Critical Conversations in Kaupapa Maori

Kaupapa Maori theory and methodology developed over twenty years ago and have since become influential in social research, practice and policy areas. This collection furthers knowledge about kaupapa Maori by examining its effects over the decades, identifying and discussing its conventions and boundaries and reflecting on kaupapa Maori in social and educational research and practice. The collection contains chapters by Brad Coombes, Garrick Cooper, Mason Durie, Carl Mika, Te Ahukaramu Charles Royal, Graham Hingangaroa Smith, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Alice Te Punga Somerville, Georgina Stewart and Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni, along with the collection editors. This collection of short stories explores connections between extremes of heat and cold. Sometimes this is spatial or geographical; sometimes it is metaphorical. Sometimes it involves juxtapositions of time; sometimes heat appears where only ice is expected.

In the stories, a woman is caught between traditional Fijian ways and the brutality of the military dictatorship; a glaciology researcher falls into a crevasse and confronts the unexpected; two women lose children in freak shooting accidents; a young child in a Barbie Doll sweatshop dreams of a different life; secondary school girls struggle with secrets about an addicted janitor; and two women take a deathly trip through a glacier melt stream. These are some of the unpredictable stories in this collection that follow themes of ice and glaciers in the heat of the South Pacific and take us into unusual lives and explorations.