Dr Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki iwi, Te Ātiawa) is a historian, journalist and a member of Te Aro Pā Poets collective and Te Pouhere Kōrero Māori Historians Network. She is the author of The Parihaka Album: Lest We Forget (Huia, 2009), Stop Press: The Last Days of Newspapers (Scribe, 2013) and Ko Taranaki Te Maunga (Bridget Williams Books, 2018). Her pukapuka Te Motunui Epa (Bridget Williams Books, 2022) was the Co-winner of the 2023 W.H. Oliver Prize, Co-winner of the 2023 Ernest Scott Prize and shortlisted for the 2023 Ockham NZ Book Awards – Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction. Her impressive career as a writer, gained her a position as one of three finalists in the inaugural Keri Hulme Award at the 2023 Pikihuia Awards. Dr Buchanan has just been awarded the 2025 Judith Binney Fellowship. The Fellowship will allow her to take at least 12 months away from paid employment and to focus, completely, on writing, thinking and research in Aotearoa and in Te Ao Moemoea (Australia).
Congratulations on winning the Judith Binney Fellowship for 2025! Can you tell us a little about what you will be working on and what you are most excited about?
Thank you! I am very excited to have 12 months to devote myself to writing, thinking, reading, talking, listening and working with archival records of all sorts without having to worry about paid employment. It’s amazing. I’ll be working on a new collection of essays called ‘Manuhiri – the many guises of the guest’. In the natural world and the human one, the relationship between host and guest is so important but when things get out of balance, trouble starts. Colonisation is one example of a massive disruption of tikanga. When there are so many uninvited guests all over the show, it’s hard to offer manaakitanga and yet at places like Parihaka, invading forces were offered wonderful hospitality. I’m a long-term manuhiri in Naarm/Melbourne, an uninvited guest. So many Māori people live in Te Ao Moemoea and I’m also interested in thinking about our place and actions, here, as manuhiri.
You have had so much success in your career which weaves through so many different genres and forms. What form of writing do you find to be most challenging or nourishing?
I find every kind of writing a challenge. Whenever I start something new, I feel like a beginner. Philippa Hawker, who is an amazing Australian film critic and journalist, described it well when she said every day as a reporter was like sitting down to do a test. Although my skills have certainly improved after decades of serious effort writing journalism, short stories, a PhD, essays, books, poems, speeches and other things, I still get the yips. Is this a waste of time? Will anyone care? Have I got anything new to say? Those are the sorts of questions that pop up. But once I get going, I find writing very nourishing. I write non-fiction that is unconventional.
It was fantastic to see the Te Aro Pā Poets Collective showcased recently at Verb Festival with your kōrero exploring writing as a pathway to wellbeing through connection to whakapapa and to place. Can you tell us more about the Te Aro Pā Poets Collective kaupapa?
Our kaupapa has been quite organic and informal. We are all uri of Te Aro Pā and it’s been special to stand together at events such as Verb and speak on our turangawaewae, all the streets and parks around Taranaki Street and beyond. I’m a pretend poet, really, but I’ve so enjoyed seeing my sister, Hana, and our cousin, Debbie go from strength to strength with their work. Just to hear them speak and chant their kupu, in Māori and in English, it’s so awe inspiring. I feel we are all three of us speaking in both directions – to our tūpuna and to our mokopuna – but when they speak te reo, well it’s a hotline. Even though there is concrete and bitumen over our marae, I still think the land, mountains, sea and submerged streams hear our words and feel our aroha.
In what ways can other kaituhi Māori best support mana whenua here in Te Whanganui a Tara?
Acknowledgement goes a long way and seeking a little bit of knowledge. Every site around the harbour is quite specific in terms of mana whenua. For example, Te Aro Pā was primarily occupied by hapū of Taranaki iwi and Ngāti Ruanui, more people from the south of Taranaki. Uri of Te Aro Pā, including my youngest brother Joseph, were on the pae at Waitangi Park to welcome te Hīkoi mō te Tiriti to the city centre on 19 November so we are still here, quiet, but still here.
What advice do you have for other kaituhi Māori on writing about their connection with whakapapa?
Get into it! Whakapapa is truly the spring that never runs dry but there are lots of ways to interpret whakapapa and that’s part of the fun.
What tikanga or kawa do you apply to your writing process?
I think about my own relationship to the people, place or event that I want to write about and I talk through my ideas with trusted relatives or advisors, people like Matua Mahara Okeroa. In all my books, there’s a close personal connection to the subject matter and that includes whakapapa. Even my newspaper book (Stop Press) had a whakapapa connection, through my grandmother, Rawinia, and my whanaunga Steve Moffatt, a legendary sub-editor in Wellington newspapers. ‘Rei – a whānau history of Aotearoa art’ is a beautiful new small book, a publication based on the Gordon H Brown art history lecture I gave in 2023, and it really takes the whakapapa approach to a new level because I literally only write about the work of relatives. But there’s a lot in there about Te Aro Pā and the whakapapa of art, including the utu connected with a friendship between my mother, Mary, and the artist Joanna Margaret Paul. You can order a copy through the Adam Art Gallery shop.
What do you think your tīpuna would think of your books? What would their reactions be?
They’d probably find a few typos and point them out quickly! I’m old enough that some of the people who guided me early on have passed away and entered the realm of the tūpuna. I feel so fortunate to have had their warm encouragement and sometimes a telling off too but when I reach my mind further back to the older ones, I have felt they are using me as a vehicle for their thoughts and insights so in one sense, my words are theirs (although expressed in English not Māori).
Your pukapuka The Parihaka Album: Lest We Forget (Huia, 2009) has just been re-printed. What did it feel like the moment you found out your book would be re-printed?
I was over the moon. I couldn’t believe this book would be reborn. I mihi to the team at Huia for the beautiful new cover and for giving me the chance to write a new foreword. I am also very grateful to Professors Jacinta Ruru and Angela Wanhalla who selected The Parihaka Album for republication as part of Te Takarangi Ki Te Ao, an initiative supported by Te Āparangi Royal Society of New Zealand, the University of Otago and New Zealand Libraries Partnership Project. Seeing The Parihaka Album on the shelves at Unity Books again was like a grown-up child deciding to return home again.
Your pukapuka Te Motunui Epa has enjoyed much success. If this book had it’s own soundtrack, what would be on the playlist?
I will survive, by Gloria Gaynor, I Am The River, The River Is Me – Jen Cloher’s amazing album, anything by Frank Ocean, Jailbreak by AC/DC and every track on He Kohikohinga O Ngā Waīata O Taranaki, sung by Te Kotahitanga o Taranaki me Pōneke.
Aside from your forthcoming Fellowship, what projects are you working on now or hope to be working on in the future?
I can’t see beyond this Fellowship project. That’s enough for me at the moment.
Which book by a Māori author have you read lately that you loved and what did you love about it?
Maranga! Maranga! Maranga! The Call to Māori History, Essays from Te Pouhere Kōrero 1999-2023, edited by Aroha Harris and Melissa Matutina Williams (BWB Books, 2024). This one is literally hot off the press and I’m fortunate to have an essay in there. I read the first essay by Te Ahukaramā Charles Royal and he begins with a paragraph about his early work as a researcher in the public service, guided by senior people such as Professor Mason Durie, Shane Jones and the Reverend Māori Marsden. Royal reflects: ‘This experience taught me the golden rule: research concerns the truth.’ That just hit home for me. I’m inspired! This book is a homage to the vision of the founders of Te Pouhere Kōrero back in 1992 and all the sophisticated, excellent and challenging work produced by Māori historians since then. Volume 4 of ATE the Journal of Māori Art, edited by Bridget Rewitii, has a focus on photography and I’m enjoying this as well.
What advice do you have for emerging Māori writers?
Don’t give up. Don’t be put off by obstacles that will inevitably appear. You have to be strong and determined to be a writer. Find that mangōpare energy! And also find some people who will guide and support you and keep you safe. Aim to get your words published on paper. Books are taonga that can be handed around and handed down and they are a lot more durable and long-lasting than anything published online.
