Celebrate Te Vaiaho o te Gagana Tokelau - Tokelau Language Week 26 Oct - 1 Nov

Masters graduate Mia-Mae Taitimu-Stevens (Te Rarawa/Aotearoa, Togafuafua, Vaito'omuli/Sāmoa, Fakaofo/Tokelau) is the Māori and Pacific Academic Engagement Adviser for Te Tumu Herenga | Libraries and Learning Services | Student and Scholarly Services. She’s also Chair of the Women of Colour Staff Network at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland.

She says her research journey at the University has been shaped by a personal quest to reconnect with her Pacific and Māori whakapapa after growing up feeling disconnected. This year’s theme for Tokelau Language Week, ‘Tokelau, Puaki mai ko tau aganuku mo fanau i te lumanaki - Tokelau, Unleash your culture for future generations’ strikes a chord with Taitimu-Stevens. It means navigating and exploring her connection to Fakaofo, through her paternal great-grandmother Akenese Taiua Meleisea, nee Pereira, with confidence.

“My journey of exploring cultural identity directly shaped my research path. Growing up disconnected from both my Pacific and Māori whakapapa, University became the space where I was simultaneously (re)learning who my people are and who I am.

“I was especially drawn to the study of essentialism; the idea that there’s only one way to be Sāmoan, Tokelauan, or Māori.”

The realisation that she didn’t fit the many narrow expectations of colonial narratives reignited a passion of exploration and critique of the essentialism of Indigenous and Pacific wāhine, focusing particularly on body markings such as moko kauae.

She graduated with First Class Honours in a Master of Indigenous Studies last year in September. Her dissertation, Moko Kauae Online: Social Media as a Tool of Resurgence for Young Māori Wahine Receiving Moko Kauae, explores the evolving perceptions of moko kauae eligibility through the lens of TikTok and digital discourse.

“Moko kauae has always been a topic close to my heart,” says Taitimu-Stevens. “It helped me interrogate my own journey with identity security as a wāhine Māori.”

Taitimu-Stevens quoted poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke in his poem Go to the Limits of Your Longing emphasising resilience; an invitation to embrace the full spectrum of human experience—joy and suffering alike—without resistance, a reminder that emotions are transient and transformation is inevitable.

Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final

Rainer Maria Rilke

With her ancestral ties to Tokelau continuing to shape and influence her worldview, Taitimu-Stevens continues to inspire through her commitment to Indigenous scholarship and community engagement.