The urban ‘Intangibles of Māori-ness’: an ethnographic study of urban Marae curriculum as decolonial praxis

An ethnographic description of our urban pan-tribal Marae - Hoani Waititi - is described through the lens of a host of poukōrero/participants via a learning conversations research model developed for this study, ‘Whakawhitiwhiti Rua’. The nature of the urban Marae curriculum by way of anticolonial pursuits of Indigenous education within orientations that draw from humanism and social reconstructionism is characteristic of Hoani Waititi Marae. Themes of a constructive view, destructive effects, influences, and cultural maintenance arise. Epistemology and knowledge derivation are explored within a conceptual frame of reference, and are defined as specialised knowledge, as methodology or kaupapa Māori/Māori purpose, and as curriculum. A study of the effects or outcomes of the Marae curriculum reveals themes of sacrifice, choices, mana/prestige, and challenge. The facilitation of the Marae curriculum continues to revise the ānanga/cultures. Implications for the education of Māori in this supposed postcolonial world are uncovered, being the adaptation of Māori, the restoration of Māori, tāngata whenua/people of the land recognition and tāngata whenua not recognised in New Zealand society. Knowledge dissemination and educational implications are celebrated.