Public aspirations for a decolonised Porirua

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-09-11 03:00

New Zealand

Image by Aidan Wojtas via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Researchers from Te Herenga Waka have analysed 40 submissions from the Imagining Decolonised Citiies competition, which asked Ngāti Toa Rangatira to present a utopic vision of a decolonised Porirua. Food security was a consistent theme, with many participants proposing community gardens and seafood harvesting stations as a means to enhance manaakitanga through the sharing of kai, cultivate connections to the environment, and affirm cultural identity and whanaungatanga through the transmission of ancestral knowledge. Other submissions focused on embedding stories in the landscape via public art and walkways, as well as the reclamation of Ngāti Toa place names. Authors of the study say the ideas could become real flax roots projects that provide space for Māori to be Māori, and a point for communities to drive larger decolonising initiatives.

Media release

From: Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga

In 2017, the Imagining Decolonised Cities (IDC) competition sought submissions for the public’s visions of a decolonised Porirua. This article presents an analysis of the 40 entries, exploring how participants understand decolonisation enacted in an urban setting. We identified two overarching themes from the submissions that can be linked to wider theories of decolonisation. The first theme identified was food security, demonstrated through participant designs of community gardens, seafood harvesting stations, and larger food transportation systems. The second theme identified was “re-storytelling”, a centring of Māori identities and stories.

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Research Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, Web page

Journal/
conference: MAI Journal

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Victoria University of Wellington

Funder: The authors acknowledge funders that supported this work: Ngāti Toa Rangatira, the New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO, Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and BioHeritage residual funding.

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