FEBRUARY – Hui tanguru
Emma Barker-Clarke (Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand)
Emma is of British Caribbean descent. Her dual heritage is rooted in the twinned Islands of Nevis & St Kitts and Manchester, England, which was Emma’s childhood home before she emigrated to Aotearoa in 2010.
In the UK, Emma was a youth justice practitioner/manager. In this role, she supported young people and their whānau to navigate a range of challenges. As a result of this work, she developed a focus on supporting young people who were victims and/or perpetrators of teenage relationship abuse and violence. Subsequently, this motivated Emma to design a youth-centred intervention programme. Emma built on this topic, in 2014, as a research interest for her MSc in Criminology & Criminal Psychology, which also revealed cyberbullying was an emerging area for research consideration. Emma was awarded a Merit for her MSc, and a first for her dissertation. Since moving to Aotearoa, Emma has continued to practice and conduct research about interconnected offline/online violence and violence prevention. She is an educator, a board member for Rape Prevention Education, and currently a final year PhD candidate at the University of Auckland. Having noticed that there was a shortage of research developed in Aotearoa which is co-constructed and piloted with the views of rangatahi, Emma designed this current project with students who attended alternative education before the roll out to mainstream schools. Her research explores how youth peer-to-peer sexualised and gendered cyberbullying is shaped by young people’s developing perceptions of gender, alongside exploring the safety strategies young people utilise to manage these situations.
MARCH – Poutū te rangi
Jenni Tupu (Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand)
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Tēnā koutou katoa, I am from Te Tai Tokerau and the Pacific with iwi connections to Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri and Samoa and am currently a doctoral candidate with the University of Otago. I am nearing the completion of a PhD that investigates the identity journeys of Māori and their children where a closed adoption occurred in Aotearoa. I work as the Programme Director for the Bachelor of Design at Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and work to support and improve the experiences and environments that students encounter in their educational journeys within tertiary education.
Engaging in this research over the last 6 years has led to work in other fields including contributing to the Whāngai and the Adoption of Māori research project as an Associate Investigator, hosted by Te Wānanga o Raukawa with support from a Marsden grant. I have also been awarded the Fulbright Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Graduate award as a Visiting Student Researcher for study in the USA, which will occur in 2022 while nearing the completion of the PhD.
My objective in life and in this doctoral work has been to improve capability and capacity in identity development from an indigenous perspective and practice. I believe that to change the current social landscape, we must change our practice of adoption and the placement and care of tamariki to embed a stronger understanding of Māori values and to restore mana to our whānau in the care of our tamariki and mokopuna.
APRIL – Paenga whāwhā
Siaosi George Gavet (Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand)
PhD candidate, Australian National University, Department of Pacific Affairs, Canberra, ACT Australia.
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Thesis title: Exploring the experiences of young Pacific rugby league players who have relocated from New Zealand to an NRL club in Australia.
The National Rugby League (NRL) competition attracts Polynesian (Pacific and Māori) players from Aotearoa New Zealand, however for many of them, their journey across the Tasman to Australia often comes at a cost. They are hopeful that their move eventually lands them a lucrative playing contract, or at the very least an arrangement with a club that helps them to support their family. The reality, however, is that most aspiring players do not debut as a first-grade player. They are instead resigned to the large pool of rugby league players who tried but did not make it.
My research looks at the of global sports labour migration phenomenon, and the impact on Pacific players and communities. Since the early 2000’s, the new wave of athletes has been subjected to gender, and masculinity influences in the neoliberal age. Pacific players are prominent in commodification discourse due to their physical prowess, mental (st)abilities, and natural temperament for contact sports. Their journey though comes with a high risk of failure and are invariably accompanied by mental, spiritual, and emotional wellbeing challenges.
The ultimate outcome is that my research influences the NRL’s policy on relocation, not just for international migrants but also internally, within Australia where athletes are required to change their postcode in order to pursue their NRL dream.
MAY – Haratua
Raina Ferris (Hawke’s Bay, Aotearoa New Zealand)
Ko Te Awaputahi te maunga
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Ko Taurekaitai te awa
Ko Rongomaraeroa te marae
Ko Te Poho o Kahungunu te
Ko Ngāti Kere te hapū
Ko Ngāti Kahungunu te iwi
Ko LaBassee Sciascia rāua ko Maymorn Stirling oku maatua
Ko Te Raina Ferris toku ingoa
I also whakapapa to Tainui waka, Ngāti Raukawa te iwi, to Kai Tahu iwi.
I am a wahine Māori, 69 years matured, I have 4 children, 17 mokopuna, 6 great grand mokopuna and have been happily married to Romaine/Doc Ferris for 52 years. I grew up in Porangahau and have been actively involved all my life on our marae here and continue to happily serve my hapū and iwi throughout Aotearoa. I am a senior academic, having taught at Te Wānanga o Raukawa for 14 years in Mātauranga Māori studies, also at Porirua Polytechnic, in Māori Performing Arts programs. I am currently running our whanau business here in Porangahau where we teach Mātauranga Māori courses for wahine and tane, building the capacity of Kaikaranga and Kaikōrero on our marae throughout Aotearoa. We have been doing this mahi for 22 years and finally found our way back to Porangahau, where we have established our own teaching site.
My focus for the future is to write books. I am currently working on my first major book about Karanga and the empowerment of wahine. I use our Māori world view korero to teach tikanga and kawa and te reo to those who come here to learn. Building the capacity of home people on our marae throughout Aotearoa is my focus, it will take time and effort, of which I have been doing for 22 years thus far. It’s a continual journey and one of which I am only sewing precious seeds in the minds of our people.
I wish to complete my book this year and continue to write other books that are awaiting my time and energy. It has been extremely difficult finding time to focus on my writing kaupapa. I so look forward to coming to Vaughan Park to help me complete my book. I have not decided on the name of the book at this stage, but feel it is not far away.
JUNE – Pipiri
Suzette Jackson (Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand)
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Suzette Jackson is a Pākehā and Māori woman born and raised in Taranaki. She whakapapa’s to Te Ātiawa and has recently started on her Te Reo learning journey. She has an adult daughter and an eight-year-old moko (grandson). Suzette Jackson has a Master of Social Work and is a full-time student currently in her first year of PhD study at The University of Auckland – Philosophy of Social Work. Her research project is on women’s experiences navigating Te Whare Taonga (The Treasured House), a six-month pilot drug and alcohol treatment programme tailored to support women who are or with children under three. The results from this project aim to provide insight into the cultural, spiritual, and therapeutic elements within the programme to best support women on their recovery journeys. It will also help the women narrate and document their stories as they navigated mothering while in addiction and now as they move into parenting while in recovery from addiction.
Suzette has lived experience of addiction and is nearly nine years into her sobriety. Her recovery journey is hugely significant and is a central factor in choosing the focus of her research topic. She works part-time as a Community Counsellor in an alcohol and drug residential programme in West Auckland. She is thrilled to undertake the Vaughan Park scholarship as it provides a space to work on writing chapters and articles for her PhD.
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