Tihei Mauri Moko! Maori Women Reclaiming 'traditions' of Taking Up Moko Kauae
Tracks
Kookaburra Room: In-Person & Virtual via OnAIR
| Tuesday, October 21, 2025 |
| 2:05 PM - 2:25 PM |
| Kookaburra Room (M3) |
Overview
Assoc Prof Hinekura Smith, Arc Indigenous Futures Centre, University of Queensland
Presenter
Assoc. Prof Hinekura Smith
Principal Researcher
Indigenous Futures Centre, University of Queensland
Tihei Mauri Moko! Maori Women Reclaiming 'traditions' of Taking Up Moko Kauae
Presentation Overview
Cultural skin markings continue to be reclaimed by Indigenous peoples around the world. In Aotearoa wearing moko kauae (skin markings on the chin) clearly identifies us as Māori women. Recent years has seen a resurgence in Māori women taking up, and taking back, moko kauae for themselves and within their family, celebrating a critical and powerful site of resistance, reclamation and renewal of this tradition. It is a timely opportunity to build on research and literature of moko, to explore the impact on, and evolution of, ‘traditions’ around taking up and carrying this treasured birthright.
Funded by Nga Pae o Te Maramatanga (CORE) a scoping, qualitative Kaupapa Māori project enabled one-on-one interviews with six prominent wāhine Māori (women) who wear moko kauae. Thematic analysis of their lived experience spoke to the importance of decolonising perceived pre-requisites, some of which have been entrenched as ‘tikanga’ and creating limitations - or example language proficiency, age, achievements, skin colour and cultural capability that can inhibit Māori women taking up what is according to the six wahine in this research ‘an inherent birth right’. This presentation shares a creative dissemination research output - a pūrākau (narrative story) that explores the themes in this research through an exchange between a Māori mother and her daughter as she asks “E Mā, mā wai te moko kauae? (Mum, who is moko kauae for?)
Scholastically, this research and its creative outputs offer a contemporary perspective of Māori women who wear moko kauae contributing to a small, but vital, existing literature set. Importantly, Māori led research that speaks in our words and in our ways about how and why we wear our cultural markings serves to ‘right’ colonised and colonial observations that continue to describe and define Māori identity.
Three Key Learnings:
1. Insight in to research around how wahine Māori are taking back moko kauae as a birthright and identity marker
2. Providing an example of pūrākau as a valid research dissemination tool
3. Consider the omnipresent impact of colonialism on tikanga Māori (constructed traditions) and their implications
Funded by Nga Pae o Te Maramatanga (CORE) a scoping, qualitative Kaupapa Māori project enabled one-on-one interviews with six prominent wāhine Māori (women) who wear moko kauae. Thematic analysis of their lived experience spoke to the importance of decolonising perceived pre-requisites, some of which have been entrenched as ‘tikanga’ and creating limitations - or example language proficiency, age, achievements, skin colour and cultural capability that can inhibit Māori women taking up what is according to the six wahine in this research ‘an inherent birth right’. This presentation shares a creative dissemination research output - a pūrākau (narrative story) that explores the themes in this research through an exchange between a Māori mother and her daughter as she asks “E Mā, mā wai te moko kauae? (Mum, who is moko kauae for?)
Scholastically, this research and its creative outputs offer a contemporary perspective of Māori women who wear moko kauae contributing to a small, but vital, existing literature set. Importantly, Māori led research that speaks in our words and in our ways about how and why we wear our cultural markings serves to ‘right’ colonised and colonial observations that continue to describe and define Māori identity.
Three Key Learnings:
1. Insight in to research around how wahine Māori are taking back moko kauae as a birthright and identity marker
2. Providing an example of pūrākau as a valid research dissemination tool
3. Consider the omnipresent impact of colonialism on tikanga Māori (constructed traditions) and their implications
Biography
Assoc. Prof Hinekura Smith (Te Rarawa, Ngā Puhi) is a Kaupapa Māori researcher and educator interested in Māori women and identity politics; decolonizing education; Indigenous arts-based research methodologies and growing Māori and Indigenous research(ers). Until recently, she was director of Nga Wai a Te Tūi Māori Research Centre and is now an Associate Professor at the University of Queensland in the ARC Indigenous Futures Centre.
