Value does not stop at the individual
Most impact reports stop at the direct participant. But value moves — through whānau, households, communities and time. If our boundary stops at one person, our account understates what actually happened.
Field-building
Perspectives
Field notes, reflections and conversations about relational and intergenerational value.
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About this page Perspectives begins with short field notes. Over time it will grow to include invited reflections from people working with Māori value, policy, evaluation, economics, research, taiao, investment and community practice.
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Field notes Field notes
Wider, not looser
A wider value boundary is not an excuse for weaker evidence. Every claim still needs a clear pathway, a defined group, a signal, evidence and safeguards against double counting.
Price the pathway, not the concept
The method does not ask “what is mana worth?” It asks “what changes when mana is upheld?” Observable pathways — participation, reduced whakamā, restored hosting — can be evidenced and, where appropriate, valued.
Why qualitative evidence can be mechanism evidence
Stories are not only colour. They can show how a change happened — the mechanism — which is exactly what a pathway account needs to test whether value is real and where it travels.
Signals are not proof
A signal is a clue that a pathway may be present, not confirmation that it is. Treating signals as proof is how wider accounts drift into overclaiming. Hold them as evidence to be tested.
When a dollar value is not the right answer
Some value is best protected as a decision criterion, threshold or weighted consideration — not forced into a single number. Naming what should not be monetised is part of the discipline.
Coming
Invited contributions
Perspectives will gradually include invited reflections from people working with Māori value, policy, evaluation, economics, research, taiao, investment and community practice. Contributions are curated and published as part of a field-building conversation.
Published perspectives are the views of their authors. They are shared to build discussion and do not necessarily represent a formal endorsement of Whakapapa Economics.