Nasa space project works with mātauranga Māori
A new era for Māori engaging with aerospace has begun.
Massey University school of Māori knowledge associate professor Pauline Harris (Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Rakaipaaka, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa) has received $74,000 from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for a feasibility study.
Harris, who was based at the university’s Manawatū campus, said the research would combine mātauranga Māori from mana whenua and space-based data.
“It’s important that you can use multiple knowledge systems to be able to give you the information that you need to help solve problems,” she said.
Harris, who was also the chairperson of Society of Māori Astronomy Research and Traditions, said it was not healthy relying on just one set of knowledge.
So for her new project she would combine satellite data about water temperatures, sea-level rise and coastal erosion with knowledge from people on the ground.
“We’ve been working through the lens of the maramataka, which is our traditional environmental, ecological and celestial calendar,” she said.
Harris said she would collaborate with iwi across the country to understand their concerns and inform her project, which would use earth observations as snippets in time from New Zealand.
The information would show what had happened over a certain amount of time, she said.
She would work with Nasa's Indigenous Peoples Initiative and visit the United States as part of her project, Harris said, building relationships with other indigenous communities and learning how they monitored their own environmental and ecological systems.
She said historically Māori had relied on celestial knowledge for navigating and establishing a calendar, which would indicate cultural practices carried out during different parts of the year.
“It could be the ripening of berries that indicate a certain time of the year when a star rises, or the blooming of pōhutukawa,” she said.
In the past, concerns had been raised that Māori voices were being left behind when it came to the aerospace sector. But this had changed.
The 49-year-old said the new research project was a part of a bigger programme to develop a Māori aerospace sector, “with our values and principles, aims and aspiration, and rights and interests in aerospace”, she said.
Harris said Māori groups have been advising the government for the past two years about their capacity and capability in the aerospace industry.
Another research project led by a Massey University researcher also received funding from MBIE.
School of Agriculture and Environment associate professor Gabor Kereszturi would work on a feasibility study that also used Earth observation data.
The study would monitor vegetation-geothermal interactions in different ecosystems.