Knowledge-making in southern New Zealand

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Michael Stevens (University of Otago)
• Monday 02 June 2008, 13:00-14:15
• Seminar Room 1, Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Salim Al-Gailani.

Michael Stevens (University of Otago, New Zealand) belongs to Kai Tahu whanui, the iwi (Maori tribe) whose traditional tribal area covers the majority of New Zealand’s South Island. Michael is a participant in the annual customary harvesting of titi (sooty shearwaters/muttonbirds) from islands adjacent to Rakiura (Stewart Island) in Foveaux Strait. The right to harvest titi, or, in local parlance, to go muttonbirding, is an exclusive one inherited genealogically. In this paper, Michael uses the titi harvest to illustrate changes in Kai Tahu knowledge and ways of life since (and as a result of) European contact in the late eighteenth century. Looking at colonial-era commentaries on the harvest, he argues that the persistence of the titi harvest a pre-contact custom—and traditional knowledge associated with it, is not evidence of Kai Tahu rejection of modernity, but rather, a crucial thread in its own conception of modernity.

This talk is part of the Cabinet of Natural History series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Cabinet of Natural History
• Cambridge talks
• Chris Davis' list
• Department of History and Philosophy of Science
• Featured lists
• Featured talks
• Guy Emerson's list
• History and Philosophy of Science long list
• Philosophy Events
• Philosophy and History of Science
• Seminar Room 1, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
• Trust & Technology Initiative - interesting events
• Yishu's list
• custom
• hc446
• jer64's list
• ji247's list

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.