Seminar: Ecotourism and Cultural Tourism
For more details, click to enlarge.
Amelia Fa’otusia, a PhD candidate at Australia National University, is currently in New Zealand undertaking research on whale tourism, as part of a wider comparison with similar ventures in Fiji and Tonga, and has kindly agreed to give a seminar to Te Tumu on “Ecotourism and Cultural Tourism”.
Amelia’s seminar will be in Te Iringa Kōrero (R3S10, 3rd floor of Te Tumu) at 3pm (NZ Time), on Wednesday 24 May.
This will also be available via Zoom. Click here to enter the Zoom Room.
Meeting ID 961 7927 4242
Password 534243
All interested people are most welcome to attend.
Please click on the poster for more information,
Seminar: Leina Isno – Sista, Stanap Strong!
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Leina Isno (ni-Vanuatu) will be presenting the next Te Tumu seminar at 3pm (NZ Time), Wednesday 10 May in Te Iringa Kōrero (3rd floor, Te Tumu). Leina will talk about her contribution to Sista, Stanap Strong!: A Vanuatu Women’s Anthology for which she wrote about her experiences as a ni-Vanuatu woman, living and working in Aotearoa.
Please click on the poster for more information.
This seminar will also be online via Zoom, Click here to join.
Meeting password 932 6337 4957
Password: Malekula.
Seminar contact: Kare Tipa, kare.tipa@otago.ac.nz
All are welcome to attend.
To Hell With Drowning: A Reflection
Māori scholar photographs Cook Islands scholar examining Aboriginal artwork confronting White Australian histories at the Australian National Museum, Canberra, April 2023. [click to enlarge]
This is the final reflection from our PhD students who attended the recent Australia Association for Pacific Studies conference in Canberra, by Stacey Kokaua-Balfour.
As someone who has only recently started their PhD, the recent AAPS conference was my first time attending an academic conference. I have come away with not only new questions but the awareness of new geographic and intellectual contexts that might shape those questions. What resonated most with me as someone who has operated in Pacific spaces in Aotearoa for some time, was the way our nation state and its distinct geo-political interests can shape not only how Pacific region and their peoples are framed but also what are considered the most important priorities for academic research.
AAPS was an opportunity to engage with Indigenous thinkers across cultures, nation state borders, languages, breaking across specific colonial interests in the Pacific. The Welcome to Country led by Aunty Serena Williams (Ngunnawal – Wiradjuri) best articulated the idea that as researchers, our best ideas spring from coming together and sharing the distinct and nuanced ways Indigenous peoples engage with land and each other.
Rethinking Australian Coloniality through Pacific Biography
Wanda Ieremia-Allan provides the second of the reflections from our PhD students who attended the recent AAPS conference in Canberra.
Wanda (right) alongside fellow panel presenters Hineitimoana Greensill and Pauline Reynolds [click to enlarge]
Fleets abound with Pacific scholars, creatives, activists and politicians met at the April 2023 ‘To Hell With Drowning’ Pacific Studies conference at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. As a child of Sapapali’i, Sāoluafata, Safotulafai, Lalomanu, Vaie’e, Matāutu Falealili in Samoa, I extend my Fa’afetai to people of the unceded Ngunnawal and Ngambri lands (Canberra Australia) for their warm welcome and hospitality to country. Thank you also to the Australian Association for Pacific Studies (AAPS) organising committee led by Professor Katerina Teaiwa and Talei Mangioni for their care. Fa’afetai to the AAPS for the Guy Powles travel prize that made it possible for me to attend and I am grateful to my supervisors Dr. Jess Pasisi (Otago), Professor Alice Te Punga Somerville (UBC) and Tootooleaava Dr. Fanaafi Aiono Le-Tagaloa (USP Samoa) for their unwavering support and guidance. Thank you especially to Dr Jess Pasisi for the academic manaakitanga extended to many PhD students.
On a panel with Dr Pauline Reynolds of the Norfolk Island Museum and PhD student Hineitimoana Greensill, I presented my paper on Indigenous Pacific language archives and its role in ‘Rethinking Australian Coloniality through Pacific Biography’. Utilising the intersections between Professor Epeli Hau’ofa’s notion of the ‘totality of relationships’[1] and Māori scholar Professor Alice Te Punga Somerville’s poem ‘Room’[2] provided an opportunity to think about: ancestral links; ideological connections; and spaces of reckoning and recovery.
My paper focussed on Samoan historiography and the kinds of work that are made possible when we centre on Samoan language archives as sites of Indigenous knowledge production and historical recovery. This resulted in the emergence of an intellectual, geographical, linguistic and cultural Pacific expansiveness alongside the rich long standing embodied stories of Pacific connectivity that not only interrogate pervasive Australia white settler colonial histories but demand more institutional university spaces to conduct decolonial work with our languages. Samoan language archives recovered links with fellow kin, in particular South Sea Islanders of Mer Island, Torres Strait Island region where Samoan missionaries and local Mer Island people established the London Missionary Society church named ‘O le Sulu Samoa’ in 1902. Letters from Badu Islands and Vanuatu recovered family histories and brought to light the many ways in which Pacific Islanders see each other and connect over oceans of memory.
Advocating for the use of our own epistemological paradigms in archival engagement is necessary because as matua Tuaopepe Albert Wendt asserts ‘Oceania deserves more than an attempt at mundane fact; only the imagination in free flight can hope, if not to contain her, to grasp some of her shape, plumage and pain’[3]. This is the wero (challenge) set for us all.
[1] Hau’Ofa, E. (1994). Our sea of islands. The Contemporary Pacific, 148-161.
[2] https://nzpoetryshelf.com/2021/05/24/poetry-shelf-noticeboard-alice-te-punga-somervilles-room/
[3] Wendt, Albert, 1982. Towards a New Oceania. In: G. Amirthanayagam. (eds) Writers in East-West Encounter: New Cultural Bearings. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 202-215.
Reflections on ‘To Hell With Drowning’ AAPS Conference 2023
With fellow Māori scholars (L-R): Sam Iti Prendergast, Alice Te Punga Somerville, Marama Salsano, Innez Haua, Karamea, Jo Maarama Kāmira
The following is a reflective piece from Karamea Moana Wright, one of Te Tumu’s PhD candidates in Pacific Islands Studies.
The first Australia Association for Pacific Studies’ conference I participated in was held primarily online in 2021, with separate hubs in Aotearoa and Australia. Because we were in groups on our own campuses, I don’t think I fully understood the magnitude or value of the conference and the association itself until this month, when I attended for the first time in person.
The four days in Canberra at the Australian National University were packed with phenomenal panels, plenaries, roundtables, and whakawhanaungatanga with incredible Pacific thinkers, researchers, artists, leaders, and poets influential in our region and discipline.
This conference opened my eyes in greater measure to salient contemporary conversations taking place in the field, how my own research sits within the broader landscape of Māori, Pacific, and Indigenous Studies, and to see what is possible in my work moving forward. The AAPS conference has left me hopeful, motivated, refreshed, rejuvenated, and encouraged, underscoring the necessity to return for the next AAPS conference in 2023, held in Sydney.
Wonderful achievement for Te Tumu PhD candidate
PhD Candidate Wanda Ieremia-Allan at the Tagaloa Scholarship Awards [Ministry of Education].
Otago’s Bulletin Board wrote a great article on Wanda’s achievement and the background of her interest in this newspaper. Click here to read more.
Te Tumu Seminar: transcending low levels of literacy and numeracy for Pacific people.
Maulupeivao Dr Betty Ofe-Grant
Maulupeivao Dr Betty Ofe-Grant is a lecturer from Auckland University of Technology Business School, researching Pacific peoples’ issues in labour migration, careers, glass ceilings, diversity, gender, intersectionality, literacy and numeracy and work. She is also the acting Vice President for the National Council of Women, New Zealand, and a matai (Samoan chief).
Password: 959841
Pacific people in New Zealand are among the most disadvantaged ethnic groups who over-represent the adult working-age population with low literacy and numeracy skills. Individuals with low literacy and numeracy tend to experience higher levels of marginalisation, vulnerability, cycles of poverty and significant risks of poor health and well-being.
Success for Te Tumu Postgrad
On Wednesday evening, 22nd February, one of our fabulous doctoral candidates, Wanda Ieremia-Allan, was awarded the Tagaloa Scholarship prize. In its second year of running, the Tagaloa Scholarship is awarded to four Pacific masters and doctoral students who are able to “demonstrate that their studies aim improve the social, economic and wellbeing of [the] Pacific, through a Pacific holistic worldview”. Wanda, who recently transferred to Te Tumu from Waikato, is in her final year of doctoral research in Pacific Studies. She is completing cutting-edge research on the impact of Sāmoan missionary newspaper O Le Sulu Samoa and its far-reaching impacts throughout the Pacific. Wanda is being supervised by University of British Columbia Professor Alice Te Punga Somerville, Otago alumni and current Director of USP’s Samoa Campus, To’oto’oleaava Dr. Fanaafi Aiono-Le Tagaloa, and Dr Jess Pasisi here in Te Tumu.
Fast-Start Marsden on Niuean Texts
Fakaalofa lahi atu!
Congratulations to Dr Jess Pasisi on being awarded a FastStart Marsden grant worth $360,000, entitled “Mapping Niue texts in and beyond Aotearoa: Expanding on New Zealand Realm connections to Niue through archival texts.” Jess (Niuean (Mutalau, Hikutavake), Pākehā, Ngāti Pikiao, and Tahitian) is Te Tumu’s most recent academic hire and is based in our Pacific Islands Studies programme, and is already a promising researcher, having been awarded a Pacific Health Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Health Research Council to investigate Niuean happiness.
Jess Pasisi (L) and Cora-Allan Lafaiki Twiss at the Auckland Museum exhibition launch of “Archives of Emotion” in 2021, with their piece ‘Ko e Higoa Haaku ko Hiapo’. Photo courtesy of Auckland Museum.
Jess started putting the Mapping Niue texts project together while still based at the University of Waikato, with Professor Alice Te Punga Somerville as Associate Investigator. Professor Somerville has also moved, and is now at the University of British Columbia. She is well versed in literary projects, and Jess worked as a researcher with her in the “Writing the New World” project.
Jess’s Marsden project will be uncovering and analysing Niuean texts – with the meaning of “texts” interpreted quite broadly, comprising publications, manuscripts and other tāoga – with the aim of making these more available to Niuean people in Aotearoa New Zealand, Niue, and beyond. This also involves collaborating with Niuean communities, including cross-disciplinary work with tufuga (experts, practitioners), and encouraging Niuean people to engage with their local archives.
Research outputs include a book based on the project’s research, and the creation of a dataset of Niuean texts which will be invaluable to the wider Niuean community, as well as incoming researchers. Jess is planning three workshops as part of the project, one at Otago, one in Niue, and one at an international venue. Aligning with the aims of Marsden Fund to help develop future scholars, the project will also fund a Masters thesis scholarship, as well as some undergraduate summer scholarships.
We wish Jess well with her exciting new research project, and for a long productive career in academia.
Please also check out the Marsden Fund article for more details on Jess’s research.
Image information. Jess Pasisi wrote the poem for ‘Ko e Higoa Haaku ko Hiapo’ and Cora-Allan Lafaiki Twiss, a tagata Niue artist and practitioner, made it into an art piece that was purchased by the Auckland Museum. To read the poem, see images of the artwork, and more information, click here.
Te Tumu’s UORG success
Three Te Tumu staff, Pai Taani, Dr Telesia Kalavite and Associate Professor Karyn Paringatai, have been awarded University of Otago Research Grants (UORGs) that will allow them to undertake or further research projects.
Paia Taani (Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Whare, Te Ūpokorehe, Ngāti Uenukukōpako)
The title of Paia Taani’s research project is “I ahatia taku reo Māori? Tracking intergenerational transmission of te reo Māori within whānau”. She says, “my own experiences of learning te reo Māori as a second language and raising my own children with the language sparked my interest to investigate what happened to my language. This research project will therefore investigate the intergenerational transmission of te reo Māori within my whānau.”
Paia’s aim is to is to contribute to the existing research and literature about the use of te reo Māori within the context of whānau. Her research includes analysing whānau narratives to examine the historical intergenerational transmission of te reo Māori and will highlight critical moments within these narratives to explore the factors which affected language transmission within her whānau. The key themes emerging from these accounts will inform future language pathways for her whānau, and may also be used to generate recommendations to offer other whānau who may be seeking to reclaim their language.
The University of Otago Research Grant will help fund travel to the North Island to undertake hui and kōrero with participants, and will also fund a research assistant to undertake transcription work.
Paia expects that she will publish at least two journal articles from her research project, and she will one conference presentation. Another expected output of this research project is a hui with her participants where she will disseminate her findings and discuss ways to move forward with future research and support for whānau wanting to reclaim their language.
Telesia Kalavite (Nukuleka, Tonga)
Telesia Kalavite’s research project explores “The implications of changing cultural practices in Tongan wedding celebrations in New Zealand”, and how these changes impact on Tongan people’s lives in New Zealand. This project has national and international significance in understanding the development of Tongan culture and identity in the diaspora as well as the myriad cultural, social, economic, political and environmental impacts that are encompassed in Tongan wedding celebrations. It will identify and map out traditional cultural practices in Tongan weddings over time and space. This will provide a context in which to explore contemporary factors affecting Tongan wedding practices in Aotearoa.
Telesia sees this as a pilot study for a larger project in the future on how Tongan celebrations impact on Tongan people’s socio-cultural and economic development in Aotearoa New Zealand. She says “I am a Tongan researcher, and it is very important that to get this kind of research righ; there should be people with clear expertise and connection to it, like myself.”
Karyn Paringatai (Ngāti Porou)
Karyn Paringatai is collaborating with Marcelle Wharerau, formerly a Te Tumu student and staff member who is now an academic based at the Tauranga campus of Te Pua Wānanga ki te Ao – Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies, University of Waikato. Their project is titled “Te Aho Tāngaengae: Māmā, Wahine, Māori, Academic”. Socio-economic stability through intergenerational mobility is a priority of whānau Māori; ensuring that future generations have full access to a range of resources that enhances intergenerational whānau wellbeing. Income, education and occupation feature predominantly in intergenerational mobility studies as primary indicators of social and economic status. However, this focus is too narrow and neglects the importance of also embedding cultural stability and responsibility. Whilst socio-economic stability and upward mobility is a priority of Māori, equally important is the intergenerational transmission of te reo Māori and tikanga Māori.
Colonisation has had profound negative effects on all aspects of te ao Māori, including maintaining intergenerational responsibilities for protecting and enhancing the mana of whānau, hapū and iwi. In this unique research, Karyn and Marcelle aim to show how the reestablishment of this intergenerational responsibility to contribute to the decolonisation of te ao Māori must be a deliberate priority and why it is of urgency to do so.
Te Aho Tāngaengae gives voice to the narratives of wāhine Māori academics who are first in family to complete higher education/university and the mechanisms they employ in the intergenerational transmission of cultural capital. Increasing the capacity, and linguistic and cultural capabilities of Māori across generations who can tangibly contribute to improving the social, economic and political wellbeing of te ao Māori must be a priority. This research is important to reveal new insights into the methods used that have the potential to accelerate transformative change within whānau for generations to come.
