Reflections: Te Kura Unua 2006

Paper presented at Te Kura Unua. Te Kura Unua is an annual research exchange hui, which brings together staff and post-graduate students from Te Tumu and Te Kawa a Māui, School of Māori Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, in an effort to share the research interest of both schools and develop collaborative research relationships between the two schools. Te Kura Unua began in 2004 and is hosted alternately every year by each school.These reflections are mere fragments of words and phrases that caught my attention listening to the wānanga (seminar) that has been going on over the last three or four days. These kōrerorero (discussions) are themselves only part of a longer and larger conversation that has been going on for generations and will do so long after any of us are alive. We each have contributed our own portion to it and by so doing have strengthened it, and influenced it in some way. One speaker quoted that valuable proverb: Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi (Your food basket, and my food basket, ensure the survival of the people). I think this is true of our collective work here this week.UnpublishedFALSEHau`ofa, Epeli, 2000. Epilogue: Pasts to remember. In R. Borofsky (ed.), Remembrance of Pacific Pasts: An Invitation to Remake History. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, pp. 453-71. Hereniko, Vilsoni, 2000. Indigenous knowledge and academic imperialism. In R. Borofsky (ed.), Remembrance of Pacific Pasts: An Invitation to Remake History. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, pp. 78-91. Mead, Sidney Moko, 1997. Landmarks, Bridges and Visions: Aspects of Maori Culture. Wellington: Victoria University Press