Late last year I was lucky enough to attend and give a paper at NDF Whanake\Evolve 2023 at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 20 – 23 November 2023. NDF is a future and technology conference for the Aotearoa cultural sector. It brings together participants from the cultural sector across the Asia-Pacific region to explore how to tackle global challenges including climate change, inequality, and injustice.
It was an inspirational program and one of the key reasons was the role of Māori language and practices such as welcomes and singing in language as part of the program. The NZ Minister Hon Marama Davidson spoke about the impact of colonialism and imperialism for Māori and other cultures around the world. How the extractive and exploitative nature of the dominant economic structure is doing violence to Mother Earth and the need for us to interrupt this violence to find a just future. She spoke about how Pacific leadership can provide guidance and wisdom for mobilising community action to address climate change. She reminded the conference that the Māori people have a tradition of protecting the land for seven generations ahead.
The Director of Audience and Insight at Te Papa Tongarewa, Puawai Cairns spoke about planting the seeds of change at Te Papa and using the Māori history of voyaging in the Pacific as inspiration. Te Papa’s strategy uses Māori ways of thinking – a cyclical rather than a linear process of production – to promote equity and ensure that the benefits of their current work will be accessible for generations to come.
Addressing climate challenges in Tuvalu
The opening keynote for the conference was delivered by Tuvaluan politician the Hon. Simon Kofe. He leads Tuvalu’s Future Now Project Te Ataeao Nei which is working to future proof the country against the most severe threats of climate change. Tuvaluans live on low-lying islands and are preparing today for a possible future worst-case climate scenario where their country may no longer exist. Tuvalu could be fully submerged in 50 to 200 years. Therefore, Tuvaluans are creating the world’s First Digital Nation to allow them to continue functioning as a state, regardless of where its government or people are in the world. To do this the country is migrating all their governance systems online, so their government can continue to exist and operate as a nation, even if it does not have a physical presence. The Tuvaluan Constitution now includes a provision that all countries with diplomatic ties to Tuvalu must recognize that Tuvalu’s statehood is permanent and will continue to exist even beyond the potentially devastating impacts of climate change.
Tuvalu is creating a digital twin of their country which will include virtual twins of all their islands (starting with Te Afualiku – one of the first places in Tuvalu likely to be submerged), an archive of their history and culture and a collection of valuable climate change data. It will allow Tuvaluans to stay connected with their culture and younger generations, learn their language and continue to benefit from resources within their maritime boundaries and to have a voice on the world stage. Tuvaluans are being asked to identify what they would like to preserve in this digital space, and the resource will grow over time allowing them to continue to link stories to place.
Most importantly, Tuvalu’s ‘Future Now’ plan is designed to operationalise the ethical and moral principles that underpin Tuvaluan culture. The Tuvaluan Foreign Policy 2020 is based on the principles of; communal living systems, shared responsibility and being a good neighbour. Tuvalu’s experience can inform the world about the changing nature of statehood in light of climate change and the associated importance of data sovereignty in the global digital environment.
Māori Data Sovereignty – ‘Data is Land’
Another keynote speaker was Peter-Lucas Jones who is Chairman of Te Whakaruruhau o Ngā Reo Irirangi Māori (The Iwi Radio Network) and Chairman of Te Rūnanga Nui o Te Aupōuri. He spoke eloquently about how the failure to honour promises in New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi has resulted in land alienation, language loss and cultural decline for the Māori people. In the 1990s funding provided for Māori digital projects led to the formation of Te Hiku Media a media service which operates in Māori language and implements Māori Data Sovereignty to ensure the protection of Māori information and knowledge. Peter explained that ‘data is land’ and that Māori Data Sovereignty is related to landscape as well as whanau (family), hapū (clan) and Iwi (people, nation, or tribe). It is important to ensure that the misappropriation of benefits that flowed from the alienation of Māori land is not repeated in the digital environment with information or knowledge that concerns or originates from Māori culture.
Te Hiku Media are using digital technologies to help Māori reconnect to land and language. They are digitising collections of recordings of native Māori speakers back to 1892 and with the support of elders are making this material available with appropriate access controls. Peter spoke about the importance of data custodianship and protection and the development and use of the Kaitiakitang License. The meaning of Kaitiakitang is similar to guardian, protector, and custodian. It is an evolving licence which ensures that access to data is only provided under Māori customs and protocols. Data about or originating from the Māori community needs to be protected by the licence because:
By simply opening access to our tools, data and knowledge, we further allow ourselves to be colonised digitally in the modern world.
Te Hiku Media are using digital automation for language training, to speed up transcription and teach computers how to speak Māori. Kaituhi is a web-based transcription tool that automatically transcribes te reo Māori audio and video files. It can be used by anyone, supports the creation of closed captioning and sub-titles and enables cataloguing and searchability. Content is protected by the Kaitiakitang licence which allows contributors to control how their data can be used.
Peter also discussed the intergenerational transmission of language and the work being done to decolonisation the sound of te reo Māori through recognising and addressing the influence of English on contemporary Māori pronunciation. The Oro Tuku Iho project is using AI to accelerate the revitalisation of te reo Māori and Te Hiku Media have also developed the free Māori pronunciation app Rongo.
There are also concerns about how global developments in ‘big tech’ may be eroding marginalised languages. Some of the existing data sets that are being used to train AI are not using any, or sufficient numbers of native speakers. It is often unclear where data comes from and who is doing quality assurance. Peter pointed out how important it is that we don’t treat data in the same way we’ve treated the environment. The Kaitiakitanga Licence aims to prevent data mining of te reo Māori for economic gain. It ensures that any benefits remain with Māori and prohibits surveillance, tracking, discrimination, and unfairness. The discussion at the end of the session re-iterated how important it is for Indigenous people to lead technological change in ways that meet their own needs and the needs of their community.
Future ancients - Indigenous wisdom and the technological present
The cultural anthropologist Dr Elizabeth Kabu’ uwailani Lindsey, is the first Polynesian explorer and female Fellow in the history of the National Geographic Society. In her keynote address at NDF she spoke about how the speed of technological developments today means that they blend with the wisdom of our ancestral past.
The ancients were sophisticated technologists who understood that life was not static, it was dynamic, and their wisdom was built on a foundation of spirituality and culture. And at present the loss of every elder means that we lose a vast library of wisdom and knowledge. This includes our cosmologies and philosophies including what it means to be human. She worked with the last grand master Polynesian navigator priest who was the last celestial navigator alive. And this made her recognize the importance of applying a solution based on ancient wisdom as the way forward for the world. She believes that we should apply the five ancestral principles she learnt from her Hawaiian ancestors, which are also reflected in Māori and other cultures:
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Ho’ oponopono: Clear the Way – to make things right and use integrity, make the way open.
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Ho’ oulu: The Vision – to cultivate wealth and abundance, for the good of everyone. When you form a clear goal in your mind, your subconscious can’t differentiate what is imagined from what is real.
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Ho’ omana: Cultivate Mana – Cultivate life force and internal power.
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Ka Mahalo: Gratitude – An elevated state and like attracts like.
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Ke Aloha: Transcendent Purpose – Love in service to all of humanity. The greatest purpose of all.
Dr Lindsey spoke about the need for our society to use the wisdom of the ancients to address the current challenges of the world. Despite living in a world loaded with data and information, we are starved of wisdom. Our technology is merely a tool, what matters is the hand that wields it. We need to be the storytellers of a new era, carrying the dreams and visions of the ancients forward. Technology can only be a beacon when it is used in a way built upon a foundation of wisdom.
Until the lioness tells her own story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter
As an anthropologist Dr Lindsey is witnessing voices speaking a truth in a time of challenge. She believes Aoteorea can be a leader in this because of the unique perspective it offers the world. We need to tell our own stories. It will take all of us to return the world to balance.
The time is now, and we are the ones we have been waiting for.
These three keynote presentations were just some of the fascinating and inspirational presentations at NDF23. It was a wonderful and thought-provoking conference, and I was privileged to be a participant.
Video recordings of the NDF 2023 keynote presentations are available at https://www.ndf.org.nz/ndf-videos/ndf23 and other sessions will be available on the NDF YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBYuIJDGBpsKzjTTf1OKMMQ