Projects

This research grew from the concern about how to stimulate discussion and debate within Māori communities about the role of Māori women, in the past, present and future.  This research sought women’s stories, in order to let Māori women speak about how they perceive their relationships to the state, environment and others in their communities.  This research also included considering

In this research project, Hauraki traditional knowledge concerning the harvest of oi (oi, grey-faced petrel, Pterodroma macroptera gouldi) on the Ruamaahua (Aldermen) Islands was recorded and analysed.  The harvest of oi linked Hauraki individuals to culture, ancestors, individual well-being and tribal identity.  It also maintained mana, kaitiaki responsibilities and traditional knowledge systems. Daily catch rates of oi chicks (and number of birders) have declined in some circumstances by as much as 87% between 1950 and 2007.
 

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.

There is emerging awareness among Māori that mātauranga Māori and Māori values have an important part to play in papakāinga design as well as in modern urban planning and settlement design.

Current methods for the control of possums, primarily aerial broadcasting of sodium fluoroacetate (i.e. “1080”), are often at odds with the needs of rural Māori communities. Large-scale aerial broadcasting can lead to widespread, indiscriminate by-kill of native and introduced animals important to the environmental, cultural, and economic well-being of rural Māori.

Dr Shane Wright (Te Āti Hau, Tūwharetoa) is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Auckland. The idea for this research project started to form in his twenties, when he was travelling the world as a gofer for science teams and noticed how plant diversity changed with altitude.