Christchurch Maori and the Earthquakes: Mahi Rangahau i te Ru Whenua, kei Otautahi

Kia ora koutou,
Just a post to express how excited I am to be beginning research into Maori economic resilience following the recent earthquakes in Otautahi. I'm lucky to be one of a team of emerging researchers, like butterflies, stretching out from the chrysalis of love...

Anyways, this is just the first of what I intend to be a long line of posts on this research. We will get a more formal webpage through Lincoln University in a week or two on which we can post our results and panui communities about upcoming presentations and publications. Our kaupapa is to build ever greater Maori resilience. Our particular focus will revolve around two separate but connected dimensions: the cultural and the economic.

We will also be announcing Summer Scholarships for Lincoln students, and are willing to collaborate with other like-minded researchers.

One caveat we must announce. This is an academic research project. We absolutely must stand in the global marae for peer review by those whose disciplines we choose to dwell, at least for our professional development. The resilience we therefore bring to our own whanau provides the foundation on which we can contribute to the resilience of other whanau: Maori, Pakeha and tauiwi.

Falling masonry doesn't pick its victims based on whakapapa.

It will be interesting to see which groups or communities are/were more vulnerable. Certainly international students were disproportionately represented...

And while Lincoln hasn't emerged unscathed, check out my earlier post, we are certainly better off than our poor city cousins, Canterbury.

I loved that library, was a student at UC when they ('they') purchased their one millionth book for the James Hight library. We have about 900 books, too many but I also gave away too many, sold too many, and lost too many. Can't recall what it was, a poncy Old English manuscript if I remember rightly.

Typical.