Arapata Hakiwai
Arapata Hakiwai has worked for the National Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa for over fifteen years, having worked in a number of roles including Exhibitions Concept Developer, Curator and Community Partnerships Manager Māori for National Services, and is currently Scholar Mātauranga Māori, leading the research on the Māori collections. Arapata was formerly the Manager of Bicultural Operations at Te Papa from 1999 through to 2002 and Director of Mātauranga Māori from 2003-2009. He takes an active involvement in his marae and tribal affairs, and is a former council member for the museums membership organisation Museums Aotearoa. He regularly lectures at Victoria University and has a strong interest in digital/virtual repatriation kaupapa and is well published including being the co-editor of Toi Ora: Māori Ancestral Treasures (2008). Arapata has extensive relationships with overseas museums and in the early 1990s helped lead the restoration of the carved Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare meeting house Ruatepupuke in the Field Museum, Chicago, with Te Waka Toi and colleagues from the Field Museum.
He is Principal Investigator on the NPM project Virtual Repatriation: A database of Māori taonga in overseas museums