Dr Rachel Liebert

The Tipuna (‘Ancestor’) Project (TTP) is Māori and Pākehā (White settler) collaboration based in Aotearoa to innovate and evaluate research practices that include Indigenous and settler ancestors in order to counter (1) the denigration of Indigenous ways of knowing/being, (2) the historically traumatic nature of the research space for Indigenous peoples and (3) low settler accountability, before translating these counter-practices for local and international decolonising initiatives more broadly. Using participatory action research (PAR) as both a methodology and a case study, we are asking overall: What are the decolonial possibilities and complexities of including ancestors as co-researchers in PAR?

Co-designed through three and half years of dialogue with Māori and Pākehā scholars/activists, TTP is shaped by a central value of kaupapa Māori, structured by the vision of Matike Mai (a nationwide Indigenous-led movement), and supported by six Indigenous networks (representing over 5000 Māori). A co-researcher collective of five Indigenous and five non-Indigenous decolonial practitioners and their ancestors will conduct a three year, three-phase project to: (1) Titiro (‘Look’), innovate ancestral research practices through participant observation with three ancestral experts (a Māori matakite, a Gaelic elder and a Somatics practitioner from racial/healing justice movements); (2) Whakarongo (‘Listen’), evaluate these counter-practices through one Indigenous and one non-Indigenous bespoke PAR project; and (3) Kōrero (‘Speak’), translate these for decolonial initiatives more broadly through a seven-day multimedia co-creative laboratory of public experimentation. This partnership of Indigenous and non-Indigenous methods will be grounded in the kaupapa Māori methodology of wānanga and woven with the kaupapa Māori method of whitiwhiti kōrero, ensuring the project itself enacts commitments to Indigenous sovereignty, community accountability and global struggles.