title: Using the stars to indigenize the public sphere: Matariki over New Zealand

authors: Hardy, Anna

subjects: Arts & Humanities

abstract: As the rate of affiliation to Christian identity continues to decline in Aotearoa New Zealand (only 49 percent of the population said they were Christian in the last census), public space has become more receptive to other forms of religiosity. In particular, community rituals around the winter movements of the Matariki (Pleiades) constellation have gained support since the year 2000. For instance, the capital city, Wellington, has replaced a centuries’ old British fireworks festival, Guy Fawkes, with an enlarged version of its Matariki celebrations: an action seen as a tipping point in the incorporation of Māori spiritual values into public life. Interactions between European colonisers and Māori have been characterised for more than 250 years by tensions between the relational thinking of Māori who see human beings as both participating in and constrained by an environment resonant with divine energies, and the quantitative, hierarchical, ‘Great Chain of Being’ model that had long been dominant among Europeans. Now, when the natural environment worldwide is under strain from population and economic pressures, it seems to some both appropriate and vital to look to epistemological and spiritual models that are intimately responsive to the specificities of location.

text: Using the stars to indigenize the public sphere: Matariki over New Zealand As the rate of affiliation to Christian identity continues to decline in Aotearoa New Zealand (only 49 percent of the population said they were Christian in the last census), public space has become more receptive to other forms of religiosity. In particular, community rituals around the winter movements of the Matariki (Pleiades) constellation have gained support since the year 2000. For instance, the capital city, Wellington, has replaced a centuries’ old British fireworks festival, Guy Fawkes, with an enlarged version of its Matariki celebrations: an action seen as a tipping point in the incorporation of Māori spiritual values into public life. Interactions between European colonisers and Māori have been characterised for more than 250 years by tensions between the relational thinking of Māori who see human beings as both participating in and constrained by an environment resonant with divine energies, and the quantitative, hierarchical, ‘Great Chain of Being’ model that had long been dominant among Europeans. Now, when the natural environment worldwide is under strain from population and economic pressures, it seems to some both appropriate and vital to look to epistemological and spiritual models that are intimately responsive to the specificities of location.

year: 2019

title: Voices of the land: Richard Nunns in conversation with Martin Lodge

authors: Nunns, Richard

abstract: Richard Nunns in conversation with Martin Lodge

text: Voices of the land: Richard Nunns in conversation with Martin Lodge Richard Nunns in conversation with Martin Lodge

year: 2008

title: Motivations for contemporary Tongan migration

authors: Cowling, Wendy E.

subjects: migration

abstract: Migration can be seen as a process in which large numbers of individuals and families begin to write a new history for themselves. The initial act of leaving one's parents, family, neighbourhood, society and culture, and adopting a new life- and work-style is a crucial one. Only a small proportion of people who enter a migration process, or who have participated in major migration movements in the past, have had a clear perception of what they were going to encounter, or the extent to which their lives were going to change. While it is very likely that a large proportion of the individual migrants are the forerunners in a migration which will ultimately involve other members of their kin network, they are not usually able to foresee this at the time.

text: Motivations for contemporary Tongan migration Migration can be seen as a process in which large numbers of individuals and families begin to write a new history for themselves. The initial act of leaving one's parents, family, neighbourhood, society and culture, and adopting a new life- and work-style is a crucial one. Only a small proportion of people who enter a migration process, or who have participated in major migration movements in the past, have had a clear perception of what they were going to encounter, or the extent to which their lives were going to change. While it is very likely that a large proportion of the individual migrants are the forerunners in a migration which will ultimately involve other members of their kin network, they are not usually able to foresee this at the time.

year: 2002