Nau mai haere mai, welcome to our Matariki newsletter.
This Friday marks New Zealand’s newest public holiday, heralding a new year in the Māori lunar calendar. A time of remembrance and celebration, Matariki also now represents one further adoption of Māori culture and language into the mainstream – but with that comes the inevitable commercialisation every public holiday brings.
As the University of Auckland’s Mike Lee argues today, the new holiday would be better treated like Anzac Day than Christmas: “For businesses looking to cash in on Matariki, there is the potential for significant blowback.”
But on the subject of celebrations, this week also marks five years since The Conversation launched in Aotearoa New Zealand. In that time, researchers from NZ universities have had more than 50 million unique views of 1,300 Conversation articles. That’s put us firmly on the local mediascape, but with a truly international reach – our stories have been read in 193 other countries.
Our authors’ work has also changed lives by putting evidence in front of policymakers. For instance, leading epidemiologist Michael Baker says writing for The Conversation helped him develop what later became NZ’s COVID-19 elimination strategy:
“During the critical days leading up to the [first] lockdown, I will never forget how writing a story for The Conversation helped me crystallise my main message … That thinking helped me develop the elimination strategy subsequently adopted by the New Zealand government.”
You can read more about our NZ authors’ impact in this short report, which we’ve produced to say thank you to all our authors and readers. And from me and my fellow editors Veronika Meduna and Debrin Foxcroft, thank you for supporting this work – we’ve got plenty more expert-led journalism heading your way soon, too.
For now though, enjoy Matariki and please tell your friends about the Conversation! Until next time, take care and mā te wā.
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