Abstract:
My thesis stories and reads the vā between Māori and Moana peoples. I understand the vā to be a dynamic
relational fabric woven from past, present, and future encounters that links all entities indelibly. My work
reveals the vā in the work of five educators from the Pacific in their cultural-ethical practices that inform
political practice and vice versa in the context of Māori and Moana educational and social relationships in
Aotearoa-New Zealand. The participants and I use narrative methods of talanoa (Samoa/Tonga/Fiji) and
pūrākau (Māori) to bring to life day-to-day practices that exemplify care and nurture (the cultural-ethical)
and negotiation (the political) potentials of the vā. Five philosophical lenses assist in the writing of the
pūrākau and the reading of the vā: ontological orientation, cultural and ethical responsibility for the Other,
decolonising agenda, critique and challenge, and relationships which transcend time and space. I argue that
the vā offers an opportunity to harness Indigenous ways of knowing and being that might better serve Māori
and Moana peoples in productive cross-cultural, ancient-contemporary relationships today and as we walk
backwards into the future
