{"id":7500,"date":"2025-10-01T10:02:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T21:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/?p=7500"},"modified":"2025-10-01T10:02:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T21:02:25","slug":"whatua-te-muka-tangata-indigenous-cloak-making-as-a-site-of-healing-and-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/whatua-te-muka-tangata-indigenous-cloak-making-as-a-site-of-healing-and-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"Whatua te Muka T\u0101ngata: Indigenous Cloak-Making as a Site of Healing and Resistance\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This article explores a collaborative arts-research exchange between M\u0101ori and Aboriginal women cloak-makers, positioning traditional cloaking practices as powerful sites of healing, resistance and cultural regeneration. Grounded in Kaupapa M\u0101ori and Whatuora (H. Smith, 2017; 2019) methodologies, the article weaves together the experiences of M\u0101ori weavers and Aboriginal possum-skin cloak-makers who came together on each other\u2019s lands to share, learn and co-create. Through reciprocal exchange and community-engaged practice, three Aboriginal women came to w\u0101nanga in Aotearoa in April 2024, with two M\u0101ori women travelling to Victoria in Australia in the following month to experience their learning circles. The women revitalised intergenerational knowledge systems, language and creative pedagogies grounded in Indigenous maternities. Cloak-making processes serve not only as a tangible act of creation but as a metaphor for the binding of generations, reconnection to whenua (land), and reclamation of identity. The culminating collaborative cloak, Kahu\u2013Kooramookyan<\/em>, embodies the cultural narratives, relational ethics and artistic expressions that resonate across M\u0101ori and Aboriginal epistemologies. This article forwards cloaking as an artivism \u2013 activist arts practice \u2013 that nurtures Indigenous wellbeing and acts as a decolonising intervention, reconnecting communities through shared values of aroha, reciprocity and resistance. As ancestral knowledge is reactivated through hands, fibres and ceremony, cloak-making emerges as an educational, spiritual and political act of Indigenous sovereignty and resurgence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download PDF<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Penetito, K. & Smith, H. (2025). Whatua te Muka T\u0101ngata: Indigenous Cloak-Making as a Site of Healing and Resistance. Occasional and Discussion Paper 1\/2025. ePress, Unitec.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/doi.org\/10.34074\/ocds.112<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Authors: Kim Penetito and Hinekura Smith<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISSN: 2324-3635<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published: 01.10.2025<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article explores a collaborative arts-research exchange between M\u0101ori and Aboriginal women cloak-makers, positioning traditional cloaking practices as powerful sites of healing, resistance and cultural regeneration. Grounded in Kaupapa M\u0101ori and Whatuora (H. Smith, 2017; 2019) methodologies, the article weaves… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":7502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,26,15,3],"tags":[1307,95,124,1302,1309,21,1104,759,911,957,1308,94,1305,1304,57,28,1306,1303,1310],"class_list":["post-7500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-epress-series","category-featured-publications","category-discussions-and-occasional-papers","category-publications","tag-aboriginal-art","tag-aotearoa","tag-australia","tag-cloak-making","tag-de-colonising","tag-discussion-and-occasional-papers","tag-dr-hinekura-smith","tag-indigenous-research","tag-kaupapa-maori-research","tag-kim-penetito","tag-maori-art","tag-new-zealand","tag-possum-skin","tag-raranga","tag-unitec","tag-unitec-epress","tag-wananga","tag-weaving","tag-wellbeing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7500"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7531,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7500\/revisions\/7531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitec.ac.nz\/epress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}