The second issue of MAI Journal for 2015 - Volume 4, Issue 2 - is now available online. This is a general issue which contains six articles and one book review that engage with various themes including pōwhiri and ethnic performativity, indigeneity and external citizenship rights, diabetes prevention, early childhood education, Māori adolescent identity formation and Māori models of health and well-being.
The lead article by Georgina Stewart, Karaitiana Tamatea and Carl Mika titled “Infinitely welcome: Education pōwhiri and ethnic performativity” discusses issues related to participating in and performing Māori culture within non-Māori settings. The paper explores the possible meanings and implications of holding pōwhiri as part of education events, using a research approach that integrates narrative research and autoethnography with Kaupapa Māori scholarship in educational research.
The contribution by Kiri West-McGruer and Louise Humpage titled “Indigenous ‘stakeholders’? Theorising external citizenship rights for Māori in Australia” draws the concept of “stakeholdership” in order to provide a theoretical framework for the extension of political rights to “external citizens” who live outside the territorial boundaries of the polity of which they are members. The article offers an original contribution to political theory by drawing together both the indigenous rights and the external citizenship literatures to analyse the specific case of expatriate Māori living in Australia.
The article by Margaret H. Williams, Elaine Rush, Nic Crook and David Simmonstitled “Perceptions of Te Rongoā kākāriki: Green Prescription health service among Māori in the Waikato and Ngāti Tūwharetoa rohe” focuses on the rates of Māori participation in national diabetes prevention programmes. The paper finds that Māori cultural approaches, such as whanaungatanga through kanohi-ki-te-kanohi contact in the Te Wai o Rona: DPS GRx programme, may result in enhanced and increased physical activity and healthy food consumption for Māori identified as most at risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus.
The article by Lesley Rameka and Ali Glasgow titled “A Māori and Pacific lens on infant and toddler provision in early childhood education” presents the findings from a 2014 nationwide online survey conducted with Māori and Pacific teachers working in Māori and Pacific early childhood services and language nests. The paper emphasizes that key to educational success for Māori and Pasifika children is the acknowledgement that they are culturally located and the recognition that effective education must embrace culture.
The article authored by Ella Myftari, titled “’Education’s not going to get you pregnant’: Narrating life’s low points, turning points and high points for Māori adolescent well-being” presents the critical life event narratives of twelve Māori adolescents aged between 12 and 20 years. The study highlights common themes including peer relationships, reflecting on the past for self-understanding, overcoming adversity through achievement and connecting with a wider whānau network.
The final article by Sharyn Heaton, titled “Rebuilding a ‘whare’ body of knowledge to inform ‘a’ Māori perspective of health” which explores and expands the discourse around the whare tapa whā which has been depicted in New Zealand curricula and in educational literature as a contemporary Māori model of health, as a Māori perspective of health, as a Māori philosophy of hauora and as a four-sided meeting house.
The issue closes with a book review of M.P.K. Sorrenson’s “Ko te whenua te utu—Land is the price: Essays on Māori history, land and politics” by Dayle Takitimu.