Weaving Together: Aroha as Capacity and Work

Abstract

This essay, pitched at a general (non-academic) audience, won the Maxim \nInstitute Essay Competition in July 2019. It responded to a brief asking entrants to address the role of aroha and manaakitanga as frameworks for New Zealand’s long-term policy and cultural response to the Christchurch Mosque attack. The essay is presented below, with added (theoretical, methodological, pedagogical, and applied) discussion questions for social anthropologists and cultural theorists to consider, at the end.