Issue 88 - Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu

Road to Recovery – a hard fought battle for mana whenua

The serene coastal landscape, and the smoothness of the new road, gives no indication of the struggle faced by Te Rūnanga o Kaikōura as once again they fought to defend their whenua, and their tīpuna buried beneath it. Kaituhi Tamara Bisseker reports.

Missing Connections: how closed adoptions created generations of ‘ghosts’ within our whakapapa

Dr Erica Newman has been awarded the Marsden Fast Start Grant to further her research into transracial adoption in Aotearoa. Over the next three years she will gather accounts and experiences of Māori adoptees and their descendants and document their efforts to connect to their taha Māori. Crucial to her work is understanding how hapū and iwi currently support adoptees and their uri on their whakapapa journey, and in what ways her own experience as the daughter of a Māori adoptee might assist in the future shaping of those processes.

A New Chapter

Officially opened by the Minister of Māori Development, Willie Jackson on May 12, the apartments are the realisation of a 10-year dream for Rehua whānau, and for Willie Jackson they act as an exemplar of what the government is trying to achieve in terms of new papakāinga housing developments.

Indigenising psychotherapy

Verity Armstrong (kāi tahu, kāti māmoe – ōraka aparima) rolls up her sleeve. We are chatting through computer screens, but I lean in instinctively as she turns her arm to show me the detail and design of her tā moko. “Was it painful?” I ask. The irony of her response was not lost on the psychotherapist who makes a living encouraging people to talk: “The actual tattoo felt like it happened in a second. The hardest part was the talking.”