Puna Kei‘ā: Te au tangata ē te ‘enua – The district of Kei‘ā: The people and the land

Abstract

This seminar is about a place in the Cook Islands. To be more precise, it concerns a research project that explores the cultural meanings of the land comprising the district of Kei`ā, one of six wedge-shaped puna (districts) constituting the largest land units in the island of Mangaia. During my research over some 15 or more years there I have been privileged to build up a variety of relationships with the people of the land, the tangata `enua. The following seminar reflects upon the ethics of research in an indigenous community, and has benefitted from a long time collaboration with Dr Richard Walter, an archaeologist at the University of Otago. Many of the following ideas have developed in the course of conversations between the two of us about our work in Kei`ā.