Sea level rise resulting from climate change poses significant threats to coastal resources, including mahinga kai, culturally significant sites like wāhi tapu or marae, and projects like wetland habitat restoration. Threats include not just rising sea levels, but also increased frequency and intensity of storm-related effects like storm surge and flooding (e.g., Cyclone Gabrielle). These threats are complex to model, and to fully understand or interpret the outputs of such models often requires technical knowledge beyond the grasp of most people.

Māori (and Indigenous) women engage in embodied relationship with the natural environment in a range of ways, such as raranga, rongoā, or physical activity.  This research will explore what these embodied relationships can teach us about the potential for reciprocal healing between wahine and whenua, person and place, by developing a network of Māori and Indigenous women and prioritising mātauranga wāhine. 

Extensive international scholarship demonstrates Indigenous people are particularly and uniquely affected by historical trauma through colonisation. Specific acts of oppression that remain unaddressed often result in the intergenerational transfer of trauma and trauma responses. In Aotearoa New Zealand, one such act of oppression was the forced removal of Māori children from their families to be placed in a range of state and church managed institutions often for spurious reasons.

Project supervisor: Dr Jeremy Hapeta

Institution: Te Whare Wānanga o Ōtākou

Raumati intern: Hinemoa Watene (Ngāti Whātua, Ngāpuhi, Rongowhakaata)

Project supervisor: Associate Professor Bridgette Masters-Awatere & Dr Amohia Boulton

Institution: Whakauae Research

Raumati intern: Grace Manihera (Ngaati Wairere, Ngaati Mahuta)

Project supervisor: Dr Karen Wright 

Institution: Waipapa Taumata Rau

Raumati intern: Nadine Everson (Te Arawa)

Project supervisors: Dr Lara Greaves & Dr Annie Te One

Institution: Waipapa Taumata Rau

Raumati interns: Ben Barton (Te Arawa) & Sophie Newton (Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Ngāti Tukorohe)

While the terms racism and equity are increasingly commonly used, action that meaningfully addresses racism and eliminates inequities is less common. This programme seeks to uncover how commitments to equity and ending racism are undermined, ‘non-performative’ or symbolic only, and how they may need to be reconfigured in the context of Aotearoa to align with rangatiratanga. Understandings of racism and (in)equity are strongly shaped by contextual factors and dominant, frequently changing discourses. These in turn influence assumptions and logics underpinning research questions, methods, datasets, analytical frameworks, indicators and interventions.

PhD Candidate: Jennifer Tokomauri McGregor (Ngati Raukawa (Waikato))

Primary Supervisor(s): Dr. Alayne Mikahere-Hall

PhD Candidate: Ashlea Gillon (Ngāti Awa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāiterangi)

Primary Supervisor(s): Professor Tracey McIntosh

How do fat Indigenous wāhine experience and enact body sovereignty (as resistance) within systems of oppression? AKA What does body sovereignty mean to you?