Our Research

NPM research solves real world challenges facing Māori. We do so in Māori-determined and inspired ways engendering sustainable relationships that grow the mana (respect and regard) and mauri (life essence) of the world we inhabit.

The excellence and expertise of the Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga researcher network is organised by four Te Ao Māori knowledge and excellence clusters or Pae. Pae are where our researchers rise with Te Ao Māori knowledge, tools and expertise to build a secure and prosperous future for Māori and Aotearoa New Zealand. Pae are purposefully expansive and inclusive, supporting transdisciplinary teams and approaches. Our 2021-2024 programme of work will look to the far future to assure flourishing Māori futures for generations to come. With Māori intended as the primary beneficiaries of our research, our programme will reinforce the firmly established foundations of mātauranga Māori through sound research attuned to the lived experience of Māori.

Four Pātai or critical systems-oriented questions generate transformative interventions and policy advice for stakeholders and next users. All of our research will contribute mātauranga-informed theories, models and evidenced solutions in response to our Pātai. Our Pātai serve to integrate and energise our programme and Pae to synthesize our research for next stage impact and outcomes.

  • Project commenced:

    This is an extension of the Mauri Model based assessment conducted in 2011/2012 which assessed the impact of fracking on the Blood Tribe's lands in Ontario. The findings of this research will be extended by encompassing the input of the Iwi affected by consents issued to allow mining exploration activities in the Taitokerau and Heretaunga rohe. The intern, Henare Waihape, will conduct two one-day workshops with the affected Iwi to implement the Mauri Model assessment and then report back to the communities on completion of the analysis to confirm the report content.

  • Project commenced:

    “Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga’s MAI Doctoral Support Programme was of incredible value, especially in connecting me with other PhD students for advice.”

  • Full project

    Project commenced:

    Some economists argue for diversity in the way collective resources are managed rather than an unquestioning faith in leaving things to the market. We support this thinking and looked at how ethics and Māori knowledge can be used equally alongside economics in managing collective Māori assets.

    We argue that simple measures of collective well-being used alongside mainstream economics are robust enough to help us make collective decisions. Our team developed a Māori knowledge and ethics based decision-making framework for collective assets. This framework is being tested and refined using three case studies with our iwi/hapū partners.

    Objectives

  • Project commenced:

    Māori and Pasifika students are under-represented in higher education. Despite important interventions, such as The University of Auckland's Tuakana programme, Māori and Pasifika students are still under-represented in the student body. This project will rely on focus group interviews with Māori and Pasifika students from both sexes at different university educational levels. Supervisor David Mayeda and intern Moeata Keil will work with Tuakana personnel and other University of Auckland administrative offices to identify Māori and Pasifika students who are succeeding educationally. Potential research participants will then be invited to partake in focus group interview sessions.

  • Project commenced:

    Author: Nick Allison

    In 2014 Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga (NPM) commissioned a report from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) to assess the economic, social and other impacts of the Māori Centre of Research Excellence.

    A summary of key findings from this research impact evaluation were:

  • Project commenced:

    Astronomy is the study of the objects in the sky (stars, planets, moons, galaxies, comets etc). Traditionally Māori held great knowledge of astronomy and their studies of the night sky played an important role in everyday life. Much of this knowledge remains recorded in te reo Māori and sits within karakia, waiata, whakataukī, and within place names. This project explores the language of Māori astronomy to understand how important it was to our ancestors. It will also help to revive the language of Māori astronomy exploring how this knowledge can be used in a modern world.

  • Scoping project

    Project commenced:

    Taunakitia Te Marae aims to research the key contributors of success that will enable marae to be centres of excellence for hapū development. It will explore with whānau, hapū and iwi the characteristics that enable or inhibit the success of marae as centres of excellence; and undertake case studies of successful models for marae that enhance hapū development. Through the research, Taunakitia Te Marae will identify critical determinants of marae wellbeing and construct a marae wellbeing framework to be available for use by marae, hapū and iwi within Te Arawa.

  • Full project

    Project commenced:

    Dr Marion Johnson is the Principal Investigator of Te Rongoā Pastures: Healthy Animals, Resilient Farms.

    The Te Rongoā project identified a number of plant species that could be used on farms to promote animal health. The focus was on browse species that would contribute to biodiversity and pasture resilience. Grazing provides a large proportion of an animal’s intake and pasture is the major productive component on a farm and the research studied what rongoā species could be incorporated into pastures to make a useful contribution to animal health and productivity, while also describing how to manage and sustain the species on farms.

  • Project commenced:

    Practitioner wisdom is an undervalued source of knowledge, particularly that of practitioners working successfully with Māori in uniquely Māori ways. In the field of psychology, there are some who have successfully married clinical psychology and mātauranga Māori to realise successful outcomes for those Māori clients they serve. In this study, we will work with these practitioners to learn from their wisdom and to inform the training of clinical psychologists across the seven professional training programmes in New Zealand.

  • Full project

    Project commenced:

    This project investigates the wellbeing (economic indicators) of Māori households whānau of a specific iwi using New Zealand Census data from 1991–2006. This project aims to provide greater sovereignty to iwi by providing an evidence base for their decision-making through analysis of this data.

  • Case study

    Project commenced:

    In 2004 Dr Kepa Morgan embarked on a pilot project based around an idea of combining rammed earth technology with muka (flax fibre) – effectively integrating mātauranga Māori with science and engineering, to create low-cost housing solutions. The result was whareuku.

    Fast forward a decade to 2014 and Kepa and his team have gone from pilot, through design and build (2 whareuku), proof of concept and compliance testing. But Dr Morgan wasn’t finished there. In 2013 as part of the NPM Expanding Excellence programme, he proposed a programme of research to take it from proof of concept to the people.

  • Full project

    Project commenced:

    Agroecology, grounded in local knowledge and communities, applies ecological principles to agricultural systems. Indigenous agroecology is an opportunity for mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) and totohungatanga Moriori (Moriori knowledge) to inform and generate innovation in farm practices. It focuses on guardianship of the land and the waters that flow through it, based on the traditional and contemporary experience of Māori and Moriori agricultural practitioners.

  • Project commenced:

    This Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga project incorporates most of the secondary schools and wharekura within the Rotorua school zone. From the literature, data gathered, and the matching and discussion of this information; the research team’s aim is that educators, parents and whānau will better understand the nature of teaching, learning and home socialisation patterns that support Māori student success.
     

  • Internship project

    Project commenced:

    Author: Nimbus Staniland. Supervisor: Professor Charles Crothers This report introduces quantitative analyses of Māori youth employment and occupational status using data from the New Zealand General Social Survey (NZGSS) issued by Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) in 2008 and 2010. This research project was conducted as a piece of a larger project entitled “Ways of being Māori updated: Characteristics, attitudes and behaviours of urban Māori” led by Professor Charles Crothers.

  • Internship project

    Project commenced:

    Author: Ani Kainamu, Supervisor: Dr Dan Hikuroa. This project fulfils part of the Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga summer studentship project that looks at the elements of ecological and Mauri restoration at Ōkahu Bay. This current study focused on the population abundance and distribution of marine benthic shellfish pipi (Paphies australis) and common cockle (proper name New Zealand Littleneck Clam; Austrovenus stutchburyi), and seagrass (Zostera) population. This project also measured the bathymetry within Ōkahu Bay, site that receives input from stormwater from the surrounding urban area.

     

  • Case study

    Project commenced:

    Te Pōhā o te Tītī is an online tool designed to help whānau keep track of annual muttonbirding harvests, and look after future populations of the manu. (http://www.titi.nz/)

    In an expression of the growing application of NPM projects into digital and online environments, the project Te Pōhā o Te Tītī was initiated in 2012.

    Focused on realising sustainable customary harvesting of juvenile tītī (muttonbirds) within the rohe of Kāi Tahu this project was led by Corey Bragg from the University of Otago.

  • Case study

    Project commenced:

    Associate Professor Leonie Pihama, from the University of Waikato led the project Tiakina Te Pā Harakeke, which was focused on looking at Māori childrearing practices within a context of whānau ora.

    The project, which began in 2012, was developed to support the investigation and identification of Kaupapa Māori approaches to Māori childrearing and parenting and specifically looks at how we can (as communities), draw on these frameworks to support intervention in the area of child abuse and neglect within our whānau.

  • Full project

    Project commenced:

    Metabolic health issues such as Type 2 diabetes and obesity are increasingly prevalent in our community, in keeping with worldwide trends. There is now a considerable amount of evidence that events during pregnancy and early childhood influence the risk of metabolic disease in later life by affecting glucose and fat metabolism and possibly appetite regulation. To try to prevent later metabolic disease, we therefore need to look at practical ways to intervene in early life to decrease these risks.

  • Project commenced:

    Even after 30 years of Māori language revitalisation movements, the Māori language continues to be in a perilous state. Despite these efforts there is no one method that can stem the decline as societal factors still impact adversely on language development. The most successful Māori language revitalisation movements are those located at the ‘flax-roots’ level.  However, as highlighted in the Pre-publication of the Waitangi Tribunal’s WAI 262 Report, there are a number of factors that have eroded Māori language revitalisation movements since the mid 1990s.

  • Project commenced:

    There are multiple Government funded initiatives aimed at addressing Māori language decline, including increasing the amount of Māori Language spoken, maintenance and quality. Te Puni Kokiri (2006 Health of the Māori Language Report) touched on the attitudes of wider New Zealand society towards the Māori language as unengaging and unlikely to change in the immediate future (p.7). Te Kura Roa-Waiaro proposes to examine the attitude of Government (National and Local) policy in an attempt to gauge  how responsive the state (NZ) is to the Māori language.  From this study this project will ascertain what interventions can be developed to improve the Māori language.

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