Projects

Tiakina Te Pā Harakeke is a project focused upon tikanga and mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) models of wellbeing for whānau, with Te Pā Harakeke being a metaphor for whānau wellbeing. The project seeks to share with whānau and others, knowledge about successfully raising children in ways that are grounded within tikanga Māori, and have been and continue to be, practiced for generations.

 

Author: Raaniera Te Whata. Supervisor: Dr Merata Kawharu As there has been no major analytical works on contemporary Māori leadership, the purpose of this project is to contribute to addressing this knowledge gap by examining entrepreneurial tribal Māori leadership and the role it can play in the revitalisation of wealth in New Zealand in terms of culture, identity, economics and politics.

Can communicative language teaching (CLT) help save indigenous languages? This project is a review of literature on CLT and its relevance to indigenous language revitalisation. It forms part of a broader research project to examine the teaching and learning of Māori, Tahitian and Hawai’ian within universities.

The overarching question driving this research is, what are the critical success factors for Southern Māori SMEs at the different stages of the business life-cycle? To address this question the project team will undertake an in-depth case-study of Southern SMEs and in order to answer the overarching research question, the following questions will be investigated: 1. What are the characteristics of SMEs at the different stages of the business life-cycle (start-up, growth, resource maturity, take off)?

The purpose of this project is to determine if Kahawai (Arripis trutta) in fact enter rivers during summer to spawn. Located in the field in the Eastern Bay of Plenty as well as at Victoria University the intern will conduct field observations and water sampling, and also collect Kahawai from the river to determine their sex and reproductive stage. The intern will learn to conduct hapū initiated kaupapa Māori research that takes a transdiciplinary approach, using methods from multiple disciplines to inform hapū research questions.

The challenge for Māori carrying out development is to determine how to balance the drivers of a neo-liberal economic approach with the very ideals and principles that define us as Māori to ensure quality social and environmental outcomes for future generations. Through a previous NPM research project "Whakatipu rawa mā ngā uri whakatipu" the team has developed a prototype decision-making framework for collective assets, which takes into account well-being indices, tikanga Māori and financial measures.