Feeding Indigenous Aotearoa better

How Aotearoa imagines our food futures - the role food plays in our lives, our cultures, our economy, our media representations, our marketing campaigns - will depend on the available vocabulary we have for thinking about food and its value to society. The diverse realities of Māori offer important perspectives on how we might imagine and participate in our nation's food futures. This article provides an overview of our recent Kaupapa Māori research project Kai Atua: food stories for hope and wellbeing which explains how food is part of an Indigenous woven universe made up of human communities, ngā Atua (deities), economic and social forces and the natural world. We argue that this interconnected approach to food offers pathways of hope for whānau and communities who seek to disconnect from our current broken food system and we shine a light on existing successful small-scale food growing practices within Indigenous Aotearoa that contribute to greater wellbeing for both tangata and whenua. Glossary of Māori terms: Aotearoa: Māori name for New Zealand; awa: rivers; Atua: deity; hakari: feast; hapū: to be pregnant, subtribe; hauora: wellbeing; hautapu: to feed the stars: a ceremony that takes place in mid-winter; He Wakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tīreni: the Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes of New Zealand; Hineahuone: deity of soil; Hua Parakore: Māori organics; iwi: tribe, bones; kai: food; Kai Atua: pure, pesticide-free food; kai hau kai: a practice of reciprocal obligation including the exchange of treasured foods; kaitiaki: guardian, protector, steward; karakia: prayer; kaupapa Māori: Māori principles and ideas which act as a base for action; kōhanga: language nests; kōrero: speak, speech, address; kotahitanga: unity; kupu: word, saying, utterance; kūmara: sweet potato; kura: school; māhika kai: wild foods (Kāi Tahu dialect); māhinga kai: wild foods; mahi māra: gardening work; mana: power, authority, ownership or, status; manaakitanga: caring and sharing; Māori: Indigenous people of Aotearoa; mana whenua: the authority of a tribe or hapū over specific lands and territories; manuhiri: visitors, guests; marae: a sacred and communal place that serves cultural and social purposes in Māori societies; marae kaiwhakahaere: marae manager; māramatanga: dawning understanding; māra kai: garden; Matariki: the cluster of stars that marks the beginning of the new year in the Māori lunar calendar; mātauranga Māori: Māori epistemology/knowledge; mātauraka Māori: Māori epistemology/knowledge (Kāi Tahu dialect); mauri: life principle, life force, vital essence; moana: oceans; moemoeā: dreams, aspirations; mokopuna: grandchild, grandchildren, descendant; ngāhere: forests; oneone: soil; oranga: health, wellbeing, vitality; ngā atua: the dieties (plural); noa: common; Papatūānuku: Earth Mother, partner to Ranginui; pūrākau: an ancient form of storytelling that helps create shared meaning and cultural identity; rangatahi: younger generation; Rangatira: chief/chieftainess; Ranginui: Sky Father, partner to Papatūānuku; rīwai: potato; rongoā: remedy, medicine; tāngata whenua: people born of the land; taonga: treasure, anything prized; taonga tuku iho: treasures handed down by ancestors; tapu: sacred, restricted, set apart; tau iwi: non-Māori people of Aotearoa; tauutuutu: reciprocity; te ao Māori: the diverse Māori world; te reo Māori: Māori language; te ao tūroa: the natural world that contains and surrounds us: Te Ao Wairua: spiritual worlds; tiaki: guardian, steward; tikanga Māori: Māori ontology/practices or Māori governance and intellectual protocols; tikaka Māori: Māori ontology/practices or Māori governance and intellectual protocols (Kāi Tahu dialect); tinana: body; tino rangatiratanga: self-determination, sovereignty, autonomy, self-government, domination, rule, control, power; Tipu-ā-nuku: a star the kūmara is associated with; Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840: the Māori version of the Treaty of Waitangi; tūpuna: ancestors; uri: descendants: utu: balance, reciprocity; uwhi: yam; wairua: spirit; wānanga: Māori tertiary institute; waka: boat; whakapapa: genealogy, to place in layers; whakatauki: proverb, significant saying; whānau: to be born, family group; whanaunga: relatives; whanaungatanga: relationship, kinship, sense of family connection; whenua: placenta, ground, land.