Tohunga Talks: Digital Narratives of Tohunga that Nurture Multiliteracies of Ākonga

Project Summary 

This project engages in research activities that prioritise the reclamation and communication of Māori knowledge systems (mātauranga tuku iho). The research team is building on project work already started in Te Tai Tokerau (Tiritiria: Understanding children as inherently and inherited-ly literate). Tiritiria is underpinned by the Mana Model (Webber & Macfarlane, 2020), whakataukī (Hetaraka et al., 2024) and Kaupapa Māori research methods. 

Within this Tohunga Talks project we seek to highlight the potential of a Te Tai Tokerau centric digital space to support the ongoing development of Mana Ukaipō for students.  

The research question for this project is - How can digital narratives of tohunga be curated to nurture multiliteracies of ākonga? 

Key principles that inform this project are: 

1. to maintain and strengthen Te Tai Tokerau mātauranga tuku iho and research traditions;
2.  to foster Te Tai Tokerau connections;
3.  to promote a culture of whanaungatanga, tuakana/teina, and kotahitanga in order to better leverage our collective expertise; and 
4. to maintain and strengthen Te Tai Tokerau  research traditions as they pertain to Te Tai Tokerau  reo, tikanga, and education practices.  

Leveraging off literature and existing datasets, the research team is working with kaumātua and tohunga within the Hihiaua community to collect kōrero tuku iho and mātauranga tuku iho for an educational digital platform. This project is co-designed with tohunga; however all content decisions sit with the tohunga themselves. 

The project team connects with the “Tohunga Talks” initiative that Hihiaua hosts. This provides an opportunity for the research team to practice Āta Whakarongo (sustained listening and observation) as a starting point for the development of the resources. In partnership with tohunga, kaumātua and the Hihiaua community, the research team identify pūrākau that could be made available in a digital space, for ākonga. The team will organise the pūrākau to be recorded, edited, and curated in preparation to be housed on a digital platform.