Indigenous Knowledge Has Value

Curtis Bristowe talks on the power of Kawa, Tikanga, and Kaupapa to provide answers to today’s problems. In his talk Curtis reflects on his ancestors challenges, how they overcame these challenges and how we can learn from these in our own lives. This year’s theme was Morphosis and reflected the ever changing world we live in. Curtis Bristowe is a man of many strands. Among these he is a PhD student of media communications at the University of Waikato, and a teacher of Indigenous Research at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. An advocate for the survival and prosperity of Māori language and culture, Curtis’ research has focused on the development and implementation of a kaupapa Māori-inspired strategic communication framework. It is his hope that this framework can help business and community groups’ focus, and guide their collective purpose and vision. There is the need to communicate our Indigenous knowledge so people may gain an understanding of its value and worth, and secondly, the opportunity to share a piece of our national history and the forces that helped shape it. As Curtis says “There are many threads of history that make up the fabric of our great nation, and stories such as Te Kooti’s deserved to be acknowledged and remembered, lest the faults of the past are again repeated in the present.”