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ĀteaNovember 14, 2022

Busting the myths about mātauranga Māori 

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(Getty Images)

Richard Dawkins dismisses it as myth, but Māori knowledge is opening up exciting new areas of scientific exploration, as AUT’s Ella Henry explains.

The recent news that Oxford University emeritus professor Richard Dawkins will visit Aotearoa New Zealand next February for a multi-city speaking tour has reignited smouldering flames of acrimony. At issue was Dawkins’ description of mātauranga Māori – Māori knowledge systems – as “myth”, not science.

I was asked by various media to respond to this dismissal and was happy to do so, citing thousands of years of innovative, applicable, and evidence-based knowledge that inform indigenous approaches to science. Since my comments were published, I have received numerous criticisms, not just about me personally, but about “Māoris” [sic], our history, our culture and our knowledge systems.

While it’s easy to ignore the thinly veiled racism that underpins much of the feedback, it’s important that people understand the complexities of mātauranga Māori – what it is, what it isn’t, and how it contributes to global bodies of knowledge, including science.

Here I answer a few of the most common questions about mātauranga Māori, and the concept of Indigenous knowledge as a whole.

Is mātauranga Māori even a thing?

Yes. Indigenous peoples and traditional knowledge are recognised by the United Nations, including the knowledge systems of peoples across Africa, Asia, Europe, Australasia, from the Arctic to the Pacific. New Zealand is a signatory to UNDRIP, which affirms the rights of Indigenous Peoples and our traditional knowledge. These knowledge systems, which include mātauranga Māori, have evolved over many thousands of years, to maintain the sustainability of wellbeing of Indigenous peoples.

So do people working within mātauranga Māori operate outside of accepted science processes?

Those who work with mātauranga Māori apply Māori knowledge to solve a variety of problems. For example, the wahakura is a woven flax bassinet to address the problem of sudden unexpected death in infancy by creating a safe shared sleeping space for babies in their parents’ bed, which has now been adopted by a number of DHBs who distribute them to new mothers.

Richard Dawkins says science is, by definition, “global truth” – but the “truth” of mātauranga Māori is specific to New Zealand. So, how can it be science?

Science is founded on systematic studies of the physical and natural world, through observation and experimentation. Traditional scientific methods are often founded on quantitative, logico-rational, positivist approaches to observation and experimentation, but these are not the only ways to gather, analyse and apply knowledge. The incorporation of traditional Indigenous knowledge with traditional Western science is resulting in exciting and innovative strategies founded on traditional ecological knowledge, local knowledge, folk knowledge, and tacit knowledge. These terms are derived from the systematic observation and experimentation conducted for, with, and by local communities.

Professor Ella Henry (Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Kuri), is director of Māori advancement at the AUT Business School. (Photo: Supplied)

So can you give some real-life examples of mātauranga Māori?

The Māori practice of navigation by the stars has been validated by numerous waka voyages around the world; Professor Rangi Matamua, meanwhile, an expert on Māori astronomy, is the first Māori to win the Prime Minister’s Science Prize.

Some more examples: Dr Shaun Awatere leads a group scientists at the helm of research on the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge; the work of Professor Chellie Smith on Māori leadership is being used by multiple organisations, not just Māori; Professor Rawinia Higgins is renowned for her research on the revitalisation of te reo and was recently elected to the UN Global Taskforce for the Decade for Indigenous Languages that begins in 2022; and Professor Jarrod Haar is a leading expert in business, with his focus on work and organisational studies. These scholars are guided by the melding of Māori and other sciences, not myth.

Are any of the world’s respected scientific journals publishing research about mātauranga Māori?

Yes. The previously named scholars, and others, have published their research in high-impact academic journals, too numerous to mention within the scope of this article.

Is the argument around traditional knowledge versus scientific knowledge specific to Aotearoa New Zealand?

This debate is not only occurring in Aotearoa New Zealand, but among many other Indigenous peoples in countries that include Canada, the United States, and Australia. We can see the impact of this debate in a number of sectors. Within our own education sector, for example, we can cite the changes to how NZ history will be taught in schools, the growing recognition that Māori history and knowledge make vital contributions to New Zealand society, and the growing body of scholarship that is unique to our country. These widespread changes reflect how traditional Māori knowledge is accepted as scientific knowledge by the education sector.

Would it be so bad to describe mātauranga Māori as “myth”? Myth has an important role to play in society, along with science.

Myth has long been used to describe, interpret and explain mysterious or seemingly unexplainable phenomena, with little “proof” beyond the powers of traditional storytelling. In contrast, while mātauranga Māori might not be the science that takes humans to Mars, it is the science that informs and uplifts Māori communities that have not fared well under the auspices of traditional science since its wholesale introduction after we became a British colony in 1840.

That science, which applied notions of eugenics to the assimilation of Māori, military strategy and might to the invasion and dispossession of our lands, and political science that legalised confiscation and invasion, was an aspect of our history that has been ignored for decades. Mātauranga Māori is not replacing traditional science and the traditional scientific method; rather, it is making space for knowledge that was denied, almost to extinction.

What do you say to those who still question the validity of mātauranga Māori as science?

I am immensely proud to work alongside researchers, scientists and scholars, from a wide range of disciplines and cultural backgrounds, nationally and internationally, who do not feel in any way intimidated by a resurgence of mātauranga Māori. I believe they genuinely feel that our traditional knowledge adds new dimensions to their research in health, architecture, business, finance, ecology, construction, policy and planning. That is what I hope mātauranga Māori can add to the realm of science, here and globally, by adding to, not diminishing, the strength and resilience of the scientific method.

Professor Ella Henry is Director of Māori Advancement at the AUT Business School in Auckland.
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Porn WeekNovember 11, 2022

What does pornography mean for Māori?

(Image: Tina Tiller)
(Image: Tina Tiller)

Colonisation has had an enormous impact on attitudes toward sexuality in te ao Māori. Now, mainstream pornography is potentially doing the same.

All this week on The Spinoff we’re talking about porn. Click here for more Porn Week stories

The way sex and sexuality existed traditionally in te ao Māori was vastly different from the forms we often see reflected in contemporary New Zealand society. 

Before colonisation, it’s likely that te ao Māori had a vibrant fluidity around sexual identity, more equitable gender dynamics within relationships and an open celebration of sexual pleasure and reproduction. Manifestations of these pre-colonial attitudes are expressed in art like waka huia that show female figures intertwined, pouwhenua with emphasised genitals, mōteatea describing same-sex relationships between men, cheeky dances like the kopikopi performed by widowed women and haka designed to entice love interests. The list goes on and on.

Colonisation brought the suppression of these traditional attitudes toward sexuality through religion and Western ideas around gender and sexuality. “With the imposition of colonisation, we also had the introduction of Victorian ways of looking at the world,” says Victoria University associate professor of health Dr Clive Aspin (Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Whanaunga and Ngāti Tamaterā). “They imposed this very narrow view of Victorian sexuality on Māori like they did all around the world.” 

The same can be said of modern day pornography. University of Auckland psychologist Jade Le Grice (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi), says that just as colonisation moderated ideas around Māori sexuality, the proliferation of mainstream pornography only adds another layer. In past interviews she has described pornography as a form of “modern-day colonialism”.

Māori and mainstream porn

In 2019, the website Pornhub released insights into New Zealanders’ content use. The statistics counted average time spent on the website (just over 10 minutes), how users view the content (mostly on laptops and desktops) and the most popular search terms. That year, the most popular search term (by a significant margin) was “Māori”. 

For Le Grice, that statistic raised alarm bells. She remains concerned, especially when it comes to the implications of those depictions on wāhine Māori. “It’s media that comes from overseas and that has different assumptions about gender, and how we treat one another,” she says. “The sex that people are watching in pornography comes from cultural context where you have inequitable gender relations.” 

Otago University student Ahinata Kaitai-Mullane (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha) recently completed her Master of Indigenous studies on how mainstream pornography depicts wāhine Māori. It was stumbling across a nine-word tweet that set her on the pathway: “Are you a Pornhub category or are you privileged?”

“I thought to myself, ‘that’s really interesting the way that marginalised identities are fetishised in porn’,” she recalls. Her MA thesis in Indigenous Studies, which she completed earlier this year, discovered parallels between colonial representations of Māori in Pākehā photography, artwork and postcards from the 1900s and in a sample of 50 Pornhub thumbnails that were tagged with the word “Māori”.

Kaitai-Mullane’s research observed that across both formats it’s wāhine Māori in particular who are fetishised: almost every video in the sample had Māori women in them, while only around half had Māori men in them. That was true of the majority of the colonial artworks too.

“There was a strong parallel between the pornographic gaze now and the earlier postcard trade,” she says. Just as those earlier depictions emphasised youthful Māori women who weren’t fully dressed, within contemporary pornography, videos featuring Māori women tended to be attached to adjectives like “teen”, “young” or with reference to being students. Just as Māori women in postcards were referred to as “Māori belle”, “Māori girl” or “Māori maiden”, in modern day pornography wāhine Māori remain nameless and oftentimes faceless. 

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“That connects to an idea of wāhine Māori being replaceable,” Kaitai-Mullane says. “In being objectified, you’re not a person and therefore you don’t need a name or a face because you’re serving a purpose in that sexual narrative and that is the start and the end of that story.” 

This type of pornography created and recreated colonial ideas about Māori women in multiple ways. Domination over Māori women was implied through camera angles and literal violence toward wāhine within the videos. Among the videos, non-heterosexual sex was entirely nonexistent too. And while Māori were labelled, Pākehā in those same videos went largely unmarked.

Most of the international academic research that focusses on Indigenous representation in porn revolves around the absence of it and the way that plays into the desexualising of Indigenous people. “We have a really unique situation here where that isn’t the case,” she says.

But why do historical postcards and modern pornography matter so much? “Those representations create and reflect sexual scripts in society,” she says. In doing so those portrayals shape expectations around what’s normal when it comes to sex, the body and identity in relation to Māori women. 

For now, there remains some uncertainty around the real-world impact these kinds of depictions have on Māori, explains Kaitai-Mullane. “But we can make assumptions that it’s probably feeding into lots of those negative perceptions,” she says, and points to examples like the likelihood of wāhine Māori being prosecuted for crimes compared to Pākehā, or not being viewed as legitimate child carers.  

As pornography becomes ever more inescapable, there’s a danger that negative narratives will become even more prolific and influential in how people think about sex, and how young people learn to have sex. A research project into young people’s experience and views about pornography in New Zealand found that a quarter of New Zealanders had seen pornography before the age of 12. “Many of them are watching it in order to obtain an understanding of what sex is,” then chief censor David Shanks told RNZ in 2019. “Anyone will tell you that is a terrible outcome because pornography is an awful educator.” Knowing this, Kaitai-Mullane believes education that gives viewers the tools to think critically about the porn they’re watching could be key to disrupting negative outcomes. 

Reindigenising sex and sexuality 

Since the second wave of feminism there has been ongoing debate over whether or not pornography inherently creates and maintains sexual oppression. Kaitai-Mullane believes both sides of the argument make valid points. There is degradation that happens in the majority of pornography, especially for women, trans and non-white people, she says. “But there’s also space for people to be empowered by creating erotic and sexual content if that’s done in a way that’s wāhine Māori lead, other people aren’t profiting off of that, and it’s not aligned with colonial ideology but instead as an expression of tino rangatiratanga.”

But she’s careful to emphasise that none of this responsibility should be placed on individual sex workers who create pornography. “When doing that job you have to be catering to a market and so what really needs to change is the market,” she says. “People need to change their preferences so that they’re not aligning with these colonial, dehumanising ideologies”. 

Reflecting on the damage that moralistic approaches to sexuality have had on te ao Māori since colonisation, there’s a risk of critiques of pornography perpetuating the same type of suppression. So, when it comes to expanding how we think about sex and sexuality, it’s crucial that we look back. “Our history, and our stories are so important in challenging not only the way things are now, but also that period of time after colonisation,” she says. Although the impacts of colonisation have resonated across almost all dimensions of our lives, “reconnecting is a really good way to challenge those narratives”.

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