Te Mahi Oneone Hua Parakore
A Māori Soil Sovereignty and Wellbeing Handbook
Edited by Dr Jessica Hutchings and Jo Smith
Soil health and security are key components of our wellbeing. Even so, soil is faced with many environmental challenges under the current iteration of capitalism. A paradigm shift is needed to encourage care for this resource. In te ao Māori, soil is taonga. It is also whanaunga – it holds ancestral connections and is the root of tūrangawaewae and whakapapa. It is the source of shelter, kai and manaakitanga.
Te Mahi Oneone Hua Parakore: A Māori Soil Sovereignty and Wellbeing Handbook shines a light on Māori relationships with soil, as well as the connections between soil and food security, and frames these links within the wider discourse of tino rangatiratanga from a variety of Māori perspectives. Through a range of essays, profiles and recipes, it seeks to promote wellbeing and elevate the mana of the soil by drawing on the hua parakore Māori organics framework as a means for understanding these
wide-ranging, diverse and interwoven relationships with soil.