By Manaia Barns (Ngāti Tūwharetoa ki Kawerau, Te Arawa Whānui)
Being a tauira Māori at Te Herenga Waka can be challenging; new systems and old preconceptions make the transition to university difficult for some rangatahi Māori. Despite this, whānaungatanga prospers. Across the university, in the marae, at study wā and through its many kaupapa, the Māori student body has formed a community, a whānau. These connections provide strength, comfort and support (both academic and material) for these students, and make the university experience a much more positive one. Organisations like Ngāi Tauira, Ngā Rangahautira, and Ngā Tāura Umanga provide vehicles for these communities and ensure all Māori students have the peer support they need, sometimes even specific to them, but one campus feels lacking in these communities.
Te Aro campus, situated past Cuba Street, is home to the Faculties of Architecture and Design Innovation, and here it can be harder for tauira Māori to connect with the broader Māori student body, because of its distance from the other campuses. That’s not to say community is non-existent, plenty of Māori have Māori friends, but to even just exist as Māori at Te Aro can be different to Kelburn or Pipitea Campus. This is reflected in the previously mentioned Māori student organisations, NT, NR & NTU. The existence of these associations could be said to stem from the prestige placed on Commerce and Law in the Māori world. For Māori, becoming a successful lawyer or businessperson was a direct way to effect positive change, and was a direct response to the material and legal suppression of Māori throughout colonisation. As a result, today, rangatahi commonly aim to become lawyers and entrepreneurs to affect change for their whānau, hapū and iwi. So much so that the importance of design, architecture and engineering in Te Ao Māori can be left out of focus.
Undoubtedly, Te Ao Māori has a long, rich history full of architecture, engineering and design. It was these very things that allowed us to not only survive but thrive in these lands and were handed down to us by our ancestors in the Pacific. Pātaka, wharenui, waka, whakairo, toki; all of these were integral to our culture and have a keen importance in our world. Today, organisations like Ngā Aho, and the many individual brillant Māori architects and designers throughout time, have had a huge impact on the country. Nevertheless, our cities and towns, our schools and hospitals, our tools and belongings - all of these shape the way we interact with the world. It's for this reason that having a Māori perspective in their design is so important.
The concepts we carry with us, manaakitanga, whānaungatanga, kaitiakitanga, all the things our aunties pounded into our brains, are the key to the future of the country. Because of the effect of Māori lawyers and businesspeople, we see efforts to incorporate tikanga into their respective world, and, as our world changes; our cities, towns, and belongings should change with them. Sustainability, equity, accessibility, justice; these pursuits are just as important to instill into our buildings as they are into our laws.
With this kaupapa in mind, the idea sprouted to found an organisation to do its part in encouraging our rangatahi to take part in this work. Te Paepaeroa, the Māori Architecture and Design Student Association, with the support of Ngāi Tauira, is beginning this year. Our aim is supporting our Tauira Māori on Te Aro campus, to engage with our built environment and our design ecosystem to ensure that whakaaro Māori are heard in every hall, lecture theatre and studio within our university, and the world beyond.
Nā tō rourou, nā taku rourou ka ora ai te iwi
With your food basket and mine, the people will thrive