Ko wai tātou
We are, we be, this is you, this is me
Co-lead (Māori)
Dr Teah Carlson
Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Porou, Waikato-Tainui, Kōtimana
I often think about our accountability to Papatūānuku in everything I do. Every research approach, strategy, leadership practice and action must take into account its impact on Te Tai Ao and providing and promoting regenerative practices and processes "ka ora te whenua, ka ora te tangata". Mai i te toka-a-taiau ki te-taumata-ō-Apanui. Whare tangata, artist, story catcher and teller. I draw on these identities to express, connect and articulate Indigenous spirit, aroha and wisdom.
Community psychology trained and practicing as a kaupapa Māori researcher and evaluator. My work highlights the importance of the Indigenous voice and control with respect to the design and delivery of health services, workforce development, governance, qualitative methods, strategy and evaluation.
Dr Tia Reihana
Ngāti Hine
Tia is a Senior lecturer in Dance Studies at The University of Auckland. Dr Reihana taught dance in secondary schools in Auckland, Australia and the UK for 13 years and has generated research into the challenges that formal education systems present to teaching Indigenous dance and students. Her PhD, Te mana Motuhake o te kauri (the authority of the Kauri tree) developed an intercultural praxis through Kaupapa Māori research with Marrugeku Dance Theatre, Australia’s leading Indigenous performance ensemble. Dr Reihana works extensively in Arts, Education and Health with Indigenous communities in Aotearoa and the wider Pacific. She is the co-director of the newly established Centre for Co-Created Ageing Research (CREATE-AGE) at the University of Auckland.
Māori co-researchers
Dr Naomi Simmonds
Raukawa, Ngāti Huri, Ngāti Wehiwehi
Naomi is a mother to three tamariki Anahera (13), Hinekārohirohi (7) and Māhaki Te Wāotū (8 months). She was born and raised in the South Waikato and her learning and commitment is grounded in her marae Pikitū at Te Wāotū. She works as an independent researcher with a focus on land-based learning, women’s land-based knowledges, Māori maternities and whānau wellbeing. Her research looks at the intersections between land, identity, and wellbeing. Her most recent research, a Royal Society Marsden Fast Start funded project, involved researching and re-walking 378km following the journey of her ancestress, Māhinaarangi, to understand the transformations, knowledges and rituals for women that are embedded in the footprints of our ancestors. Naomi’s PhD research looked at Māori understandings and experiences of pregnancy and childbirth. Naomi also has a part-time role working with Māori communities on climate change for the Deep South National Science Challenge. Naomi has a deep commitment to her marae, hapū and iwi working on a range of environmental projects and supporting the protection and restoration of whenua and wai within her rohe.
Dr Kahurangi Waititi
Te Whānau ā Apanui, Ngāti Porou, Ngāi Tahu
Kahurangi research looks at how mahinga toi as process, theory and output contribute to whānau, hapū and iwi oranga and mana motuhake. This is explored through my iwi of Te Whānau a Apanui who have a strong history of tribal storytellers, that have led to our contemporary kaitoi and kaitito. One of the primary questions was how does mahinga toi contribute to oranga of whānau, hapū and iwi?
Carmen Fairlie
Ngāti Porou - Te Aitanga a Hauiti
Ko Titirangi te maunga. Ko Ūawanui-a-Ruamatua te awa. Ko Puketāwai te marae. Ko Te Whānau-o-te-Rangi-pure-ora te hapū. Ko Horouta te waka. Ko Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti te iwi.
As a poet, photographer, and videographer, Carmen expresses her deep connection to the whenua (land) and moana (waters) of Aotearoa through various artistic mediums. Fairlie's work is deeply rooted in her Indigenous worldview - "The water is us, and we are the water. The land is us, and we are the land". Her poetry and visual art often explore themes of connection and disconnection to moana spaces, reflecting her upbringing along the shores of Tolaga Bay. Professionally, Fairlie has been involved in Māori education initiatives, including work with the Ministry of Education supporting Te Kōhanga Reo, the Māori language immersion early childhood education program. She is also known for her environmental advocacy, advocating against large-scale industrial tree plantations and promoting sustainable practices aligned with Māori values.
Te Riu Raihania
Ngāti Porou, Ngati Ira, Ngai Tahu, Te Aupouri, Ngai Te Rangi, Ngai Tamanuhiri, Rongomaiwahine
Te Riu Raihania, māmā, Nanny (aka Tia by the moko's), daughter, partner, kaiako, tumuaki, director, trustee, researcher.
Currently a practicing kaiako/tumuaki at a rural U1 Level 2 immersion kura tahi, trained in Kura Kaupapa Māori teaching and learning methodologies, Te Riu has 25 years experience across both English and Māori medium learning institutes including kohanga, kura, wharekura, primary, intermediate, high school and area schools as well as tertiary education. Te Riu is deeply committed to developing her whānau, marae, hapū and iwi and manifests these aspirations through kaupapa she holds dear to her heart. Te Riu has a few projects on the go under the umbrella of her side hustle, Ahikaa Associates Ltd. The fun stuff includes content creation, Professional Learning Development in Te Tairāwhiti and community engagement in Tokomaru Bay.
Toitū te Tiriti.
Co-lead (Pākehā)
Dr Rachel Jane Liebert
Aerana, Ingarangi, Hemane
She/they
I’m sixth generation Pākehā – my European settler ancestors arrived on Ngai Tahu land in the 1860s to become militia and missionaries deeply implicated in the colonisation of Aotearoa. 220 years later I myself was born and raised and now mainly live in Tāmaki Makaurau on beautiful lands gifted to settlers by Ngāti Whatua – a gesture that, like Te Tiriti o Waitangi, was and is violently betrayed by Pākehā. I feel these sickening histories of blood and place in my aching bones. These bones - and the feelings-cum-stories they tell - are what inspire my commitment to The Tīpuna Project.
I’m also a mama, facilitator, artist and researcher. In my work and life I try to trace the circulation of coloniality and experiment with creative, participatory and more-than-human efforts toward decoloniality. Past projects have collab-ed with artists and activists in NYC, London and Aotearoa to try and unsettle White supremacy, police brutality, educational injustice, the privatisation of sex and the securitisation of madness - you can see them here.
Dani Pickering
Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England
They/them
Dani is yet another Pākehā mongrel of the Atlantic Archipelago, with the usual combination of Gaelic, Brythonic and Anglo-Saxon ancestry from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. They were born at the foot of Maungawhau in Tāmaki Makaurau, on the unceded lands of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, but grew up in the unceded Duwamish territories of present-day Seattle. A combination of scholarly and artistic interests animate them today, between the role of music in social movements, to the effectiveness of tauiwi support for tino rangatiratanga, to the history and future of the Scottish Gaelic diaspora in Aotearoa New Zealand. Thòiseach iad Gàidhlig a h-ionnsachadh aig tòiseach 2020, ‘s chan eil iad air tòirt sùil air ais bhon uairsin. Bha an deireadh neach-labhairt anns an teaghlach còig ginealaichean air ais.
Pākehā co-researchers
Holli McEntegart
Celtic
Holli is a Tāmaki Makaurau-based interdisciplinary artist, doula, and an island named Mother to two spirited tamariki (2 and 5). Creatively, she moves fluidly between social practice, video, performance, photography and text-based work, engaging an audience who are often present as participants and co-creators. McEntegart’s projects often incorporate unique materials like salt, spiritual mediums, carrier pigeons, or a barbershop quartet. As well as earning an MFA and being a Skowhegan resident, she has worked as a full spectrum doula in NYC, LA and now Aotearoa. Approaching this mahi as an extension of her creative practice, she now leads Inhabit - a participatory art project to engage traditions and patterns of healing and care for birthing people, as these survive and morph through colonisation and migration.
Lillian Murray
Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales
Lillian is a Pākehā colonial settler from Alba/ Scotland, England, Ireland, and Wales. She is a speaker of Te Reo Māori who has been returned to her own whakapapa and is now a student of Scottish Gaelic and the collectivising language of poetry in English. She enjoys her engagement and mahi in grassroots education and activism.
Lillian's Christian formation compels her sense of justice as pertaining to promises made in the covenant of Te Tiriti and a vision of right relations between peoples and creation here in Aotearoa. Lillian yearns to disinherit her faith from its painfully intertwined colonial worldview. She is curious to learn from ancestors who have not managed to do this, and from those who have. There’ll be more learning yet from those ancestors who share neither her faith nor her colonial worldview. What a deeply thrilling opportunity.
Sarah Hopkinson
England, Wales, Norway
Sarah Alice Hopkinson grew up at the ankles of the great mountain Taranaki. Her ancestors called England, Wales and Norway home before arriving in Aotearoa in the 19th century. Sarah is an education consultant who works in strategy and curriculum design with public service, organisations and schools. She has a Masters of Education (Distinction) under Professor Wally Penetito. Sarah is an earth dreamer who farms regeneratively at The Green Garden, a suburban farm on Te Ātiawa ki Kāpiti whenua. Here she grows nutrient-dense food for her family and community, healing relationships to self, each other, land and cosmos. She is part way through her Hua Parakore certification, is an Eat NZ Kaitaki and on the advisory board of For the Love of Bees, who are growing radical hope through food. Sarah writes about Pākehā identity and a loving world, having been featured on e-tangata and the State of the Pākehā Nation essay this year. For more information and links, see here.
Tamsin Leigh
Pākehā
She/her || She/they
Tamsin Leigh / Tammie / Wren grew up on Ngaati Raarua Aatiawa whenua in Te Mamaku (Ruby Bay) in a big old house who bones of rimu, totara and matai were stacked and cladded in 1858. We breathed a normalcy of imposition: oaks, roses, fixing fences, moving sheep; firewood, porridge, rugby, poetry, peas, potatoes, bike-rides, friendly or unfriendly neighbours; the lifestyle! But the place was haunted. And I couldn’t look away.
Nowadays she tends to the necessary unsettling of her people, as best she can, in ways that move at the speed of trust. She is co-creator of Gathering at the Gate: a shared enquiry into showing up as deeply-rooted, ancestrally-held, long-term guests in these islands with responsibilities as such. She is ever-moved by the ‘possibility of unimagined kinship’ with all beings, not in a hippy-dippy way but through a commitment to vigorous seeing, naming and accounting for all of the ways in which we are connected.
May all of the ghosts come to sit at our table. May the sparrows peck amongst the crumbs and the vines entwist our ankles as we speak truths into long nights. May these boiling skies release their rains and call us from across the oceans to accompany the drenching of a thirsty earth.
See here for our (draft) values
Tautoko
Financially, we are largely supported by a 3-year grant from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), who called for ‘equitable collaborations’ between Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers that used ‘decolonising methodologies’.
We also have tautoko for this mahi from the following organisations and networks:
