Tā Te Tamariki Mahi, he wāwāhi Tahā: Gamifying Māori Data Sovereignty
Sequoia Short, Katharina Ruckstuhl, Ben Sommerville · Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand · 2026
The concept and implementation of Māori Data Sovereignty (MDS) into education environments have grown in salience and importance over the last decade. However, as a concept, it is difficult to understand. One way to address the communication of difficult concepts in education environments is through gamification. In this article, we report on how, using a Kaupapa Māori approach, we gamified the MDS concept through the development of an interactive ‘escape room’ to engage and educate learners, including school‐aged students. We outline the game's underpinning theoretical constructs, its phases of development and report on promising early results from trials in various education settings. We argue that gamification offers a promising approach to empower communities to engage with important concepts and principles of MDS.