Philosopher Carl Mika addresses the challenges that the Māori term ‘wai’ - which means both ‘who’ and ‘water’ – brings for colonised realities and for Māori discussions about things in the world.

‘Wai’ asks who or what someone or something is, whilst also – unusually for Western-trained minds– establishing ‘water’ as fundamental to that question. At the same time it works vice-versa: meaning that when ‘water’ is brought to mind, the question of identity – the ‘who’ of someone or something – coexists with that thought.

Ultimately Mika challenges us to rethink our relationship with language, the world as a whole, and ourselves if we are to do full justice to the question ‘ko wai koe’: ‘who are you’?

About the speaker
Carl Mika is from the Tuhourangi iwi and is Professor of Māori and Indigenous Philosophies and Head of School of Aotahi: School of Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Canterbury. His research focuses on Indigenous metaphysics and ontologies, particularly in relation to the effects of colonisation and philosophical reductionism. Mika is the author of Indigenous Education and the Metaphysics of Presence (Routledge, 2017), as well as several articles and book chapters on these themes. His current work explores Māori concepts of nothingness and darkness as a response to the Enlightenment emphasis on clarity, considering how these ideas might form a conceptual backdrop for academic writing, while also contributing to philosophical discussions concerning mātauranga Māori and its relationship with science.