Projects

Conscious of the lack of serious inquiry into Kapa Haka, the CEO of Te Matatini Inc, the National Organisation for Kapa Haka in Aotearoa New Zealand approached Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, New Zealand’s Maori Centre of Research Excellence (NPM), to make a start on rectifying this situation.

Joe Hawke was a young boy when his people were forcibly removed from the place he knew as home; the Ngāti Whātua papakāinga at Ōkahu Bay, which was burned to the ground in a move regarded by the government of the day as the best resolution.

Without Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, New Zealand research on evolution hailed as a breakthrough by the world’s leading news media would never have happened. LIKE MANY A scientific race, it came down to the wire. When Dr Shane Wright, at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland, published new findings on the speed of evolution in top scientific journal, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, a rival team from Florida followed home just three weeks behind.

Now largely surrounded by downtown Napier, Te Whanganui-a-Orotū (the Ahuriri Estuary), has seen decades of agricultural, industrial, and urban activity that have transformed this once pristine cultural and food resource into a sink for environmental contaminants. Pushing the lagoon floor up two metres, the region’s 1931 earthquake only added to reclamation and pollution of food stocks.

Project Purpose: Timely registration rates with lead maternity carers (LMC) for Māori are low, and research is critically needed to investigate methods of reaching Māori women sooner and to encourage engagement with health professionals.

For Māori artists, as any other, recognition overseas can be vital. While sculptor Dr Brett Graham (Ngāti Korokī Kahukura) and audio-visual artist Rachael Rākena (Kāi Tahu, Ngā Puhi) had already built a strong following at home, their success at the prestigious Venice Biennale in 2007 was confirmation of Māori-inspired art’s international impact – and fulfilled a dream of exhibiting at a major world venue.

Project purpose: In the face of climate change, peak oil and food insecurity Māori land trusts face serious challenges to retain and economically develop Māori land. Traditional operations of sheep, beef, dairying and forestry may not be as profitable in the future or fit a world that seeks to reduce carbon emissions and use greener technology.

In addition to public and scholarly deliberations regarding increased inequalities in society, this project responds to the continued socio-economic exclusion of many Māori households.

We draw on recent scholarship on the precariat as an emerging social class comprised of people experiencing unstable employment, unliveable incomes, inadequate state supports, marginalisation and stigma. Our focus is on the Māori precariat, whose rights are being eroded through punitive labour and welfare reforms.

While we document issues of employment, food, housing and cultural insecurities shaping precarious lives, we also develop a focus on household connections, practices and strengths. This focus is important because connections, practices and strengths can buffer whānau against adversity for a time, render aspects of their lives more liveable, and enable human flourishing.

Project purpose
To investigate the mechanisms controlling the timing of behaviour of the marine isopod Eurylana (the sea louse) over the tidal cycle and to collect preliminary data on the phase responsivenessof the tidal clock to artificial tides.

“I think all New Zealanders pride ourselves on being clean and green, but we are increasingly asking what we need to do to protect that…” When winning support from local authorities, these days it’s the numbers that talk. And as a scientist with Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research based at Lincoln near Christchurch, Dr James Ataria has been using them eloquently for some time in collaborative research projects helping local communities protect culturally significant environments.

“We are taking a strengths-based approach. So that teachers can go from where they are now to where they want to be.” AS EVERY CHILD knows, learning to read means first cracking a code. The next challenge is reading to learn – when you move from just identifying the words to extracting deeper comprehension.

It never pays to underestimate the power of determination. When Patricia (Trish) Johnston (Ngaiterangi, Ngāti Pikiao) arrived to take up the position as Professor of Postgraduate Studies and Research at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi she asked about basic research at the Wānanga and was told by one staff member it was something they didn’t do.

This internship project contributes to a project exploring Mātauranga Māori further in terms of volcanic hazards. The research will assist to develop an authoritative compilation of scholarly, heritage and contemporary kōrero (narratives) that inculcate conceptual/theoretical forms of Ngāti Rangi, other hapū and iwi distinctive epistemology.

Long lead times from research to curriculum materials are hardly a new frustration. But with materials sometimes lagging discovery by 20 years for Māori-medium teachers the delay is acute. They face challenges in low rates of te reo Māori literacy growth, and have few resources in non-language subjects or in materials reflecting a Māori world view.

Project purpose: The importance of producing more Māori doctoral and other postgraduate qualification completions, for Māoridom and New Zealand society generally is well understood – Ngā Pae o Te Māramatanga set specific goals towards it, the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative and Ako Aotearoa have funded research about it, and the Tertiary Education Commission provides

“We want our children to go out from school confident of who they are, where they come from and who they represent.” “It’s important the stories people tell about themselves,” Hāromi Williams says. At her office at Tāneatua near the Urewera, where she is Executive Manager of the Tūhoe Education Authority (TEA), she explains it’s a lesson she first learned forcibly when teaching adult migrant students in Sydney’s western suburbs learning English as a second language.

“Teachers enter the profession because they want to make a difference. This approach helps them do that.” MORE THAN 30 years ago when Russell Bishop first started teaching at Mana College in Porirua, he was struck by a single question: Why did so many Māori students start out well but still fail as they went through school?

How do birds navigate vast oceans, correcting themselves when blown off-course? The inner compass possessed by some animals is an enigma that has absorbed Professor Michael Walker, Joint Director Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, for many years.

For more then a generation scientists have known that life proliferates more rapidly near the equator. The problem was that up until recently, no one knew why this was so. And in 2006 when Dr Shane Wright solved the riddle in a Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga research project, the scientific world applauded.

Like all research centres, Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga pursues research excellence through academic communities. But our brief also extends outwards – aiming to also benefit many other communities as widely as possible. In doing this, the Knowledge Exchange programme is a unique feature of the Centre, and an essential part of achieving social transformation.