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Image: Getty Images/Archi Banal
Image: Getty Images/Archi Banal

OPINIONĀteaMarch 17, 2022

A case for ‘anti-racism’ over ‘diversity’

Image: Getty Images/Archi Banal
Image: Getty Images/Archi Banal

Diluting the vocabulary we use to describe racism dilutes the potency of the problem, writes Eridani Baker.

Yanaguana, the river in San Antonio, Texas, and Eridani, the river constellation, feature in the book Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education. The two rivers, earthly and celestial, meet to make a bridge tīpuna used to travel between worlds, a path for ancestral knowledge. Kia ora, ko Kāi Tahu ahau, ko Eridani tōku ingoa. I was named after the river of stars. It’s a big name to live up to. The last name I use is Baker – it’s my dad’s adopted father’s name. He was an Anglican lay minister. Ko Hakiri tōku ingoa whānau, it means someone who speaks the truth so that the listener feels it. Whakarongo mai, my tīpuna have something to say.  

Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, one of the book’s authors, is a speaker at Te Tiriti Based Futures and Anti-Racism 2022, an online event put on by a coalition of 36 organisations. The word “anti-racism” has intentionally been used in the event’s title, rather than “diversity”. Why did we do this? Because the word “diversity” can obscure the issue, allowing the problem to continue. 

Naming something does not bring that thing into effect. AUT’s “Māori and Pacific Early Career Academic Programme” candidate information pack notes that AUT “aspires to be the university of choice for Māori and Pacific communities”. But just because a diversity policy exists, doesn’t mean diversity practice automatically follows. Claiming my “Māori-ness” at the university was greeted by some as a challenge to the authority of the dominant culture within the institution. It feels like a political act. I’ve given up worrying that I’ll be seen as precocious when I email lecturers some variation of “aroha mai, but you’ve left te ao Māori out of this week’s reading material, here is something that might be useful”. You can be Māori within the academy, but it’s extracurricular. 

The effort to challenge the status quo is wearying and often leaves me feeling threadbare, but it’s not optional. A tangi spilled out of me when my best school pal suggested I “take a day off from being Māori at uni”. Her willfully ignorant suggestion was the product of a society that wants to sweep away the Indigenous experience, a society that is racist. I am Māori, it’s not optional. Diversity policies have their whakapapa in the institutions “failure to be equitable” but they are then used as evidence of practice, while racism can still remain. 

The popularity of the term “diversity” has meant that terms like “anti-racism” recede from use. Diluting the vocabulary dilutes the potency of the problem. In Aotearoa, when words like anti-racism disappear from policy, the history of the genocidal treatment of Māori is obscured. We are mana whenua and we will not disappear. 

Hearing Pākehā debate Te Tiriti can be triggering. During a Zoom lecture, a Pākehā student commented that my “anger” at seeing Te Tiriti ignored put her off trying to understand her obligation to it. When she labelled me as “just another angry Māori woman”, my private messages filled with offerings of support. But my friends, self-identified “allies”, stayed silent. That was a really bad day. I remember looking at their little Zoom squares and realising that they weren’t going to help. Weeks later one of them apologised for being “a chicken and a coward”. She didn’t speak up because she felt like she had too much to lose. She has the privilege of being at home in an institution that enables some to be; others not.

We won’t end inequity if “diversity work” is only done by minorities. To enact change, we all have to have the guts and reflective function to see racism as racism and call it out. That is why we need communities of learning like Te Tiriti Based Futures and Anti-Racism 2022.

I’m working on this event because of Heather Came, who is Pākehā. She begins her lectures by projecting an image of her ancestors, names them as colonisers, apologises for the trauma they inflicted on tangata whenua, and commits to “paying back rent and upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi”. She is doing the work. She initiated this event and persuaded others to join her. Ka whawhai tonu mātou mō te āke, āke, āke! I wanted to be on the team.

Te Tiriti Based Futures and Anti-Racism 2022 runs across 10 days featuring 38 webinars, and is designed to provide practical tools to advance anti-racism. Professor Tim McCreanor, professor Dominic O’Sullivan, associate professor Heather Came and associate professor Jacquie Kidd will present their Critical Tiriti Analysis. This new tool has been utilised by activists, policy-makers, scholars and Crown agencies to inform the development of actionable policy. Their tool includes evaluation and planning strategies that ensure policies don’t sit dormant. It is simple to use and at its heart is a tool for advancing racial justice. 

A Kāi Tahu whakatauki says: Mō tātou, ā, mō kā uri ā muri ake nei – for us and our children after us. My great nannie Hakiri knew I would exist. She fought for our whenua in the land courts, and publicly for the retention of mātauranga wāhine. The fight to uphold Te Tiriti can feel like a fight for life, but I’m not here alone. 

University can feel like an unwelcome utilitarian place to be Māori. It’s an inherently colonial institution. Even if no one at the university is racist, any colonial institution is still embedded with racism and white privilege. I’ve seen te ao Māori slides, tacked to the end of presentations and then skipped over entirely, by professors who have built their careers on “diversity”. 

Witnessing your worldview treated as an afterthought makes you feel like an afterthought. I cried and held hands with the only other tauira Māori in my cohort as Te Tiriti was discussed and comments like “it was so long ago, can’t they get over it” were made. The institution is racist, but naming it doesn’t change it, action will. Anti-racism is a verb, it requires you to do something, that is what we are doing with Te Tiriti-Based Futures and Anti-Racism 2022. 

In the foreword to Ngā Kete Mātauranga, Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith writes about how “power, energy and diversity…can be brought into the world by Māori scholars”. I want more mātauranga everywhere, we must remove the hazy veil of perceived incompatibility between Indigenous knowledge and the presumed superiority of ‘scientific’ knowledge. I want Te Tiriti to be upheld. We should be a priority, not an afterthought.

Heather Came calls herself an activist scholar, that’s me too. I am fighting for racial justice. It can feel like a futile effort that scratches only the surface. There is hope when you look to your side and see that you are part of a collective. The speakers at our event are experts in dismantling the master’s house. He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tāngata he tāngata he tāngata! 

You can register for the event here. Nau mai, haere mai, we’d love to have you.

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Te Whānau a Hunaara on the East Cape at their recent cultural mapping wānanga (Photo: Supplied; additional design The Spinoff)
Te Whānau a Hunaara on the East Cape at their recent cultural mapping wānanga (Photo: Supplied; additional design The Spinoff)

ĀteaMarch 17, 2022

Preserving old pā sites with new technology on the East Cape

Te Whānau a Hunaara on the East Cape at their recent cultural mapping wānanga (Photo: Supplied; additional design The Spinoff)
Te Whānau a Hunaara on the East Cape at their recent cultural mapping wānanga (Photo: Supplied; additional design The Spinoff)

An East Cape hapū is using intergenerational knowledge, coupled with laser sensor technology, to preserve sites of significance.

The physical remnants of many wāhi tapu across the motu don’t tell the story of what that land once was. To the unknowing eye, these sites of significance can look like any other mound, hollow or ditch. 

It is the oral history connected to these places that tells the full story. Te Whānau a Hunaara, a hapū on the East Cape, is keeping that history alive by culturally mapping its whenua. They are not only documenting these places of significance digitally but sharing the oral history through the project Ngā Tapuwae. 

Orchestrated by hapū members Michelle Wanoa and Hal Hovell, with support from Pouhere Taonga archaeologists Pam Bain and Danielle Trilford, the project is aimed at ensuring local mātauranga, kōrero, whakapapa, tikanga and kawa are preserved. The hapū received funding earlier this year from the Pouhere Taonga Heritage New Zealand fund, Mātauranga – Ngā Riu o Ngā Tīpuna, designed to support whānau to capture local cultural history. 

The project includes a series of wānanga with whānau, exploring and mapping sites of significance, with the second wānanga held this past weekend. These wānanga are an opportunity for whānau to access and experience the whenua, while hearing kōrero tuku iho from pakeke and knowledge holders.

Te Whānau a Hunaara project co-ordinator Latasha Wanoa says the goal is intergenerational knowledge transmission. 

 “We acknowledge that our pakeke hold deeper knowledge and connection with our whenua and our tīpuna, so we are on a mission to ensure that this knowledge is captured, digitised and available to our mokopuna.”

The project draws on the te whare tapa whā health model, nourishing all aspects of health through connection to land.

“A firm sense of belonging contributes to the holistic wellbeing and nurturing of an individual, or even the mauri of a whānau,” Wanoa says. 

The hapū is engaging in practices of karakia to ensure spiritual and physical safety, and learning new karakia related to the mahi they’re carrying out. These practices ensure the taha wairua, one of the cornerstones of the te whare tapa whā model, is being looked after.

“Walking the land and learning those historical narratives facilitates a deeper spiritual connection,” Wanoa says. 

In terms of taha hinengaro and taha whānau, two of the other cornerstones of te whare tapa whā, Wanoa says learning about the ways in which their ancestors lived on the land through the mapping techniques and sharing of history contributes to the wellbeing of the hapū. 

“We are able to get a vivid picture of who they were and how they walked the land. When we walk in their footsteps, it reaffirms our identity and our deep spiritual connection, it boosts our own mauri knowing our whakapapa.” 

Project lead Michelle Wanoa says having the right tikanga in place can change the way people experience the whenua, and interact with it.

“One of our archaeologists spoke about a previous experience they had, where they had visited wāhi tapu and the hairs on their neck stood up, saying they would never return to those sites. 

“We make sure that they feel comfortable, and use tikanga such as karakia in a way where they are welcomed onto the whenua,” she says. 

Intersection of mātauranga Māori and western technology

Light detection and ranging, or LiDAR technology, is a technology using laser sensors mounted on aircraft, such as drones, to capture a 3D view of the land. The remote sensing method uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure variable distances to the Earth. It can also be used to make digital 3D representations of areas on the Earth’s surface and ocean bottom.

Baseline mapping and LiDAR technology, combined with traditional knowledge of pakeke, have been used to map two pā sites so far, with more sites of significance planned for the future. 

And through this, Te Whānau a Hunaara is already getting a better understanding of features particular to its traditional pā sites, and those of Ngāti Porou whānui. 

Traditionally, many hapū of Ngāti Porou used raised kūmara beds to protect kai and pātaka kai from heavy rainfall. The pits featured raised outer edges and drainage systems that funnelled water away from where kūmara was being stored. This was a method particular to Ngāti Porou, where in other areas it was more common for iwi to use sheltered kūmara beds.

The 3D views of these wāhi tapu help visualise these traditional techniques of Ngāti Porou, supplementing the living oral history held by pakeke. 

Of course, whenever you bring western technology into the picture, there’s the question of who then owns that data. For Ngā Tapuwae, some of the sites are on privately owned Māori land. The raw footage for those particular sites is returned to the land owners or trust, who retain the intellectual property. 

“They will be the kaitiaki of that raw footage. If anyone wants to know about that site, they can go back to that particular whānau, and it’s up to them,” Michelle Wanoa says. 

For sites that sit within the marae, that information will be held by the marae.  In addition to LiDAR technology, high-resolution photographs and drone footage of the sites and their setting in the landscape are being captured. 

The pā sites

The first pā site to be mapped was Rangitāne Pā, located behind Mātahi o te Tau Marae. It is the traditional pā site of the rangatira Hunaara, who was known for being a tohunga in cultivation and a deadly warrior, and from whom the hapū ,Te Whānau a Hunaara, derives its name.

The second workshop held recently mapped Matarēhua Pā, located at Rangiata in the Te Whānau a Tarahauiti rohe. Matarēhua Pā was the pā site of Tarahauiti, the youngest son of Hunaara.

“History doesn’t stop with the Māori land court minute books. Fifty years from now we have to continue that history. This cultural mapping becomes part of that history,” Wanoa says. 

“For so long it’s been oral, but now we can document, like the Māori land courts [and] our mokopuna will have those records.”

Te Whānau a Hunaara and Te Whānau a Tarahauiti first started their mapping journey with both pā in 2009, through weekend wānanga at Mātahi o te Tau Marae. Sadly, since then, many of those knowledge holders who generously shared their kōrero with whānau have passed away.

“These people led the way and allowed us to follow in their footsteps through their passion and love for the knowledge and wellbeing of our hapū,” Wanoa says.

Building rangatahi capacity to hold this knowledge

Not limited to the East Cape alone, there is potential for both cultural storytelling and archaeological mapping practices to be implanted in the education system throughout Te Tairāwhiti. 

“We’re aware that localised curricula have now become a large part of the internal learning structures of the kura, specifically kura here on the East Coast. We want this to be part of that,” Wanoa says. 

There are three rangatahi, aged 14 to 20, who are being supported through the project. 

After graduating with a degree in Māori and Indigenous Studies from Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato, Hinemaia Dewes is considering graduate research in archaeology. 

“This opportunity has allowed me to work alongside some of the coolest archaeologists in the motu, who have taught me much about mapping and identifying archeological features in our whenua that we would normally dismiss as a ditch, a deep hole or a weird rock,” she says. 

“They have also taught me a lot about the importance of weaving together the archaeological knowledge and mātauranga Māori, to create a rich tapestry of history.”

Te Whānau a Hunaara hope that in time, the framework and methodology initiated and refined during the Ngā Tapuwae project will be utilised throughout Aotearoa.


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