Vā Moana Reading Group September 2023

We began again our Vā Moana Reading Group for 2023 after a hiatus. The next six months will focus on new ways to engage with artefacts/objects from Indigenous viewpoints. They will include general theories of decoloniality, Indigeneity, and new Marxism in architecture, art and design, complementing our Marsden research on Pacific architecture and art titled Artefacts of Relations.

Katerina Teaiwa (2020), On Decoloniality: A View from Oceania

Today, Pan-Pacific resistance to Euro-American imperial and neo-colonial forces epitomises Mignolo and Walsh’s descriptions of pluriversal and interversal decoloniality beginning with actions, values, stories and relations grounded in kinships, landscapes, seascapes and skyscapes. These are the bases of decolonial thought, pedagogy and praxis. Most often, Pacific resistance movements are led by women, keepers of the land and peace, who historically have been less compromised by offers of wealth in exchange for land and power directed by traders, missionaries and colonial officials to male leaders. Increasingly, they are led by youth who are concerned about the environment, such as the multi-sited network of ‘Pacific Climate Warriors’.

Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió (2022), Designing Decolonization? Architecture And Indigenous Development

A survey particularly from within North American architecture and from the perspective of Indigenous architects who are redefining the role architecture might play for a critical discourse of Indigenous development. What emerges from this brief overview is not a coherent theory of contemporary Native American architecture or a set of prescriptions for “good” Indigenous development, but a set of long-enduring colonial fault lines and conflicts immanent to the relation between modern design, development, and Indigeneity.

If you are interested in joining the monthly reading group (either in person or online), please get in touch via autpacificspaces@gmail.com. This is open to Vā Moana affiliates and candidates, Māori and Pacific postgraduate students, as well as extended 'āiga and those in their final year of their undergraduate degrees.