Abstract
As a result of urban concentration, colonisation, increased physical distance from tribal homelands, and globalisation, many indigenous people, including Māori, are seeking digital solutions for maintaining a connection to their culture and identity. The development of one's connection requires continuous engagement and interaction with the marae (cultural meeting place) and the community that maintains the place. This is especially important because oral traditions hold strong cultural values towards "being there" in-person. Since the marae is typically located throughout rural parts of Aotearoa New Zealand, the only option for Māori has been social networking sites (e.g. Facebook). However, current forms of tele-communication are restricted to front of the screen and cannot fully support Māori principles of communication, engagement, and interactions.
Tele-co-presence is now possible, with more affordable virtual reality (VR) devices, enabling a more natural communication experience over distances. It allows a user to virtually see their own body in an environment and most importantly see other people sharing the same space. This is referred as the sense of tele-co-presence, or "being-there together" with others in the virtual environment. Tele-co-presence systems also target spatialised audio-visual cues, enabling users to freely explore an environment in the first-person and hear sound in three dimensions as one would experience in reality.
Hence, our research investigates how tele-co-presence can support Māori principles of interaction and oral traditions, providing a better alternative for maintaining a connection to the marae. Through collaboration led by our indigenous partners, at Te Rau Aroha Marae (Bluff), we describe a co-design process that guided the development of a working tele-co-presence system in a cultural context.
During development, we evaluated the cultural acceptance of using VR for supporting Māori practices. After confirming cultural appropriateness, we provide the implementation details of a working tele-co-presence system. This is followed by a technical evaluation of coherent audio-visual cues. We especially tested whether the configured reverberation effect acoustically represents the virtual cultural space. To determine whether a sense of tele-co-presence is supported, we tested the system in a two-way communication scenario connecting real people located in two different cities. The findings of this research can contribute towards enabling natural forms of communication, engagement, and interaction over distances for other iwi (tribes), cultures, and for the daily lives of people.