Special seminar- Dr Pauline Harris The Establishment of the Māori New Year Holiday in Aotearoa New Zealand and Indigenous Futures in Aerospace

The rising of Matariki (Pleiades) and Puanga (Rigel) marks, for many Māori, the beginning of the Māori New Year. In 2022, Matariki became an official public holiday in Aotearoa New Zealand. Matariki and Puanga sit within the wider maramataka—a Māori calendar system grounded in the positions of the sun and stars, the phases of the moon, and environmental and ecological indicators. Over the past three decades, the revitalisation of knowledge surrounding Matariki, Puanga, and maramataka has seen Māori and non-Māori communities across the country embrace these important times.
This resurgence has also prompted new conversations about human activity in space as our reach extends beyond Earth's atmosphere. Māori and other Indigenous peoples are now actively engaging in aerospace—from space-based Earth observation programmes to the development of Indigenous-led aerospace centres. These perspectives and developments are being shared with leading space agencies.
In this talk, we outline the establishment of the Matariki public holiday and present key findings from a national study that investigated Māori aims, aspirations, opportunities, issues, and concerns in aerospace. We highlight implications for kaitiakitanga (guardianship), data sovereignty and Intellectual Property, ethical frameworks, capability pathways, and partnership models that can guide Indigenous-led futures in space and on Earth.