Māori Notions of Home: Place and Belonging
We normally think of “Home” as a straightforward idea. Here Dr Kimiora Raerino shares some of the challenges for Māori in defining Home, and how important the answer might be.
Where is home? This should be a relatively easy question to answer. Increasingly, for Māori, I’m not sure it is. Home can be the place we live every day, where we feel we belong, where we are known, where we can stand on our marae, or where our deepest personal connections lie. Sometimes these are the same place, but not always. Then the question is not simply where home is, but also what makes a place home. A further layer of complexity emerges when we consider our tribal-based home. Whakapapa may connect us firmly to a place through whānau, hapū, iwi, marae and whenua, even when we have never lived there and may never do so. Tribal home can therefore be a place we visit rather than live in, yet one we still regard as home.
Moana Jackson described home as “a concept of place, a concept of belonging, a concept of being.” (Jackson 2022, p.15) Home, then, lies not simply in place itself, but in the meanings and attachments through which it is experienced as home. Lindsay-Latimer and colleagues give contemporary expression to this relational understanding, describing Māori as creating “diverse and nourishing home-places” in contemporary Aotearoa. (Wilson et al 2024, p.24) Together, these perspectives suggest that home is neither singular nor fixed but can provide an emotional and relational anchor as our lives unfold. What makes a place home may be found in how it connects us, affirms who we are, and enables us to live well there. These qualities can now be realised across multiple places, even though what makes each one home may differ.
The places that we regard as home may not be experienced in the same way. Living somewhere is not necessarily the same as belonging there, just as whakapapa connections may not always make our tribal home feel familiar, accessible or comfortable. Relationships with tribal home can depend on our return journeys, participation, whānau who remain there, and whether we still feel known and connected. Time, distance, cost, loss and changing whānau circumstances can further affect that relationship. For those who continue to regard tribal home as home, sustaining that connection may depend, in part, on opportunities to return.
These reflections on the meaning and realities of home have led me to look closely at our relationship with tribal home through my Māori Journeys Home project, exploring not only how often Māori return to their tribal home, but why we return, what those journeys sustain, and what happens to connection and belonging when returning home becomes less frequent and increasingly difficult. Colonisation and urbanisation continue to influence circumstances in which these connections are maintained, including our ability to sustain relationships with tūrangawaewae and ūkaipō, and to maintain ahi kā, while meaningful home-places are also established elsewhere.
Perhaps our notions of home are more fluid than we sometimes acknowledge or consider. The challenge for Māori is sustaining the relationships that enable us to belong and flourish across the places we whakapapa to and those where our lives are lived.
The Māori Journeys Home survey is open until 30 November 2026. Click here to take part.
Dr Kimiora Raerino (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Rangiwewehi, Kōtimana) is a Kaihāpai Rangahau Matua in Te Manawahoukura, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa
Moana Jackson, “Mountains, Dreams, Earth and Love,” in Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua: Māori Housing Realities and Aspirations, ed. Fiona Cram, Jessica Hutchings, and Jo Smith (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2022)
Cinnamon Lindsay-Latimer, Tanya Allport, Mel Potaka-Osborne, and Denise Wilson, “Belonging to the Land: Indigenous Māori Narratives of Home and Place,” Folk, Knowledge, Place 1. No. 2 (2024)