in a room, in a house, on an island, in an ocean

Abstract

Each of the writers in this special issue, from essayists and reviewers to poets and interview subjects, addresses chains of connection. Through many different pathways they articulate and critique discontinuities created in colonial contexts. Memory and systems of memory, from storytelling to whakapapa (genealogical ties) to colonial archives and museums, are responded to in both material and abstract ways, creating fine networks and continuities at personal and institutional levels. Disconnection and connection are the themes that bind this special issue of Waka Kuaka: The Journal of the Polynesian Society as we seek to amplify the words and images of Indigenous poets, artists, archivists, creatives and curators and their innovative and unconventional approaches to reclaiming memory and history making.