Disaster disrupts lives and the chaos that follows can influence how people manga themselves and their environment and how they behave as a community in the aftermath. Following on from the Edgecumbe flood event of April 2017, there has been ongoing concern about the land and the health, safety and welfare of the local town folk.
The principal aim of this thesis is to identify the key understandings that emerge from the practice of manaaki, for the displaced whānau, in a disaster situation. Defining what manaaki means as a practice and how those ideals interconnects to the themes of Mana Whānau, Mana Whenua, Mana Tautoko and Mana Kōrero is imperative, in terms of the literature supporting this study. Related to that effort is the need to better understand whānau recovery demands, how environmental conditions affect human relationships and what communication technologies, and social media are used and why, in disaster and emergency management.