NPM E-Pānui

With just four months to go before we host IIRC26, our NPM team is in full swing preparing to welcome you!

This month we were excited to launch our "Amazing Māori Researchers" reels series.

Kua pō te ao! Kua pō te ao!
Kua pō uriuri, te ao taketake!
Kua puta a Aituā i Whiti-nuku ki Whiti-reinga
Tūātia ana, whakawahia rā hei kaitiaki o te mate
Hinenuitepō! Hei āhea mākona ai tō matekai?

E te tawhito e Tamati, e moe!
Kei te ruānuku e Hirini, okioki ai!
E te hīnātore e Whatarangi, takoto!

Our PhD tauira never cease to inspire us. This e-pānui celebrates just two of the remarkable researchers in our whānau — a reminder of the creativity, depth, and purpose that defines scholarship at Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga.

Hine-Kaunuku (Morgana) Watson is breaking new ground in the gaming world, creating action-adventure games that centre wāhine Māori and bring Indigenous storytelling to a global audience.

Meanwhile, Amelia Blundell is weaving together personal history and rigorous research, with a PhD study focused on the kūmara plant which is the taonga at the heart of her whānau life and livelihood.

We were thrilled to partner with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) to host the first Radical ‘Interdisciplinarities: Indigenous Knowledges’ forum in Banff, Canada this month.

The forum gathered 40 Indigenous ECRs from Aotearoa, Australia, South Africa, Botswana, Norway, Greenland, Taiwan, India, Rapanui, Chile, Belize, Amazonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Canada and the United States to develop interdisciplinary research collaborations around three main kaupapa.

As a national Centre of Research Excellence, we value the connections that we have to our 21 partners Te Tira Takimano who share our vision of research that empowers flourishing Māori futures.

This month we were grateful to be hosted on the whenua of Waikato-Tainui College for Research and Development for our two-day Kāhui Ārahi research impact wānanga.

As we head into another busy year, we are grateful for our whānau at NPM and Kanapu who approach everything they do with purpose and commitment to our shared vision of flourishing Māori futures. In this e-pānui, we farewell those who have made an enduring contribution to NPM – including our longest serving AlterNative Co-Editor Professor Tracey McIntosh – and welcome in new team members. We also reflect on the re-release of Ngā Mōteatea, the extraordinary four-volume collection of Māori songs and chants, and get up close and personal with a giant glowing earthworm and 2026 Bug of the Year contender, Noke Waiū (Anisochaeta gigantea).

E ngā kaipupuri mātauranga – tēnā rawa atu koutou. I have been reflecting on my first year as Pou Matarua and the enormous privilege it has been to work alongside Tahu, the NPM secretariat, our Kāhui Ārahi and the many affiliated researchers, kaimahi and hapori members who exemplify our overarching kaupapa of Flourishing Māori Futures. NPM’s important mahi wouldn’t come to fruition if everyone wasn’t actually on the waka and paddling in the same direction! As such, I am taking the liberty of using some space in this last e-pānui of 2025 to say “e mihi nunui ana ki a koutou katoa”. I acknowledge and appreciate all of the contributions you make - ahakoa he iti, he pounamu.