Claire

CLAIRE DOWSETT

Te komititanga o ngā wai

The place where waters meet

“Me he tai āniwha, te aroha I roto I ahau, I ahau, e tai roa, ana mai ngā raumaharatanga, I ahau pōwhenua nei”1 (Tapara & Mereraiha, 2021)

Feelings come in waves, and those waves can be all-consuming until you make a change. There are moments in time when I recall being confronted with a surge of waves, bringing with them struggle and discomfort. I don’t really remember the details or the path towards those struggles, but I vividly remember each moment of the impact they had on me. And from those moments, I learned how to take back control, redirect my journey, and find solace. One such moment happened during my time as a Rangatahi (young person). I was living with my Dad and stepmum in England, and well, things were rocky, and the tension at home was palpable. I had spent that morning letting the waves of their tension crash against me. Most days, I would fight against being submerged, but on this day, I had lost the will to fight. I walked by myself, alone, to the seafront. It was somewhat stormy day, and I sat there on the rocky beach next to the rocks filled with crystalised minerals and fossils. I watched as the waves surged and crashed ashore. I remember staring out across the Atlantic Ocean with such an intense longing for home, thinking only of Aotearoa and the sadness that had consumed me while living in England. How strange that England, the land of my ancestors, would feel so cold and foreign, like a stranger. I write this piece to that version of myself. To all Rangatahi struggling to find their place, their path and their purpose, to reassure them that the path we walk is not often smooth like a sandy shore but rugged and messy like a flotsam-strewn beach that sometimes surprises you with an unexpected find when you brush away the sand and find the treasure inside. Life sends these waves surging at us, where they break upon the rocks, exposing and eroding, mixing up all the good and bad of what was hidden inside. And then those waves recede away, leaving behind a different seashore.

Miki rapu - mixed

For many, Māori and Pākehā are understood as binary. That binary positioning has been an essential factor for Māori; there is strength in that identity, and it has protected Te Ao Māori from some of the impacts of colonisation. Pākehā, too, have benefited from positioning themselves as separate from Māori (Webber, 2008). However, in this binary conceptualisation, those of us with mixed ancestry, identities, sense of connectedness, and belonging continue to require constant negotiation (Gillon & Webber, 2023).

My Ngāti Raukawa whakapapa flows from my maternal line. My paternal line also carries Māori whakapapa; two lines, both illegitimate and unknown - stemming from times when the dominant Pākehā society did not readily accept mixed Māori-Pākehā relationships and children. There is a whakāro that an aunty gave to me that suggests one of our tupuna tane (male ancestor) came from Ngāti Ruanui in south Taranaki, and my PhD journey has introduced me to people who may help me identify who he is. My Pākehā ancestry from both my maternal and paternal lines are French, Welsh, Scottish, and English. Some of my Pākehā ancestors arrived before the treaty signing and some afterwards. Dowsett is a name passed on from my step-great-great-grandfather. My paternity has also been questioned, which complicates my knowledge of my origins, and that is something that has always sat with me. I am the “black sheep” of the family, different in many ways but most visibly by complexion.

Whakapakeke - upbringing

I suppose, like many, I have a complicated story. My Mum left home and school and moved in with my Dad at fourteen. Mum and Dad lived a typical young adult life, wrapped up in the music scene in Whakaoriori Masterton, which predictably led to them becoming parents at a young age, getting married and then divorced. We were surrounded as children by friends and family; our parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins, some biological and some not. Our whānau (wider family and friends, community) came from similarly complicated

An image of me, aged 32, on the rocky seafront of Eastbourne (East Sussex, England); we were there visiting my sister in 2016

backgrounds. We had some wild, fun times, but there were also unsafe times. Dad saw sense at some point and began his studies towards an accounting degree. He did this extramurally so that he was able to be at home to care for us while Mum worked to put food on the table. Shortly after completing his studies, Dad found full-time employment, and not long after that, Mum and Dad's relationship ended. Their split was an awful time for us; there was abuse, financial hardship and disownment.

As challenging as my childhood was, it also gave me strengths that I can draw on in my present mahi as a researcher. My power as a community researcher is asserted in some ways by my lack of belonging and clarity of identity. It enables me to see, hear and comprehend diverse perspectives as I draw from that diversity to discover myself. It is this curiosity and sincerity that people are drawn to, and it allows me the privilege of being welcomed into their worlds. My curiosity and sincerity, though, do not mean that I do not bring subjectivity or bias to my relationships, research design, and practice. Like many, I was raised and educated within a settler colonial-dominated knowledge system; however, I have always been aware of how this has impacted my world, how I subconsciously carry myself and interact with others and how they, too, interact with me. Stevie Davis-Tana said so most eloquently, I am:

“Māori enough to be exotic but mixed enough to be palatable” (Davis-Tana et al., nd).

I do not deny that I benefit from white privilege. In Māori spaces, I am Pākehā, and in Pākehā spaces, I am a “palatable” Māori. My identity is fluid; it varies according to the social groups I associate with, and it has changed significantly over time as I continue to choose those spaces and social groups that affirm me with all my mixedness (Gillon & Webber, 2023).

Kuranga me umanga me whānau – education, career and family

The pathway towards PhD has been convoluted for me. I did not follow a linear path but rode the tides. My final year of High School was challenging. Emotionally, I wasn’t in the right place, and despite achieving the end-of-year academic achievement award for Chemistry, I

Me, aged 7 (Left), two of my three sisters and Mum. We visited Marineland in Napier to swim with the dolphins in 1991. Mum is hapū with our youngest sister.

actually failed the exam. Nor did I achieve University Entrance. On reflection, that was probably a good thing. There is no way I would have made it through undergraduate study during that young phase of my life, both financially and emotionally. After a few years working in hospitality and retail, I had another of those confronting surges. I was pōhara (experiencing financial hardship). I felt powerless to change it, and it made me feel worthless. This time, I wandered myself down to the Ruamahanga Awa. Again, I sat there on the rocks. I watched the ebbs and flows of the river as it swept by me, but rather than being blocked by the rocks, the water naturally navigated itself around them.

To take back control of my life, I decided it was time to gain a tertiary qualification, and I enrolled at Victoria University on special admission. I chose to follow a career that would take me to places that had always brought me back to happiness, where I have found solace. I pursued a Degree in Ecology. In my third year, my tane (male partner) Andrew and I were surprised to discover our first Pēpē (baby) growing. I chose to re-jig my degree so that I would finish early and enjoy the new phase of my life as a māmā and a graduate. By the time graduation arrived, I could graduate not with Ecology but with a double major in Environmental Science and Biology. We left Pōneke (Wellington) for Kirikiriroa (Hamilton), where Andrew and I secured jobs to provide for our young family. I felt such happiness having successfully navigated around the rocks in my path.

We built a beautiful life for ourselves in the Waikato. This time, it felt like Lake Karapiro on a sunny summer day. Kirikiriroa is our spiritual home, the place we feel we belong in our hearts. We often ponder whether there is some kind of deep understanding within us that knows that the Waikato is the place of our tūpuna (ancestors). It is where we had our babies, became adults, and built a financial security - A place where we moved from surviving life to thriving and living it.

I had a fabulous job as a Research Associate with AgResearch. My manager at that time, Dr Trevor James, gave me opportunities to extend myself in my research role, writing papers, attending conferences, and supporting me through a postgraduate Diploma with Massey

Me Hapū 2011 in the Plant Protection research glasshouses AgResearch Ruakura

University in Environmental Management and Weed Ecology. That postgraduate diploma was supposed to progress towards a Master’s Degree, but life happened; more pēpē.

Seeds of Te Ao Māori

My journey towards Te Ao Māori was initiated by my children. My tane Andrew also has Māori whakapapa. On his Mum’s side, Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngai Tūhoe. He is Pākehā on his Dad's side, English and Scottish. Andrew and I first met in primary school, but our relationship started in our late teens, and our kids have been raised Pākehā. Gradually, as the kids got older, I realised they would never know who they were if I did not find out and show them. During the time we lived in Kirikiriroa, Andrew’s Koro passed. When we attended his tangihanga, it was the first time we had taken our children to their mārae (Māori community meeting house). Neither Andrew nor I had Te Reo (Māori language), and we were children the last time we had been on a mārae. We felt ashamed of that, for sure, but at the time we only really remember revelling in the beauty of the pā and the whānau coming together to recall the life of someone special.

In 2019, we followed Andrew and his career to Whanganui. I also secured employment with the local Department of Conservation (DOC). At DOC, I gained essential field skills in environmental management, becoming more in tune with Te Taiao (the environment) in both a relational and observational way. Hence, another powerful wave came crashing on me in Whanganui during my time with DOC. I became astutely aware of the privilege surrounding us at work and the kids' school. Systemically embedded, somewhat unconsciously so, within our governmental departments and very clearly visible in the day-to-day living in the provinces. At that time, I could not articulate the impacts that this had on me as an individual, my whānau, and my work colleagues. It felt like it was a game of us versus them, and I actually wasn’t sure most of the time whether I was supposed to be an us or them. Where the injustice sat, though, was quite clear. My discomfort with that ultimately forced me out of my employment. This time, I was guided by the wairua of Te Awa Tupua. No rocks were in sight,

My three children on our first visit to Castlecliff Beach 2019

just the thick, sediment, rich, velvety awa. I decided it was time to pursue further academic study.

PhD

I had discussions and interviews with academics at Victoria, Massey, and Lincoln Universities before discovering the Marsden Research Scholarship for Good Nature, Bad Nature, and the Social Dimensions of Invasive Species advertisement. I was initially apprehensive about the research programme. The research sits within the Department of Tourism at the University of Otago. My supervisors, Associate Professor Dr Anna Carr (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāruahine) and Professor Dr Brent Lovelock are social scientists, and I have no experience with this academic discipline. However, I knew that this research would draw me into the different ways both Māori and Pākehā understand our world. I needed to unravel some of this narrative to help me better understand my relationship with Te Taiao. For example, everything I recognise as faulty within the conservation system is embedded in the way our society privileges one knowledge system. Also, the lack of pluralistic understanding of how humans interact with nature and the role nature plays in our identity and well-being has caused and perpetuated the loss of hauora (holistic well-being), of people, of nature, and of the connections therein. As a result, the current solutions to our biggest challenges, poverty, biodiversity loss, and climate change, are being developed using the same knowledge systems that created these crises in the first place.

There is much to fault in this approach, especially as it limits our options for solutions to a singular way of knowing and doing. Therefore, we need alternative solutions to adapt to rapidly changing conditions (IPBES, 2022). Ideally, solutions need to be sought out by many different people and places. When that decision-making is brought back to place (place is used to describe when the power is held locally by communities instead of nationally with the government), the ripples of regenerative potential can disperse widely across environments and communities.

The Good Nature Bad Nature Marsden Research team Hooker Valley Track 2021. Left to Right: Dr Anna Carr, Matthius Spall, Eru Metcalfe, Dr Brent Lovelock, Me

With this in mind, my PhD research seeks to understand our relationships with introduced species of value. To do so, I draw on the knowledge held by the pig hunting community in Whanganui to understand what values they have for poaka (wild pigs) and pig hunting. The pig hunting community is diverse and comes from various backgrounds, rural and urban. They also span the socio-economic spectrum, and the passion for pig hunting runs deep in the legacies inherited by both Māori and Pākehā whānau. Additionally, pigs are an important species as they provide a valuable and reliable protein source for our people.

Originally, wild pigs were fundamental to the survival of all people during the colonisation of Aotearoa and, for many, remain an important source of subsistence. But they can also be destructive in both natural and modified productive environments. Understandably, there are tensions when poaka (and other wild food sources) are targeted for or indirectly impacted by pest control operations. Typically, institutions decide how, when, and who will perform management programmes; too often, they do not consider those affected by these programmes.

Understanding the true value of these introduced species to communities will aid in managing tensions, which, if left unchecked, can lead to conflict. More importantly, the pig hunting community has an intimate knowledge of and developed specialised practices that are valuable to environmental management initiatives. However, attempts to engage this community in programme developments have been minimal as they are typically overlooked, dismissed or ignored. Yet, some of their practices draw on and have been adapted from the mātauranga (māori knowledge) of traditional mahinga kai (wild food management) practices. Therefore, my PhD thesis aims to examine and describe the community interests in poaka and the various practices that pig hunters utilise. It goes further to tease out the nuances of how poaka are perceived in multiple contexts: when are they considered problematic, and when are they beneficial? Are they perceived as a pest or a taonga (valuable resource)? Can our perceptions really be as binary as good or bad? What are the community values for poaka?

Amidst all of these pātai, I note how my mixedness positions me well for this PhD research programme; I sit in between the tides.

This research has guided me towards a more profound knowing of Te Ao Māori through the formal literature reviews I have undertaken, the conversations I have had with Māori hunters and Māori academics, and the Māori research support groups which have supported me through this research journey. Hone, a pig hunter and kaikorero (speaker, here used to describe a Māori research participant), from my PhD research, tells me:

“You can do your research, read all the books, and that’s good, that’s something, but to fully understand it (Te Ao Māori), you have to be in it.”

The above comment by Hone is beneficial as it highlights the insider/outsider dichotomy, which exists as an in-between-grey space. One that many practised researchers are familiar with. However, this concept can also be applied to life experiences, and as such, I will always be positioned as an outsider when performing research for and with Māori communities (Kukutai & Webber, 2011; Smith, 2006).

Tārekoreko – in the grey liminal space

My whakapapa (ancestry, relatedness) has meant that I have been welcomed into warm, loving spaces. Spaces that are filled with tauira (students) who are proud and know their whakapapa and are connected to their Maoritanga (Māori culture, practice, and beliefs). I am blessed to share their passion, manaaki (support and care) and mātauranga (knowledge). Yet, many like me in these same spaces have become disconnected from their whakapapa due to the course of their life. And if we’re lucky enough, some of us find our way back home - to the loving embrace of Te Ao Māori. To this day, I still sometimes feel a surge of concern regarding my identity and ask myself, am I a fraud? Should I be afforded such opportunities when my pākehā blood flows thick? I check in constantly with my positioning. I reassert my identity by acknowledging my legacy connection to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which also means I have a responsibility to honour the justice of that legacy. For Māori, inter-iwi connections are

Andrew and I tramping the Jumbo Circuit Tararua Forest Park in January 2024

normal, and the children of those connections are understood as takawaenga (liaison, gobetween, mediator). They are the mediators and living symbols of peace between different groups of people (Moko-Mead, 2016). I can see that my bicultural identity has a vital role to play in kotahitanga, bringing our legacies of knowledge and culture together to restore hauora (holistic well-being) to our tangata (people) and Te Taiao (environment) but also as someone who can hold a space in these very Pākehā places and create momentum for more Māori to follow. Te komititanga o ngā wai – the place where waters meet - Wave by wave, we are reconciling our positioning within the Māori-Pākehā continuum.

Notes:

1 These lyrics come from the waiata Taiāniwha and were originally composed and sung in english by Paige Tapara. The lyrics were translated into te reo in partnership with Hana Mereraiha for Waiata Anthems 2021.

CLAIRE DOWSETT

BSC, PG DIP, MS

OTAGO UNIVERSITY

Claire is both an Ecologist and a Social Scientist. Before my PhD, my training and work experience was in Invasion Ecology (primarily weeds). Her PhD and soon-tobe Postdoc is about identifying community and indigenous values in invasive species management.