He Awa Whiria: Reimagining Education Research through the Braiding of Mātauranga Māori and Future-Facing Inquiry

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 3:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Unsettling Empire through Indigenous Histories

Abstract

This presentation draws on He Awa Whiria (the braided rivers approach) to explore how mātauranga Māori (Māori epistemologies) can inform historiographical inquiry and shape future-facing education research. Centring kaupapa Māori principles such as whakapapa (genealogy), manaakitanga (an ethic of care), and tumanako (aspirations), I reflect on projects spanning Māori-medium education, and AI-enhanced assessment. These threads reveal how Indigenous knowledge can unsettle dominant paradigms and restore intergenerational ways of knowing. By revisiting suppressed educational histories and repositioning mātauranga Māori as critical theory and praxis, this work contributes to Division F’s call to reframe the past in ways that imagine more just, relational, and culturally sustaining futures.

Author

• Te Hurinui RENATA Karaka-Clarke, University of Waikato