Tō Mātou Kāinga team publishes new article on Māori narratives of home and place - Belonging to the Land: Indigenous Māori Narratives of Home and Place.
The Kāinga team has published a new article titled Belonging to the Land: Indigenous Māori Narratives of Home and Place in the peer-reviewed journal Folk, Knowledge, Place. This insightful article explores the ancestral, spiritual, physical, and geographic connections that Māori maintain with the land. Central to the article is the concept of land being foundational to identity, as it establishes ties to iwi, hapū, and whānau.
Folk, Knowledge, Place is an open-access, transdisciplinary journal at the intersection of folklore studies and human geography. It seeks to disrupt hierarchical power dynamics in knowledge systems, emphasising the plurality of ways in which place is lived, embodied, and theorised.
The ‘Belonging to the Land’ article highlights the challenges posed by colonial land ownership systems, which have alienated Māori from their whenua. Despite this, Māori continue to resist colonising narratives that equate land with economic wealth and power, instead asserting the land as a space of identity, belonging, and self-determination.
Drawing on interviews from the Kāinga project, the article examines how Māori navigate home and place across urban and rural contexts. It explores how these experiences negotiate the tensions of colonisation while fostering strong cultural identities and meaningful connections to place. The article emphasises that Māori enact dynamic and culturally grounded conceptions of home, emphasising relationality and resilience in diverse environments.
The article was co-authored by Kāinga researchers Cinnamon Lindsay-Latimer and Tanya Allport, who recently presented related findings at the Folk, Knowledge, Place Annual Conference in Singapore. The conference, held from December 9–12, 2024, centred on themes of place-based knowledge, cultural attachments, and the politics of land and identity.
This publication marks an important contribution to understanding Indigenous conceptions of home, highlighting the resilience of Māori perspectives in the face of ongoing colonial challenges. It underscores the enduring connections between people, place, and identity, offering critical insights into the cultural and political dimensions of belonging.
For more information, the article is available online via Folk, Knowledge, Place: https://doi.org/10.24043/001c.125729
