Journal article

The beauty of te ao Māori is the pragmatic fluidity of many of our concepts. Generally employed to explain our genealogical links and connections to land, whakapapa can also be applied within the context of rangahau to organise, structure, analyse and understand information, experiences and relationships. This article introduces Te Waka Pounamu, a whakapapa-based framework developed as a methodological research model for my doctoral studies. Included in the whakapapa framework is a tikanga Māori model I have named Te Tuamaka.

Maori children are uplifted by the New Zealand government at disproportionate rates compared with tauiwi children. The removal of tamariki from culturally embedded networks exacerbates intergenerational trauma created by colonisation. Placements into unsafe contexts mean that additional instances of harm and cumulative trauma are common, and tamaiti atawhai are not positioned within fullness of their cultural being. This article draws on a broader Kaupapa Māori project involving semistructured interviews with kaiāwhina Māori across the North Island.