The project Vā Moana: space and relationality in Pacific thought and identity investigated the Samoan and Tongan notion of vā and its origins and adaptations over time in different locales. Concurrently, the project explored how the articulation of vā/wā in art, architecture, Pacific Studies and Material Culture contributes to diasporic identity and community formation, and how it is kept in generative relationships with mātauranga Māori. We produced an exploratory analysis and synthesis of current notions of vā/wā and their relevance for Moana futures in Aotearoa New Zealand.
To this end, we reviewed the literature and archival material, and conducted talanoa with knowledge holders from Sāmoa, Tonga, Hawaiʻi, Aotearoa New Zealand and Europe. Outcomes include a website for the dissemination of findings among communities, such as our talanoa video series and recorded conference presentations; an edited volume, Pacific Spaces: translations and transmutations, published in 2022 by Berghahn Books; papers developed through ASAO; our 2021 blended conference, Vā Moana: space and relationality in Pacific thought and identity, and forthcoming edited collection of the same name.
A key finding was that while vā is active and embedded in daily life in the homelands, its explication occurs mostly in diaspora. In recent years, vā has been developed, articulated and enacted by diasporic Moana people in a wide range of artistic, academic, museological and scientific fields. The extensive contemporary relevance of vā is perhaps due to the inherent importance of relationships with people, place, material culture and ancestors. We also found that across Aotearoa New Zealand, Sāmoa, Tonga and Hawaiʻi, different emphasis is placed on the socio-spatial and temporal elements of vā/wā. In each location, vā/wā foregrounds Indigenous ontologies and conceptions of time and space. Although the project aimed to establish a cohesive baseline of the notion of vā, we found that vā is not singular or fixed: the concept continues to emerge and generate discussion in its contemporary, cosmopolitan form. Vā is ‘alive’.
Engagement with vā has grown significantly in Aotearoa New Zealand since the project’s 2019 beginning, and its outcomes contribute to a deeper understanding of vā/wā among Māori and Moana people. Our conference is likely to impact future gatherings that foreground Moana relationality in the digital vā. Further, sharing the talanoa video series and conference presentations online has enabled a broader community reach. Looking forward, the data generated offers multiple starting points for future publications and developments by the wider scholarly and artistic fields.
This research project was generously funded through a Marsden grant (2019-2022).
Principal Investigators: Albert L. Refiti & Tina Engels-Schwarzpaul.
Associate Investigators: Hūfanga-He-Ako-Moe-Lotu ʻŌkusitino Māhina (Vavaʻu Academy for Critical Inquiry and Applied Research, Dr. Billie Lythberg (University of Auckland), Prof. Ty P. Kāwika Tengan (University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa) and Dr. Brett Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura multimedia artist).
Researchers: Dr. Lana Lopesi, Dr. Iʻuogafa Tuagalu (PhDs); Rosanna Raymond and Terje Koloamatangi (MPhils); and Paul Janman, Ali Taheri, Arielle Walker and Emily Parr (Postgraduate Research Assistants).