Decolonising Māori Collections

Abstract

ABSTRACT Collections of Māori-focused materials are featured in many public and academic libraries in New Zealand. The items in these collections have been created over a period of approximately 200 years by Māori and non-Māori individuals. Due to colonisation and assimilationist practices by successive governments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many of the resources contain inauthentic or inaccurate information and knowledge about mātauranga Māori (Māori ways of knowing). This article considers whether it is possible for libraries to create a mātauranga Māori collection that is decolonised.