Papakāinga People

Rueben Taipari and whānau at their papakāinga, Ahipara. Photo: Desna Whaanga-Schollum.

A series of four podcasts focussed on Māori housing has been produced by Becky Kiddle with support from Desna Whaanga-Schollum and Jo Smith as part of the Ako ahu team in the Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua (KTKR) research programme.

The role of the Ako Ahu team is to support KTKR researchers to build a community of interest related to the current housing issues facing diverse Māori communities and to help create research that our communities might find relevant, and ideally, transformative.

Māori housing is a complex issue and requires a whole of landscape (systems) research approach that is embedded in kaupapa Māori methodologies. The Ako Ahu team worked to use pūrākau (storytelling techniques) to synthesise research findings across the three whenu of papakāinga, hauora, and whai rawa to identify key issues, concerns, innovations, and educational opportunities relevant to Māori housing. Understanding how this work connects with others is one of the steps towards developing more sophisticated solutions to critical issues such as housing needs. The Ako Ahu’s remit was to build and share knowledge throughout the KTKR research programme as well as build a broader community of interest in KTKR activities. These podcasts are one of the outputs of the Ako Ahu team. Post production assistance by Thom McIntosh

Papakāinga People

This podcast focuses on a papakāinga (settlement of homes and associated environment) in Ahipara where the whānau of Rueben Taipari (Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāi Tuhoe) are building a papakāinga of muka-reinforced, cement-stabilised rammed earth homes – or whare uku – on Rueben’s ancestral whānau whenua. Dr Rebecca Kiddle talks to Rueben, his wife, Heeni Hoterene (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Ngāi Tahu) and their tamariki to understand the everyday realities of life on the papakāinga. Rebecca also talks to Dr Helen Potter, a researcher working alongside the whānau to tell their story in an upcoming book on Māori Housing being produced by the Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua research programme.