Creating Virtual Marae

Maori people have a history of adaptation of new technologies. In recent decades Maori innovators have taken and adapted digital technologies for a range of purposes that can be broadly defined as educational. In this chapter, the authors examine three cases where groups have utilised, and ‘colonised’, a range of particular technologies in order to build capacity for their tribal groups and wider community. In this way they use technologies as tools to overcome some of the financial, social and political deprivation caused by historic and continuing colonisation. The authors initially locate their exploration in a discussion of the historical context of colonisation, Maori movement towards self-determination, and in a discussion of Maori values and approaches to knowledge. They then present the three cases, beginning with one from a formal tertiary education programme (a Maori one), then examining a tribal initiative for language revitalisation and finally looking at a national use of digital media through Maori television.1