The Māori in Me

Growing up in Australia with a Danish father and a Māori-Pakeha mother, Myjanne Jensen always had this sense of never being enough to call herself Māori. After moving to Te Hiku o Te Ika – the Far North – in 2021, she started a journey of coming home and trying to better connect to her roots.

In this first episode of her journey to explore her roots, Myjanne starts it off by talking to her mother - mental health social worker, psyc...

hat's a question Myjanne has asked herself for much of her life, but how does one answer that? For this episode, she speaks to Māori cultural identity researcher, Ririwai Fox, about how his research has helped him explore this topic. She then has a kōrero with Te Rūnanga o Whaingaroa Pou Arahi- General Manager for Culture and whānaunga, Raniera Kaio, for his advice regarding people on that journey coming home.

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Understanding and acknowledging colonisation and the intergenerational trauma it has caused for whānau Māori is essential to healing and better understanding our past, present and future. For this episode, Myjanne speaks to renowned Māori academic and rights activist, Professor Margaret Mutu, about what life was like in Te Hiku o Te Ika at the start of the 20th century and the impact of colonisation on the region and beyond.

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As someone of Māori descent growing up in Australia in the 1980s, Myjanne says the opportunity to connect to her culture was limited. In this episode she makes the journey back to Brisbane to interview a number of Māori living in Queensland and to hear about their experiences living away from Aotearoa. She also speaks to the  Queensland Māori Society about an interesting kaupapa they run called, "Am I Māori Enough?".

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As part of Myjanne's exploration into the topic of Māori identity and indigeneity more broadly, Myjanne says she came across a phenomenon called 'pretendians' (Pretend Indians). According to Anishnaabe man and native filmmaker Drew Hayden Taylor, the past decade in Canada has seen a flood of white people being outed as 'pretendians', after claiming to be native when they weren't. He's now created a documentary on the topic and spea...

For those people on the journey of reconnecting with their Māori roots, a big part of that process is healing parts of us that don't feel 'enough'. For this episode, Myjanne speaks to Erica McCreedy, a wāhine Māori living in Australia who created her own podcast, 'Healing our Identity', on this very topic. The episode then finishes with a conversation with Australian-Māori Dr Melissa Carey who talked about her own healing journey t...