māori/indigenous development is not merely to achieve participation in a range of existing activities in our nation. It is also innovate them somehow, to innovate the nation, and in positive ways, to bring about new possibilities and opportunities arising from the circumstances, knowledge and intelligence of our communities. Valuable and distinctive innovations of NZ society, economy and culture by Māori communities are already here! Māori medium education (kōhanga reo to whare wānanga) is an extensive example; Māori broadcasting (radio, tv, internet) is another. Māori health providers and iwi/hapū approaches to sustainability are further examples. Innovations in legal vehicles, approaches to justice and much, much more. I haven't even mentioned the arts yet (tā moko, taonga pūoro, whare tapere etc etc)! Māori creativity and innovation is extensive, dynamic, valuable and distinctive. Many of the innovations (not all) initiated by Māori communities in recent decades we...

The value of the M ā ori language is not so much that we can say the same things in M ā ori that we may say in English but because the M ā ori language is a vehicle into a distinctive way of thinking and experiencing life (worldview).  Similarly our desire for m ā tauranga M ā ori and M ā ori cultural knowledge is not so that we may distinguish ourselves from 'P ā keh ā ' but rather to be able to enjoy a vision and experience of life that was first imagined by our forebears and related by them in their language, their knowledge, their songs, their stories, their genealogies and much more. 

Here are some quotes taken from a Harvard University website concerning arts based research: Arts-Based Research (ABR) is an emerging set of methods that are extremely diverse, but united by their ambitions to blur the lines between “science” and “art.” These methods tap into the artistic process as a primary mode of inquiry, creating various forms of art as a way to collect data, conduct analysis, and/or represent social science research (Leavy, 2009)... ... Today ABR practitioners, including many in the field of education, utilize diverse and sometimes very personal combinations of arts and research methods. Two forms that have become more common in recent years are Poetry-based research, which uses collected data as a basis for original poetry, and Ethnodrama, which brings together ethnographic research with theatrical writing and performance.... ... In many ways still in its formative stages, writers in the field of Arts-Based Research have been working to document its diversity an...

Last Monday (3 Dec 2012), thanks to Prof Jane Kelsey, I had the opportunity to present some ideas on mātauranga Māori/indigenous knowledge to negotiators who were meeting all this week in Auckland to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership. It was a very brief opportunity which took place at Waipapa Marae, University of Auckland. Here are some of the things I said: Our vision is for the indigenous dimension of New Zealand society to be positive, dynamic, creative force in our nation’s life, economy and culture, something that all New Zealand can be proud of.  We seek to turn colonisation and its deleterious effects on its head.  The contribution of indigenous peoples is not merely to gain participation in existing arrangements in New Zealand society , but also to bring distinctive aspects and creativity to our nation, to improve it according to indigenous vision, experience and action We remain concerned with matters of social justice – we a...