Project lead: Dr Vincent van Uitregt (Ngaa Rauru, Te Ātihaunui a Pāpārangi, Tūhoe), Victoria University of Wellington | Te Herenga Waka
Climate change related research is preoccupied with the impacts on human life and futures. The immanent impacts on our non-human relations are relegated to ecological or conservation research Our uri-based research group from Whanganui are engaging the breadth of our knowledge traditions to understand our relationships with our local Kūaka population and the wider places and peoples the they/he connects us to.
Those connections have taken us to Alaska, Australia and China and contributed to the creation of the Indigenous led Migratory Kin Collective. Informally, our relationships with other hapū and iwi have formed organically as we do our mahi, but this research aims to strengthen those relationships under a notional banner of Te Kāhui Kūaka.
Our transdisciplinary team will tono similar transdisciplinary teams from other hapū/iwi that share our regard for Kūaka to respond to the question of how best we can understand the impacts of climate change on our relationships with Kūaka.
The five (including ours) art/science collaborations that result will produce creative works (visual, oratory, or written) that engage with their local kōrero about Kūaka and environmental data related to climate change, to develop a rich local to national narrative of how climate change will impact our ecosocial relationships with Kūaka.