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.
A third UK brewery in the past few months has removed offensive to Māori beer labels and apologised after being made aware of the fact. As with the other two cases to date, I used the same letter I originally wrote and modified the names to suit the company and the beer brand. As in … Read more
I was approached by whanau in the UK about the Whakatu beer logo (see below). I was asked if I could/would do anything as I have has some success in the past with such cultural appropriation. After looking at Exmoor marketing document, I agreed. The following images are from the web, not the marketing document. … Read more
A craft brewery in a small town in England, branded a small batch of their beer NZ Pale Ale with an image that is likely to be offensive to a large population of Māori. Within hours of raising the issue with the Managing Director, the company apologized and removed all of the material from their … Read more
After writing my story about Huggies New Zealand (owned by international company Kimberly-Clark Corporation) and their incorrect and offensive baby names advise on their web site, I contacted Radio Waatea who very professionally and neutrally interviewed me on the topic on March 08 . I too was cautious with my wording on this very serious matter. … Read more
HuggiesNZ a trusted brand for new parents is an example of a corporation discriminating against Māori with little or no disregard to the long term implications for individuals, cultures and laws. Their advice, if followed, could cause irreversible damage to children and parents. Huggies respond here. Prior to December 29 2008, or over 10 years prior to … Read more
This research shows that there is a lack of access to Internet and infrastructure by Indigenous Peoples of Alaska, New Mexico and Hawai’i and proves that the Internet is a digital Terra Nullius where colonizers have systemically obstructed access and denied equitable representation to Sovereign nations of: Alaska, New Mexico and the Indigenous Peoples of … Read more
The early years of .nz Internet domain names saw Māori and Iwi marginalized and ignored, Māori domain names held to ransom and Iwi dictated to about their online representation. This is important to remember as a domain name is the digital equivalent of a pepeha, tā moko or whakapapa for online Māori. The consequence of … Read more
Emotiki contains a number of culturally unsafe issues: the satirical use of a Polynesian deity Tiki, Tame Iti and the use of his face and tā moko without permission (only in release 1, despite their denial to Te Kaea Maori Television, here is a live link to the web archive), several other possible ethical and tikanga issues … Read more
The nature of the web and digital technologies leads Māori ICT organisations, kupu hou creation, Māori related software, web sites and digital tools to by default, ignore whakapapa in the digital world. I have already spoken widely about tikanga in the digital world on my site. Māori stories from many generations ago remind us of the early … Read more
The media article on the blunder of using Google translate by a mayoral candidate created lots of social media discussions that focused only on the tool and its te reo Māori issues and not the subtle racism in the story. In summary: Hamilton mayoral candidate James Casson wanted to appeal to Māori voters and thought … Read more
Media reports censorship of moko images on Facebook and Instagram but some misunderstand which organisation can assist. In one article by Māori Television it states that the Ministry of Culture and Heritage have been approached for comment and it states: Te Kaea is awaiting a response from the Ministry of Culture and Heritage to see whether they will … Read more
Labeled as a Maui Costume for Kids based on the Disney movie Moana. The costumes are made to look like brown skin with Polynesian tattoos. UPDATED Disney pulls Maui costume 22/09/207 There are a number of issues for Polynesian cultures and for Māori special considerations will need to be considered around the Ta Moko (tattoo) as each ta mako is … Read more
One of the most remote Māori communities in Aotearoa gets broadband Internet says Te Karere. I suspect this will have a number of cultural implications that has yet to be considered. Ruatahuna is not unique for this as it has happened numerous times in rural and urban areas by non Māori organisations and government pushing technology into … Read more
Section 5 of the new Twitter Terms of Service state that Twitter users are now bound to giver full worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute any information you tweet. Twitter stops short of claiming any copyright or intellectual property rights … Read more
Snapchat is the latest social media company to claim Intellectual Property Rights with your data, pics and info including your voice and facial recognition. Under these Terms of Service, if you had recorded your elder sending family a message does so in a traditional chant, wearing traditional clothes and accessories and the face has traditional tattoo, … Read more
Here are some of my ramblings of Digital Colonialism and issues of Indigenous knowledge on the Internet. When I have time, i will expand on these more. Digitising Traditional Knowledge is like mining the earth for precious metals. With every scoop of earth there is a void. Eventually there will be no mana or tapu … Read more
Digital colonialism deals with the ethics of digitizing Indigenous data and information without fully informed consent. Digital colonialism is the new deployment of a quasi-imperial power over a vast number of people, without their explicit consent, manifested in rules, designs, languages, cultures and belief systems by a vastly dominant power (Renata Avila, 2017). A new … Read more
A number of meme’s were produced from the recent Te Matatini Kapa Haka causing offence to the individuals whose images were manipulated. Recently, an incident occurred where memes featuring manipulated images from Te Matatini Kapa Haka performances were circulated online, causing distress to the individuals depicted. The situation began when an American social media platform known … Read more