with Dr Karaitiana Taiuru
The posts in this category discuss cultural appropriation of traditional and customary Māori knowledge. This section also offers solutions to stop and prevent further appropriation.
This category is also a useful resource to prevent and educate businesses from mistakenly appropriating Māori cultural knowledge.
I was recently interviewed about Cultural Appropriation for an AUT Bachelor of Communication Studies paper about Intercultural Communication. The first part of the interview was via email, then video. I feel that this information may be useful to others, so I am publishing it. 1: Karaitiana, you have spent many years challenging the use of inappropriate … Read more
This article is about karakia in post-colonial New Zealand and introduced religious influences that have changed Māori cultural beliefs and practices. This is not an article about religions and what religion is the more appropriate. Every person has a right to practice their own religious beliefs without hurting others or being hurt because of their … Read more
The Christchurch City Council (CCC) and the Okains Bay Māori and Colonial Museum held their 45th Waitangi Day celebration with a citizenship ceremony at Opara (Okains Bay), Banks Peninsula, South Island. The Christchurch City Council and the Okains Bay Māori and Colonial Museum chose to ignore flying the national Māori flag recognised by the New … Read more
Stuff wrote a story today about the UK brewer Butcombe producing a Pale Ale called “Haka” featuring a silver or white fern. I did accuse Butcombe of cultural appropriation earlier in 2017 of their Haka branded pale ale. They were among 7 other UK brewers I contacted. In contrast to the other UK brewers whom … Read more
Update: All Māori Data Sovereignty posts have been combined and updated into a Compendium of Māori Data Sovereignty – https://www.taiuru.co.nz/compendium-of-maori-data-sovereignty/ In today’s modern society, Māori need to consider the impacts of colonialism upon all aspects of life, including Digital and Māori Data. The definition of Data is taken from “Data is a Taonga” . “Data that … Read more
UPDATE: A complete set of Māori ethics Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti and Māori Ethics Guidelines for: AI, Algorithms, Data and IOT This is the second in a series of articles I am writing about Māori ethics with AI, Data sovereignty and Robotics. Article 1 Māori cultural considerations with Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. Background My primary … Read more
As a descendant of Tūwharetoa, I have no idea if my whakapapa is being offered for sale on TradeMe, just like any other descendant of Tūwharetoa wouldn’t. I agree that the whakapapa is personal property, but not of one individual selling it, but to the whānau, hapū and Iwi that the whakapapa is about. New … Read more
A Law Foundation-funded report Digital Threats to Democracy, one of the most in-depth reports published locally to date on the negative side effects accompanying the rise of digital media. The report also considers Māori and Indigenous democratic issues. Again, the first time this has occurred. I have extracted key Māori views from the report which … Read more
Be aware of Spam being circulated using Te Reo Māori and another language. Below is a screen shot of the latest te reo Māori spam I received. While this is not very sophisticated, it very quickly and easily could be made to look legit and from someone you know. Unfortunately there are no services to … Read more
New Zealand businesses continue cultural appropriation of Māori culture in their marketing. I believe that cultural appropriation of Māori has become normalised over multiple generations by New Zealand businesses. We cannot directly blame the businesses, but we need to learn from these experiences and deploy better protection mechanisms and new partnerships to stop appropriation. Firstly, … Read more
Online Māori are increasingly becoming targets of direct ethnic online scams that utilise our culture to try to take advantage of Māori. The latest scam involves someone on Facebook, Instagram, Phone message and other social media claiming to he one of the whanau, a cuzzie. The scams are sophisticated and take a bit of effort. … Read more
BP New Zealand appears to have used Māori culture without consultation, offering Fair Trade coffee that will help you to become more fertile by placing the Polynesian recognised deity of fertility Tiki in the corner of it marketing material. Moreover, the Tiki used in the marketing appears to be a West coast of the North Island … Read more
Belgium Beer brewer Brussels Beer Project removed their offensive beer label within hours of the New Zealand media publishing concerns at the cultural appropriation. This is now the 5th craft brewer this year that has removed offensive beer labels after my complaints. This case differs from the others. In this instance the New Zealand media … Read more
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, is leading the design of a new initiative called Solid. The project aims to radically change the way Web applications work today, resulting in true data ownership as well as improved privacy. Solid could have positive benefits for Indigenous Peoples of the world. The World Wide Web … Read more
Voice recognition of te Reo Māori and automated Maori translations via a computational device is colonisation and commercialisation no matter if by Māori or by tauiwi. Our traditional stories warn us of such recordings of the voice. Hence, I believe the reason why our learned old people shied away from recordings of the person and … Read more
28 hours after writing a public tweet (DM UK media) and a detailed article on my web site accusing UK brewery Rammy Craft of ignoring correspondence regarding culturally offensive beer label, they reply with an explanation and apology. The email reply is copied in full is below. It is frustrating that it took 7 weeks, seeking … Read more
Rammy Craft Ales, a UK brewer producer of the beer labeled Flaori Maori have ignored several communications over the past 7 weeks that their beer label is likely to be offensive to Maori. This is the fourth UK brewery I have approached this year, and the only brewery who has not communicated and or rectified … Read more
I was interviewed to contribute a Māori perspective to the The Artificial Intelligence Forum of New Zealand (AIFNZ) inaugural report. It appears as though only my statement was published with no acknowledgements. In the whole report Māori is only considered in the Part Three: AI and Society, Artificial Intelligence Shaping a Future New Zealand. The … Read more