Research and Scoping Projects

First a public servant in the Native Lands Purchase Department then later MP for Napier and Minister for Native Affairs, Sir Donald McLean (Makarini) was a major architect in the most formative period of our colonial history (c.1850–1880). His fluency in te reo Māori and his willingness to visit Māori in their own communities gained the respect of many rangatira of that time.

This research was carried out on behalf of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. The primary research aim was to find out how Māori individuals and whānau have been affected by problem gambling and the strategies they have taken to address this issue.
 

This scoping project focussed on determining the Adélie penguin population's responses to climate change. It also successfully lifted the profile of Māori participation, contribution and leadership in the Antarctic research and science. This project was completed in 2008.

Historical trauma is a term commonly used by Native American researchers who have investigated the impact of past relationships between native populations and settler governments on current and future generations of Native Americans. The significance of their research is the emphasis placed on creating healthy, sustainable indigenous futures whilst recognising and seeking redress for historical injustices. These studies have been discussed in New Zealand by Native American scholars (e.g.

Māori are increasingly taking on environmental management roles (often on a voluntary basis) that juggle the responsibilities of both traditional networks and government regulations. The focus of this scoping project was to identify the barriers, obstacles and potential solutions to conducting research in the area of local customary fisheries from a flax roots level, that is the application and management of Mataitai and Taiapure by communities and marae.
 

Māori have expressed a desire to be involved in freshwater management in a way that reflects their values. This remains a challenge both for Māori communities and government agencies. Māori groups wanting to work with government on freshwater management often do not have the capacity to access the wide range of processes, structures and tools available to them.

This research reviewed international and local best practice models of freshwater management partnerships and provided guidance to the Ngāti Hori of the East Cost on their local stream.

This scoping exercise investigated how He Rauheke as a contextual framework can be developed and applied to the field of early intervention to inform assessment, early identification, programmes of intervention, and evaluation processes. 
 

This study on the nature of privilege sheds light on how those with the least advantage are positioned to seem as though they are receiving ‘special benefits’, while unearned advantages that accrue to the privileged remain invisible and unscrutinised, particularly by those that benefit the most from them. Participants’ constructions of privilege emphasise the multi-faceted complexity and discursive ambiguities of the ways in which the concept is utilised within our political economy to account for disparity and covertly reproduce the status quo of Pakeha advantage.

This research project examined the extent to which eugenics and race theories as discourses promoted certain forms of relationships that played a key role in defining social structures for both Māori and Pākehā.

The objectives of this research were twofold: first, to assess the societal impacts of the forestry industry on the wider Māori community as a result of the presence of the Whakatāne Board Mill and the Kawerau Norske Skog Tasman Mill in the Bay of Plenty region and second, to examine; (i) the extent to which employment at the mills has provided social, economic, educational and health gains and mobility; (ii) the outcomes for the communities of the resources provided by mills and forestry initiatives; (iii) the social effects of both strong and weak economic performance of the forestry indu