Date/Time
Date(s) - Mon 4 May
10:00 - 11:30
Location
KK301, Kirk Building, VUW
You’re invited to a public seminar hosted by Pūtaiao ki te Pāpori—School of Science in Society, titled “Kūaka and the cryosphere—building intimacy with the Arctic.”
The Whanganui Kūaka Collective is an Indigenous-community-led advocacy and research programme that has brought attention to the connections of the Whanganui River and its people to the Arctic through the annual migration of Kūaka.
Abstract
The Whanganui Kūaka Collective is an Indigenous-community-led advocacy and research programme that has brought attention to the connections of the Whanganui River and its people to the Arctic through the annual migration of Kūaka.
While the Whanganui Kūaka population is small, the connection to the Arctic has been enlivened in their imaginations through intimate relationships with one particular manu (bird), AJD. AJD has returned annually from the Alaskan Arctic to the Whanganui River estuary each year since at least 2008, forming an indelible link with and between places and their peoples. By activating the story of AJD in Whanganui and around the world, the team have forged global collaborations through careful processes of whakawhanaungatanga and deepened our community’s focus and engagement on local and global biodiversity conservation and climate action. These relational processes are the foundation through which they enliven visual and oratory knowledge practices inherent to te ao Māori (the Māori world), blending them with science and technology in ways that challenge dualist framings of science vs Indigenous knowledge.
While their many and varied research outputs are locally grounded and purposeful, they challenge the primacy of natural sciences in setting local and global agendas and aim to contribute to a richer discourse about the role of Indigenous epistemologies in forging global futures that lead us out of the Anthropocene.
Speakers
The speakers include Cecelia Kumeroa (Te Whare o Rehua—Sarjeant Gallery), Tania Te Huna (Whanganui Kūaka Collective), Estelle Thomson (Native Village of Paimiut Traditional Council), and Dr Billy van Uitregt (Te Herenga Waka—University of Wellington).
Zoom link: https://vuw.zoom.us/my/scienceinsociety