Nga Pae o te Maramatanga has celebrated two years of bringing groundbreaking Maori research to global audiences with the launch of a new website for their journal AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Scholarship.Nga Pae o te Maramatanga has celebrated two years of bringing groundbreaking Maori research to global audiences with the launch of a new website for their journal AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Scholarship.As New Zealand's national Maori Centre for Research Excellence, Nga Pae o te Maramatanga has a strong history of helping indigenous academics to publish their work. Since its inception in 2002, the Centre has enabled over 2,500 local and international indigenous scholars engage in research.

In 2005, Nga Pae o te Maramatanga undertook the ambitious project to extend this mandate to scholars around the world by founding AlterNative. Two years on, the journal is gaining recognition around the world for its significant contribution in shaping social policy.

"It is our goal to create a forum to establish international understandings of indigenous academic research," says Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Joint Director of Nga Pae o te Maramatanga. "We launched the journal at the close of the United Nations' first International Decade of Indigenous Peoples in response to a growing understanding that the development of policies regarding indigenous peoples would need to be supported by indigenous participation in robust academic debates."

AlterNative is unique in its emphasis on presenting native knowledge through native eyes. Published twice a year, the journal provides an innovative forum where indigenous scholars can dialogue, record their experiences and share knowledge to enable social and cultural transformation.

AlterNative challenges indigenous authors to balance traditional knowledges and protocol from their communities with the demands of their academic discipline. The result is a diverse weave of cultures and ways of thinking united by the experience of being indigenous.

The diverse range of material covered by AlterNative requires the focus of a large Editorial Committee and International Advisory Board, many of whom are regarded as world leaders in their field.

"The launch of a new website for AlterNative allows Nga Pae o te Maramatanga to further our vision of an international dialogue between indigenous peoples by enabling the journal to be accessible for communities around the world," says Smith.

Indigenous peoples today account for 370 million of the world's population, representing over 5,000 distinct cultures across 72 nations.

10/8/07