A papahou or treasure box, embodies the concept of a vessel created to store and safeguard knowledge, preserve heritage, and maintain connections to the past. This vessel also enables the transmission of new ideas and understandings, and positions Papahou as a space for multiple voices and perspectives.

First published in 1930 by the Auckland Museum Institute, our journal is one of New Zealand’s longest running peer-reviewed publications. Publishing the research undertaken on the Museum’s collections was then, as it is now, a key output for an institution dedicated to advancing and promoting cultural and scientific scholarship. Our relationship with the Auckland Museum Institute remains a close one and its members continue to play a vital role in the research life of Tāmaki Paenga Hira.

In 2024, we launched The Path to 2029, our new five-year strategic direction. This was not a break with the past but a continuation and reassertion of our trajectory as a museum that, actively foregrounds its social, environmental, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi responsibilities. Their impact on our organisation and our relationship with our collections, our research, and our audiences and partners, is fundamental. It focuses our mahi on building and sustaining relationships, providing deeper engagement with collections, uplifting Mātauranga Māori, and enhancing access and participation for our diverse communities. It recognises that these goals can only be achieved alongside those communities and our Te Tiriti partners. This prompts us to ask: What can Papahou contribute to this dialogue? How might it respond?

In answer to that, firstly, we are committed to making our scholarly content more accessible to our readers in Aotearoa, the Pacific and beyond. While we have for many years shared our collections and research outputs through a variety of digital channels, the journal was a hybrid print and digital publication. Our shift to a digital-only format, beginning with Volume 58 (2024), allows us to reach a much broader audience both nationally and globally. It supports our goals of greater sustainability and open access in our publishing methods and aligns with trends in the scholarly publishing landscape. We have introduced a rolling submission model, with articles published as soon as they are ready, meaning contributions can have a greater immediacy and responsiveness.

To enhance engagement and attract a more diverse readership and contributor base, we aim to publish a wider range of voices and scholarship. This will better reflect the breadth of research conducted at the Museum, alongside contributions from external research collaborators, iwi partners and community knowledge holders. Papahou welcomes a broad range of disciplines and content types, including editorially and peer-reviewed content, interdisciplinary collaborations, practice-based research, and creative responses to collections. While expanding our content with an approach that is both interdisciplinary and inclusive, we also uphold a robust peer-review framework for articles submitted in that category.

Underpinning this is our review of the Museum’s Research Strategy, that will set the direction for the next five years and guide our ongoing shift toward a more inclusive, collaborative, and contemporary research framework. This evolving approach is clearly reflected in several major research initiatives undertaken in recent years. These efforts have underscored the impact of long-term partnerships, the centering of Indigenous knowledges and tikanga-led research, and the importance of providing space and support for community-led projects.

These include: Te Mana o Rangitāhua, a five-year Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Endeavour-funded research programme co-led by Ngāti Kurī and the Museum, in partnership with universities and Crown Research Institutes, focused on developing an iwi-led conservation plan for the ecosystems of Rangitāhua (previously known as the Kermadec Islands); Te Aho Mutunga Kore, a textile and fibre knowledge exchange centre for Māori and Pasifika communities piloted with the support of Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage and now an ongoing collections access and research programme; and Tui Tui Tuia, the project to revitalise the waka taua (war canoe) Te Toki a Tapiri with five iwi partners, Ngāti Matawhaiti, Rongowhakaata, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Te Ata, and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, with funding from Lotteries Environment and Heritage, Creative New Zealand, Stout Trust and Chisholm Whitney Charitable Trust.

As these projects and programmes deliver on their goals, including presenting and publishing their research results, we look forward to sharing their achievements on the pages of Papahou, in a mode that complements the kaupapa of each, and that elevates the voices and experiences our partners and communities alongside that of Museum staff and their research endeavours.

I wish to acknowledge the Papahou Working Group who have worked behind the scenes to bring you this journal, and give my thanks to the Auckland Museum Trust Board, and the Taumata-ā-iwi and Pacific Advisory Group for their support and guidance, and to acknowledge the citizens of Tāmaki Makaurau, and the Auckland Council, who make our mahi possible. Thank you for reading Papahou.

Whāia te mātauranga hei oranga mō koutou.

Catherine Hammond

Director, Collections & Research

29 October 2024