"Rakiora" ~ the living North
Sustainable Development 1994-2007
Taitokerau Maori Dictionary
This website was first set up in May 2004, to make sure that resources produced by former research associates and staff of the James Henare Maori Research Centre did not become inaccessible when the University shut down the Centre's own web site after the Centre had gone into recess. It was given a major overhaul at the beginning of August that year, when it became clear that the resource-rich James Henare Maori Research Centre web site was not going to reappear quickly. A few items from the pages of the Centre's on-line newsletter, the Centre Diary, which appeared monthly (occasionally updated almost daily) from the beginning of 2001 to December 2003 were available through the Rakiora site, along with a fairly comprehensive coverage of useful information on various aspects of sustainable development in the decade following the inception of the centre's FRST-funded sustainable research programmes in 1994, including and adding to the material originally available through the Centre's web pages. Some additional material was added to this from 2005-7. All this material was transferred to the University in 2011, and access to it should now be sought from the James Henare Maori Research Center itself. The Rakiora site also provided access to the most important resource of all for many people, Te Papakupu o te Taitokerau (the Taitokerau Maori Dictionary), and information and publications arising from the Year 2000 conference in Auckland of the International Consortium for Experiential learning (ICEL). Both these sections are retained here for the moment. The whakapapa of this site, and its underlying philosophy of making information and resources to support sustainable Maori development and the revitalization of the Maori language can be traced back to the ground-breaking Te Wahapü computer-based communications system (CBCS) which successfully completed its initial test run on March 25, 1990. You can read more about that, and get access to some of the resources once stored on Te Wahapü, through the link on the side-panel of this page.
Original and Current Purposes of this Website
The "Rakiora" website was set up by members of the
Tai Tokerau Sustainable Development Research Group, an informal network of researchers with an ongoing interest in and commitment
to the sustainable economic, social and cultural development of Taitokerau
and the wellbeing of whanau, hapü, iwi, communities and individuals
resident in the region and the ecosystem which makes life there possible
and fulfilling. The network included a core group
of researchers who worked
on the sustainable Mäori economic development research programme
under the aegis of the James Henare Mäori Research Centre at the
University of Auckland, along with colleagues, whänau, friends
and people interested in various aspects of sustainable development
with a special focus on Taitokerau. Some of the members were still
working on the final revisions of those reports arising directly
from the James Henare Maori Research Centre's research which were not
available from the Centre or through the Centre's website at the end
of 2003. Those which were completed, along with others that had already been finished were made available for downloading from this site. This web page was first set up to ensure that the Taitokerau Maori dictionary would remain accessible, and that people interested
in Maori economic development in Tai Tokerau, and especially Tai
Tokerau iwi, hapu, whanau and business and development groups, would
have easy access to the resources that were produced through the Taitokerau Sustainable Development research programmes. Now that the Centre is once again active (from 2008), new material along with the older resources
will no doubt also be available from the Centre directly and through the Centre's own website as this is expanded. Only the dictionary and the records of the ICEL conference are retained here. The "Rakiora" site is now linked to Te Māra Reo and maintained by voluntary contributions from some of its original organizers.
International Consortium for Experiential Learning.
The ICEL 2000 web site -- the virtual record of the 7th meeting of the International Consortium for Experiential learning, held in Auckland in December 2000. Includes links to the Consortium's central web site in the United States, and information about past, current, and future activities of the Consortium.
Te Papakupu o te Taitokerau .
The on-line version of the Taitokerau Maori Dictionary, now linked also to the Te Wahapü lexical database, along with information about this on-going project, and related lexicographic work.
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