A Pākehā Whakapapa Deficit and a Dialogue with Science as Whakapapa of the Mind

This paper examines the deep sense of whakapapa or genealogy that frames much of the contemporary public dialogue in Aotearoa.

Te ao Māori (Māori worldview) preserves at the heart of its Mātauranga (knowledge system) concepts that ground morality and purpose in the land/whenua and people/tangata, in spirit/wairua and mauri/life force, and especially in whakapapa or lineage and family/whanau. I examine the sense of a whakapapa deficit that one can experience as a pākehā in New Zealand, and how this is felt as a spiritual lack. I then reflect on the fact that, as Alasdair Macintyre has argued, people are grounded not only by land and spirit but also by a series of stories or interlocking narratives and embodied practices. I put the intellectual story idea into dialogue with the understanding of whakapapa in Mātauranga Māori in my own history, exploring the connection of science and theology, as an example of trying to do a whakapapa of the mind. I end with the possibility of connection and community in Christ, overcoming our various alienations, deprivations, and oppressions.