Parihaka the focus for global IPRA peace conference in Aotearoa

By Heather Devere of Asia Pacific Media Network

November 5 marks the day that has been set aside to acknowledge Parihaka and the courageous and peaceful resistance of the people against the armed militia that invaded their village in 1881.

This year, Parihaka will be the focus of an international conference held in New Plymouth Ngā Motu on November 5 – 8.

Entitled Peace, Resistance and Reconciliation Te Ronga i Tau, Te Riri i Tū, Te Ringa i Kotuia, this is 30th biannual conference of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) formed in 1964.

• READ MORE: The IPRA conference programme

This is the first time that an IPRA conference has been held in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the first time it has had the theme of “Indigenous peacebuilding”.

The conference will begin with a pōwhiri and hāngī at Ōwae Marae, the traditional home of the Te Atiawa iwi, one of the Taranaki tribes that has a close association with Parihaka.

Tribal leaders such as Wharehoka Wano, Ruakere Hond, Puna-Wano Bryant, and Tonga Karena from Parihaka will be among the welcoming speakers at the marae.

Other keynote speakers for the conference will include Rosa Moiwend, an independent researcher and human rights activist from West Papua; Professor Asmi Wood, who works on constitutional rights for Aboriginal people; Akilah Jaramoji, a Caribbean Human Rights Activist; Bettina Washington, a Wampanoag Elder working with Indigenous Sharing Circles; Vivian Camacho with her knowledge of ancestral Indigenous health practices in Boliva and Professor Kevin Clements from the Toda Institute.

Throughout the five-day conference, academic papers will be presented related to both Indigenous and general issues on peace and conflict.

Some of those deal with resistance by women through the music of steelpan in Trinidad and Tobago; collaborative Indigenous research from Turtle Island and the Philippines towards building peace; disarmament and peace education in Aotearoa; cultural violence experienced by minority women in Thailand; permaculture and peace in Myanmar; resistance and peacebuilding of Kankaumo Indigenous people in Colombia; intercultural dialogue for peace in Nigeria; Aboriginal Australian and Tsalagi principles of balance and harmony; the resistance of Roma people through art; auto-ethnographical poetry by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities around the world; and community-led peacebuilding in Melanesia.

Plenary panels include nuclear justice and African negotiations of peace and social justice through non-violent pathways.

Professor Kelli Te Maihāroa (Waitaha, Ngāti Rārua Ātiawa, Taranaki, Tainui Waikato) of the Otago Polytechnic Te Kura Matatini ki Ōtakou, is the co-general secretariate for Asia Pacific Peace Research Association and co-chair of the IPRA conference, along with Professor Matt Mayer who is co-secretary-general of IPRA.

Dr Heather Devere is chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) and one of the organisers of the IPRA conference.