Professor Georgina Stewart

Georegina Stewart's (Ngāti Kura, Ngāpuhi) book ‘Māori Philosophy: Indigenous thinking from Aotearoa’ (Bloomsbury 2021) explains her original delineation of Māori Philosophy as a Kaupapa Māori approach for investigating topics in Māori knowledge. Her research contributes to the debate between science and Māori knowledge, a local form of a global discussion about the role of Indigenous knowledge in science, in the face of looming environmental multi-crises. She's also engaged in ongoing investigations of what it means to be Māori today, as an example of living cultural difference, even after several generations of my people having spent their entire lifetimes under British settler-derived social conditions.

These research interests build on from her background as a Māori teacher of science, mathematics and Te Reo Maori in English-medium and Māori-medium intermediate and secondary schools. Georgina writes on a wide range of topics exploring the nexus between language, knowledge, culture and education. Her research ethos rests on a politicised understanding of our place as human beings and educators in the natural and social worlds, mediated by a cross-cultural lens that respects diverse Indigenous and scientific frames of understanding and self-understanding.

As a senior Kaupapa Māori scholar, she has years of experience of editorial work, collaborations, doctoral and postgraduate supervising and examining, and contributing to the academic and cultural life of the university and community.