Pae Ahurei Pae Ora

Pātai Puāwai Pātai Whānau

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.

In Aotearoa, these understandings often de-centre Indigenous worldviews, limiting the potential to realise transformation of colonial conditions and Māori aspirations for wellbeing and flourishing. This research programme will consider racism and (in)equity from Māori worldviews, and challenge universal and imported definitions that fail to recognise the complexity of Māori historical and contemporary realities and our aspirations for rangatiratanga.

The research seeks to challenge the power dynamics within our society, how current policies and research discourses are framed to create ‘vulnerability’ within Māori communities and thereby frame equity in ways that limit potential for Māori transformation. Interventions that are anti-racist and anti-colonial need to also work at breaking down the artificial borders and binaries that exist in research, including the policing of boundaries between the academy and other communities. The de-valuing of particular types of knowledges and the division into disciplines are epistemic and methodological forms of racism. They also act as a barrier to solidarity and praxis across spaces. This research programme aims to unsettle boundaries to work in more collective and collaborative ways across different disciplines, institutions, and settings.

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Project completed

Research Lead(s) and Team

Waitaha Kati Mamoe Kai Tahu
Senior Research Fellow

Donna has been involved in work on the collection and classification of ethnicity data in New Zealand, particularly as it relates to measuring and monitoring disparities. Most recently, Donna has been focused on work examining disparities in cancer outcomes and access to cancer services for Māori. She is involved in the Differential Colon Cancer Survival by Ethnicity in New Zealand project as well as Unequal Treatment: The Role of Health Services with Te Rōpū Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pōmare.

Sarah-Jane (Ngāi Tūhoe) is the recently appointed research director of Growing Up in NZ (GUINZ), Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest contemporary longitudinal study of child development, tracking the lives of 6,000 children and their families over 21 years. The study has produced many reports, policy briefs and papers that contribute to a growing body of knowledge on what helps to improve childhood health and well-being in Kiwi families.



Te Rarawa
Tumuaki and Head of Department of Maori Health at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences

Papaarangi is Tumuaki and Head of Department of Maori Health at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand. 

She holds science and medical degrees from the University of Auckland and is a specialist in public health medicine.

She has tribal affiliations to Te Rarawa in the Far North of Aotearoa and her research interests include analysing disparities between indigenous and non-indigenous citizens as a means of monitoring government commitment to indigenous rights.

Ngāti Kahungunu Ngāti Raukawa Ngāi Tahu

Dr Ricci Harris (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāi Tahu) is a public health physician and Research Associate Professor at Te Rōpū Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pōmare. She has research expertise in Māori health, epidemiology (including quantitative aspects of Kaupapa Māori research) and the investigation and elimination of ethnic health inequities in New Zealand.

Ngāruahine Taranaki Ngāti Maniapoto

Arama is of Ngāti Maniapoto, Taranaki, and Ngāruahine descent.  She completed her PhD in Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington in 2012, which focused on Māori cultural engagement, identity, and psychological well-being in State secondary schools.  

Arama then lectured at Te Kawa a Māui (the School of Māori Studies), where she received a Research Establishment Grant to study Māori collective remembering of the New Zealand Wars. 

Ngāpuhi Te Roroa Te Atihaunui ā Papārangi Ngāti Tūwharetoa

Hana (Ngäpuhi, Te Roroa, Te Ätihaunui a Päpärangi, Ngäti Tüwharetoa) (she/her) is doing a PhD in Mäori health, with supervision from Donna (Käi Tahu, Käti Mämoe) (she/her) and Papaarangi (Te Rarawa) (she/her)