This research was a community action research project dedicated to identifying ways in which to advance Te Reo
Māori within the homes of Ngāi Te Rangi whānau. The research team worked with whānau to develop strategies for ‘learning interventions’ that can operate within the community, and within the home. The results indicate that increasing language in the home depends on more inter-whānau relationships, inter-whānau dynamics and intra-personal dynamics then it does on language course history, language inputs or even the process of language acquisition itself.

This project builds on an earlier Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga study led by Dr Shane Wright that shows faster evolution occurs in more productive, high energy, tropical climates. This is the first research worldwide to demonstrate this.

This project had three goals:  to build community research capacity; to collect, gather and record kaumātua narratives; and to create a teaching resource for Tūhoe schools. Central to this project was the engagement by Ruatoki community and in particular it reinforced the important role kaumātua play as sources of knowledge. Another key theme was concerned with developing methods of storing traditional knowledge as well as exploring culturally safe practices and guidelines around access and dissemination of this knowledge. 

This research project asked the question “What new and interesting performance works can be created when two or more music traditions talk to each other, and can these culturally hybrid artistic forms communicate knowledge about a musical other?” Dr Te Oti Rakena explored new ways of approaching performance practice and studio practice, extending the parameters of the research question beyond music tradition to include dance traditions, and studied Estill Vocal models that include genres beyond the classical. The result was a series of 12 workshops held in 2008 in Auckland.
 

The Ahuriri or Napier Estuary is of significant value to both tangata whenua and the Hawke’s Bay community as a whole. Historical and current environmental pressures, together with some questionable management processes over the years, had caused an almost total cultural disconnection between the tangata whenua and the estuary.
 

A Kaupapa Māori epidemiology is sensitive to the demographic circumstances of the Māori population. Itreinforces the development of policy and practice that is responsive to Māori.  A Māori standard population (or indigenous standard) brings Māori from the margins to the centre of the epidemiological frame. 
 

This project has two artistic outcomes, Aniwaniwa and UFOB. Both of these artworks were exhibited and generated ongoing public exhibition opportunities and interest. The themes addressed were rising sea levels in the Pacific caused by global warming and flooding of landscapes to generate hydroelectric power.

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 the extent (if at all) legal processes, such as human rights law, and bodies such as the Waitangi Tribunal, can assist or undermine Māori women, who are seeking to remedy discrimination. 

Outputs

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. Participants’ constructions of privilege emphasise the multi-faceted complexity and discursive ambiguities of the ways in which the concept is utilised within our political economy to account for disparity and covertly reproduce the status quo of Pakeha advantage.