Thu 12 Aug 2004
I’ve had two clear illustrations this week of the importance of context to understanding.
As a scientist my first thought is to when I come across anything new is to remove it from all external influences to examine it; isolate any possible interference with what I am studying. Some people may think that what I say here is self evident, but from my worldview some of this is revolutionary; not for the the rest of the world but for me personally.
Firstly, Richard MacManus introduced me (through his site) to the concept of Electracy. Electracy was a totally foreign concept to me. At first I didn’t see the distinction: Because of my worldview, in which I took orality forgranted and had no concept of what a “language apparatus” was, electracy is just a narrow subset of literacy. However, once I established a clearer context in which electracy could be explained it made much more sense.
Secondly, a co-worker gave a presentation today to explain to staff the concept of Mauri. While we had all heard the term before it is something that is foreign to Pakeha. While it is easy to translate the word mauri to English (loosly speaking it is the life force), to understand the concept requires context. He spent an hour discussing in detail his world view and where mauri comes from. Fortunately he has his feet in both the Pakeha and Māori world. He could clearly articulate his Māori world view using Pakeha terminology and concepts to explain the Māori context.
4 Responses to “Context”
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August 12th, 2004 at 09:03
That’s interesting about Mauri, which I’d not heard about before. Also interesting that you needed more context to grok Electracy. That tells me I didn’t quite succeed at putting the concept into plain english, as I said I would in that post. So maybe I’ll write a follow-up at some point to put more context into it. Thanks for the feedback. ps would be interested in reading more about Mauri.
August 12th, 2004 at 13:41
I guess that bit that I didn’t grasp about electracy at first was the fact that is an apparatus (which you do explian). Orality is something I think most people take forgranted; we hear voices from the day we are born. Literacy is not as pervasive so I guess I didn’t make the connection between the two. Once I understood concept of a language apparatus (i.e. the context in which you talk of electracy) it was much easier to understand.
I’ll see what resources I can find on mauri. I want to know more so I’ll let you know what I find.
August 12th, 2004 at 17:21
I’ve been refered to The woven universe : selected writings of Rev. Maori Marsden / edited by Te Ahukaramu Charles Royal. I’ll post a review once I’ve read it.
April 2nd, 2005 at 20:37
I am currently researching mauri for my final year project in Toi Atea (Maori Art) at university. I would really like to get in contact with your co-worker who gave the presentation on mauri. Could you please pass my email address on to him if possible?
Did you find any more resources on mauri?