Whakarongo
A phase of listening & sensing, of conducting a PAR project with our tīpuna & ancestors.
February-March, 2025
Activist wānanga
Te Rōpu Pākehā hosted a 3-day wānanga at Kōtare – a residential activist school in Hoteo North where Ngãti Paoa, Ngãti Whanaunga, Ngãti Whãtua, Ngãtiwai, Te Kawerau a Maki and Ngãti Manuhiri all have mana whenua. In the foothills of Kikitangeo, we gathered with 14 other decolonial activists working locally throughout the motu toward Pākehā accountability. Our kaupapa was clear: to think/feel/imagine if and how ancestral sensing could contribute to Matike Mai. With trickster babes and unwavering cicadas alongside, we (literally) wove a participatory space of cooking, cleaning, care, craft, ritual, seeds, song and stories, as coloured by our Gaelic, Cornish, Pagan, Druid, Christian, Jewish and otherwise trancestor and mycelial lineages, and textured with whakaaro from neighbouring settler colonies - Australia and Palestine. We left feeling strength in the connection, protection, accountability and messiness offered by our enchanted entanglement. A month later, we held an online ‘harvesting hui’ to hear how people’s varied decolonising practices may be being affected by our time together. Huge thanks to all who came and to Kōtare for the powerful space.
November - December, 2024
Treaty Principles Bill
Members of Te Rōpū Pākehā participated in national actions against the Treaty Principles Bill – proposed by the new government to continue to undermine Te Tiriti o Waitangi. From individual and group submissions against the bill to conversations with friends and family and co-organising a 100,000-strong hikoi to parliament under the korowai of Te Kotahitanga o Taranaki Whānui ki te Upoko o te Ika, the actions provided a potent space to reflect on the decolonial possibilities, complexities – even perhaps necessities – of having an ancestral orientation within Pākehā activism, including how this orientation beautifully obliges sub-cultures that can counter the urgency and burnout typical of whiteness and coloniality.
June, 2024
Inhabit
From 8th-30th June in Tāmaki Makaurau, Pākehā co-researcher, artist, single mama and doula, Holli, held Inhabit – a participatory, community space for making visible the invisible labour of post-partum care with strong commitments to birth, gender and racial justice. Taking over an empty shop space with over 100 hand-embroidered and kitchen-dyed nappies containing participants’ ongoing messages to each other, Holli made space throughout for public workshops and craft – tapping a pagan practice from her own maternal lineage. As The Tīpuna Project, we also co-facilitated a session for people to tell/catch their ancestors’ stories of birthing, motherhood and queer care – reminding us of the need to make decolonial spaces for intergenerational grieving that, for Pākehā, can hold being both recipients and perpetrators of violence.
May, 2024
Samhain
On Saturday May 11th, two Pākehā co-researchers (Rachel & Lillian) hosted an evening in Tāmaki Makaurau to celebrate Samhain – a seasonal and lunar period within Irish paganism for communing with ancestors. Ten guests were asked to “bring a dish and an ancestor” in the tradition of a ‘dead dinner’ whereby people feast with their ancestors, sharing stories and poems of their lives. After video-calling with a Gaelic elder living in protection of the ancestral cairns of Loughcrew, Meath, we opened the dinner with an adaptation of a traditional fire ceremony and an invocation to Matike Mai, and then ended the night singing Gaelic songs of mourning and protest in front of the fire. Special thanks to Lar for the wānanga, Andrew for the songs, Aaron and Michael for coming up from the Waikato and Te Kawerau-A-Maki, as always, for having us <3
March - April, 2024
Gathering at the Gate
For seven weeks, two Pākehā co-researchers (Wren & Dani), helped co-facilitate a third course of Gathering at the Gate - a collective enquiry into ancestral recovery and honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi for Pākehā/white-assimilated folx in Aotearoa. Over 100 people have now done the course, and we are helping to document the cracks, reverberations and shimmers of their experiences in relation to Matike Mai, with a specific eye to the role of ancestral sensing.
March, 2024
The softness of the suited heart
Pākehā co-researcher, Sarah, wrote a piece for Indigenous-led online media platform, E-TANGATA, on the connections between being Pākehā, grief, and ancestry, and how these can provide hope in challenging times.
March, 2024 - present
PAR Pākehā
Since March 2024, Pākehā co-researchers (and our ancestors) have been working on a participatory action research (PAR) project in response to a recurring need we hear from Māori: for Pākehā to ‘do the work’ so that we are able to step into a respectful, reciprocal relationship. This relationship is both called forth by the vision of Matike Mai (an Indigenous-led movement for constitutional transformation by 2040) and under constant threat, as shown by the current visibility of colonialism in our national politics.
Keeping in mind this ongoing settler colonial context, as well as the failings of a cognitive approach thus far with Pākehā alongside tendencies toward ‘spiritual bypassing’ in more-than-cognitive approaches with White folx generally, our PAR project is asking: (How) can ancestral sensing prepare Pākehā for Matike Mai? Within this guiding question, are several sub-questions around what ‘ancestral sensing’ is, accountability to Māori, embodying decoloniality and envisioning/transforming Pākehātanga.
These (sub)questions are both energising and tethering our PAR process. Approaching ‘data collection’ as an opportunity to (re)distribute resources, honour relationships and build movements, we are experimenting with various modes of ancestral sensing (from direct action and hands in soil to ritualised drawing and speaking Gaelic), including through our involvement in several decolonial projects and through hearing from others who are gently and intentionally trying to ‘do the work’ in more inspirited ways. Through eclectic journaling and regular chats, we are documenting our shared experiments, experiences, whispers and wonderings, slowly weaving them together to see what patterns emerge for taking concrete action toward Matike Mai.
More spiral than linear, this PAR process is unfurling as we listen and learn, helping us to be as response-able as possible <3
9 - 11 February, 2024
Ūawanui a Ruamatua Wai
Cyclone Gabrielle Tairāwhiti, Anniversary
A Ka Mua Ka Muri Creative Collaboration
Teah and Karmen from Te Rōpū Māori were involved in a collaborative week-long event in commemoration of the first anniversary of Cyclone Gabrielle. The kaupapa involved local and national creatives, professionals, talent, and community connecting over a weekend to create, design, storytell and energise a movement towards elevating extreme weather preparedness discussions and tautoko locals to actively engaged in sustainable land use and adaptation planning.