Words Between Us
Written by
On Sunday 11th of September at the upcoming Going West Books and Writers Festival Literary weekend, Alison Jones [Auckland University] and Kuni Jenkins [Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi] will speak to their exhibition ‘Nga Taonga Tuhituhi: archival images of the earliest Maori use of pen and paper’.
On Sunday 11th of September at the upcoming Going West Books and Writers Festival Literary weekend, Alison Jones [Auckland University] and Kuni Jenkins [Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi] will speak to their exhibition ‘Nga Taonga Tuhituhi: archival images of the earliest Maori use of pen and paper’.
The exhibition charted the story of the invitation of Maori to the first European school in New Zealand, in the Bay of Islands in 1816. Their book, Words Between Us: He Korero: First Maori-Pakeha Conversations on Paper, is due out later this year.
Alison Jones is a professor of education at the University of Auckland. She has published a number of academic books and is interested in the complex educational relationships between Maori and Pakeha – both how they were established historically and how they are played out today.
Kuni Jenkins is a trained primary school teacher who gained her PhD in 2000 from The University of Auckland. She taught in the Education Department there from 1991-2003 before moving to work at Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi at the end of 2003 as the Dean of Undergraduate Studies. She became Deputy CEO from 2005-2008 and then set up the Te IRA (Institute for Indigenous Research Advancement) Centre of which she became Director. Kuni lectures and also supervises Masters and PhD students at the wananga. Kuni is a recipient of the prestigious Marsden Fund which she holds in partnership with Professor Alison Jones of The University of Auckland