As I have seen on formal occasions, they are the kin-based relationships that are recited by kaikōrero on marae to remind the people gathered, there have been earlier events and people that have joined us before this time, we are not first. (H.R. Reedy, personal communications, 2013)

On numerous less formal occasions, as we have travelled in a car to a tangi, to a birthday, to a wedding, my father would often recite who and how we are related to the people at this occasion we will attend; similarly, we will pass by homes of relations and exactly how they are related will be made clear by referring to nannies and aunts and uncles we will know personally, as focal points for us to know a whakapapa by. Our Hiruharama kainga has been central in all this learning of who I am, where I come from, and who and how I am related to all of my whanaunga, and how in a whakapapa world, there are no ‘others’, there are only groups of ‘we’. (H.R. Reedy, personal communications, 2013)

As a hapū based researcher, ‘whakapapa’ means that through my ‘tīpuna’ I have a responsibility to acknowledge that through my research we as a hapū can mitigate problematic issues pertaining to our taiao. These solutions will reflect what we as ‘whānau’ ‘know’ and ‘do’ and ‘see’ in our places and spaces. We know through our waiata, we know through our whakairo, we know through our whaikōrero, what once was an ocean with endless bounty, or a forest with countless wildlife or rivers and mountains that could sustain entire tribes, is sadly no longer what we are seeing. (J.Tibble, personal communications, 2021)

Whakapapa for whānau-hapū-based researchers means research and mahi that is inextricably linked to our practice within the roles and responsibilities of whānau, hapū and marae, that is what “having whakapapa” means to and for us. The mahi is set with the people, it is about building the capacity and capability of the collective, and that includes the individual. (N.K.Walker, personal communications, 2021)

In essence, whakapapa to me is always attached to practice. As whānau-based researchers, it more than urges us, it requires us, all of whom share whakapapa over a legislated hapū-based asset, to ask and answer questions that inform us about ourselves, our rangahau-research, and how and why we do the things we do. (H.R. Reedy, personal communications, 2021)

Incorporating whakapapa as praxis

Early in the project the three of us recognised that fulfilling our whakapapa responsibilities was not going to be easy. Whakapapa as praxis requires deep caring, persistence, perseverance and patience. These values and practices helped us know that ‘how we stand’ in our rangahau at our pā, in our moana, in our wai, with whānau and with each other, inherently required us to identify a rangahau methodology that would support us to incorporate these values and practices. Whakapapa as praxis helped us to understand that our rangahau needed to also inform hapū, iwi and government policy. Reedy describes:

Participatory Action Inquiry (PAI) as a research methodology

Our article discussions helped us understand, in our huataukina rangahau space, the PAI method we had adopted, worked for us on three levels. First, our shared whakapapa to the rangahau, research areas, supported us as rangahau leads and participants to acknowledge the explicit relationships of whānau participants as owners, custodians, gatherers of kai, knowledge holders and inquiry-makers, and how we all situate differently each time we reflect, kōrero, write and share. The kaupapa of our huataukina rangahau demands that we should reflect, kōrero and share.

Second, the Ngā Rohe Moana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Porou Act 2019, is new legislation designed to contribute to the legal expression, protection, and recognition of the continued exercise of mana by ngā hapū o Ngāti Porou in relation to ngā rohe moana o ngā hapū o Ngāti Porou. This legislation is affirming of Ngati Porou Māori worldviews, creating opportunities for Ngāti Porou-centric innovations in its implementation. This includes the use of concepts like whakapapa, huataukina and PAI. Optimistically, implementation of the Act might offer pathways of sustainable development for local whānau and hapū within our iwi, as well as others outside the rohe. Finally, interweaving both of these levels is our rangahau methodology, informed by our practice theories of Ngāti Porou whakapapa. PAI is purposefully named to acknowledge:

1. rangahau participants are welcomed as active decision-makers throughout the research process;

2. action is the heart of all change;

3. inquiry in action, is thought-provoking, mindful and reflective action, conceived inside the inquiry by all participants, who commit to act with others beyond the immediate inquiry;

4. knowing and knowledge that nourishes whānau to thrive, are ever present.

When we think of what whakapapa means to hapū-based researchers, we understand it challenges our practices of whakapapa, inquiry and knowledge-making.

Putting whakapapa, PAI and TOA into action

As noted earlier, writing this piece has created another unique space for reflection. Walker states:

This statement illustrates for us the stark realities of our whakapapa practice challenges: with those whom we share whakapapa, and others who do not share whakapapa-Māori. This latter group we will return to shortly. For those who are our relatives and with whom we share whakapapa, the challenges when our whakapapa does not seem to count, or promote positive relationships with each other, we felt deserved a closer look. Reedy starts: We agree, in a whakapapa frame, closed conversations and virtual meetings have enabled doubt, ‘stepping out’ and ‘side talking’ to persist. Matters that stretch and test our whakapapa bonds in our every-day practice to continue. Our whakapapa also reminds us, this is not the first time we have acted this way. Possibly it is the first time we have acted this way with each other, but for the three of us, we accept we have met this behaviour before. And, unlike our tīpuna, who lived near each other when ‘place’ was where their livelihoods were inter-dependently made, the three of us and our wider team is spread across the country. It would therefore be easy for each of us to ‘step away’ from the project, to cease to take part in this rangahau relationship. Tibble tells us though: We realise that strength, connectiveness and pride are the reasons to continue the huataukina rangahau. Our whakapapa to each other and our rohe moana enables us to do huataukina rangahau differently. What we observe and receive as not stepping up, and not straight talking does not remove that we are all still related. Inevitably we will meet with each other and continue the making and remaking of our whakapapa, as two of us did, at a recent tangi.

The enduring nature and ongoing demands of our whakapapa are also revealed to us when we consider our legislation. The Act is the mechanism through which our ‘expressions of protection and mana o nga hapū o Ngati Porou’ in relation to our rohe moana are given effect. Through the Act, milestones, external obligations, human resources, financial and legal consequences are created. Unmet milestones, we admit, are in view. The long-view though, through a whakapapa lens, assures us as hapū-based researchers, time is on our side!

Whether we are part of the project or not, our whakapapa to the rohe moana and our rangahau activities remains. We cannot ‘un-choose’ having been part of the project and knowing it exists, just as we cannot ‘un-choose’ our whakapapa connections and the duties of care it imposes, through our inheritance into our hapū-based asset and our ongoing interest in it. Going forward, we agree huataukina has awakened our agentic authority to choose how we will take part in the making and remaking of our whakapapa with the rohe moana we whakapapa to, and practice with. Equally, we will choose how we will participate with the other hapū-based researchers of the team, as we reflect on our active practices of whakapapa, inquiry and knowledge-making with them, now.

The challenges of whakapapa as praxis

Whakapapa practice can create challenges with those who do not whakapapa-Māori as mentioned earlier. It can evoke strong and different emotional responses when we consider the delivery of TOA decisions, transparent, open and accountable decisions, through PAI practices, participatory, action inquiry practices.

Our in-water work highlighted quite diverse experiences with two roopu-Pakeha, Pakeha groups. At one end was a collaborative trusting, positive and respectful relationship. We attribute this to the partnership presence of the dive leader and his team and their affinity to the moana as a living breathing entity. An ecosystem that rightfully demands their attention and care. The roopu tiaki practices informed by their western-scientific knowledge and practices, were shared willingly with open and appreciative curiosity of our knowing and knowledge of our moana. Through our practices of manaaki to them, we all commit to maintain and sustain this relationship.

The disrespectful and deeply disturbing aspects of our in-water experience stems directly from what we perceive as the lack of a partnership presence from the second roopu. Again, the writing of this article caused us as authors to reflect acutely on experiences of our whakapapa practice being dismissed as unimportant.

Health and safety water practices are and have been implemented with increased awareness of welfare measures from the outset of the project. They are, though, in terms of the health and safety legislation that underpins the contracting processes led by the second roopu designed to assist the building of a system of safety that is suitable for the organisation’s ‘size and the type of work it does’. Our request for a co-design or partnership process to develop and achieve a health and safety plan reflecting the whānau based, part-time nature of our project team seemed entirely reasonable. Incorporating our mōhio and mātauranga of our moana as a basis to help shape forward actions of safety, for ourselves, the moana, and the second roopu, was ignored. Our surprise and then shock at their response is reflected by Tibble and Reedy:

Walker is more explicit in her commentary: In real time, it is a moment of pause, a long moment. We are preparing an article for publication in an Aotearoa science journal. The Aotearoa science community we agree is like a whānau, there are minimal ‘degrees of separation’ among them. They too have a whakapapa practice with Māori. In those reflections, we assure ourselves we can only speak on our whakapapa practices and how they have impacted our relationships. The rub of exclusion and lack of enablement of our whānau to participate meaningfully as whakapapa members in the translocation of our taonga species re-turns us to ‘our own’.

Tuakana Nepe (1991) in her Masters thesis addresses the colonialism of an education system which remains steadfastly monocultural. It is her kōrero on the conceptualisation of Māori that offers reassurance and confidence in ourselves to speak here.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2017) reminds us of the production of western knowledge theories that dehumanise us, privilege western ways of knowing and deny the validity of our knowledge, culture and language are colonising methodologies. They are ‘alive and well’. This piece of writing, describing our practices of whakapapa and responses to our practices, is our attempt as hapū-based researchers to retrieve some kairangahau, Māori research space.

Closing reflections

Whakapapa is a map of the relationships of people and places of where we have come from. And, just as we are a part of the fabric of whakapapa, it is also an opportunity given to us by our tīpuna, to choose the relationships and places and how we will unfold them into our own contributions to whakapapa, through our tamariki-children and mokopuna-grandchildren. Making visible the choices that arise in our whakapapa and because of our whakapapa also makes clearer to us the responsibility and consequences of those choices. Mindfulness and patience in an increasingly complex and time-pressed world impress on us.

Whakapapa is both the name given to one’s genealogy and the actions of being and making genealogies with people and place. Tibble reminds us, ‘it comes with inherent tikanga’ (personal communications, 2021). There are known structures, values and practices attached to it and a place for every member of the shared whakapapa.

Whakapapa relationships while not new to rangahau, are new to research. Our whakapapa relationships are continually re-affirmed through tangihanga, whānau and hapū hui, birthdays, and in our everyday interactions as whānau with our whenua and our wai. We stated earlier the Aotearoa science community has a whakapapa of practice with Māori. In this closing commentary, we recognise it is an incorrect use of the term whakapapa. To infer whakapapa is a suitable term to describe a series of interactions over a long period of time, is wrong.

Our rangahau awareness is heightened, this in turn has raised our research awareness.

Language is power! How we describe ourselves and others, how we name relationships, who we will talk to and share with, these are what whakapapa is. As kairangahau, Māori researchers, thinking and working in Māori research, rangahau spaces, whakapapa inherent with tikanga, resonates with accuracy the nature and types of relationships we ‘meet and make’. Without that kind of resonance and accuracy present, when we meet and make relationships, then we have come to understand that whakapapa is not present.

Again, the power dynamics illuminated through language help. Differentiating between a rangahau space and our western-Pakeha research space has made explicit to us the danger of misinterpretation between languages, language misnaming and misuse that we have been part of perpetrating. We are insistent now; all new whakapapa relationships require meticulous and precise language that removes assumptions and false expectations.

It leads us to argue that when kairangahau and research meet, whakapapa should be the objective. Praxis, as theory informed practice linked through reflexive practices of PAI, participatory action inquiry, to achieve on-the-ground TOA, transparent open and accountable decisions, have in the development of kōrero here, shaped and re-shaped ‘us’ as kairangahau. Our learning, speaking and writing on what whakapapa means, our sharing here, in Smith’s words (2017), are ‘the blisters on our hands’ opening, we hope, our connections to transformative outcomes.

Nga mihi.