Ngā Tāngata Katoa | Our People

“Mā mua ka kite a muri, mā muri ka ora a mua”

Those who lead give sight to those who follow, those who follow give life to those who lead

Our Past Directors

Sir Hugh Kawharu speaking at the opening of Waipapa Marae, University of Auckland in 1988. (Source: Sir High Kawharu Foundation)

Sir Ian Hugh Kawharu

Sir Hugh Kawharu (Ngāti Whātua) was a noted Māori leader and scholar. He was a Commissioner on the Royal Commission on the Courts, New Zealand’s delegate to UNESCO, the Ngāti Whātua delegate to the National Māori Congress, a member of the Council for Educational Research, the Māori Council and the Arts Foundation, and, for 30 years, a member of the Auckland Museum Trust Board. He also served as a member of the Waitangi Tribunal, and as Chairman of the Ngāti Whātua o Orakei Trust Board. Sir Hugh steered Ngāti Whātua’s negotiations for the return of ancestral land at Bastion Point or Takaparawhau. In 1991 the land was returned. Sir Hugh continued, with his acknowledged diplomacy, pragmatism and goodwill until in 2006 when an Agreement in Principle between Ngāti Whatua Ōrakei and the Government was secured as a vital step to settle all outstanding claims in Tāmaki Makaurau for breaches of te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Sir Hugh was awarded his knighthood in 1989 and other honours followed. In 1992 he was awarded the Eldson Best Medal by the Polynesian Society. He was made Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, honorary Fellow of Exeter College, and Patron of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University.

In 2002 he became an additional member of the Order of New Zealand, and in 2005 received Auckland City’s Distinguished Citizen Award.

(Text sourced from: Sir Hugh Kawharu Foundation)

Dr Una Dorothy Urlich

Dorothy Urlich (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kuri), was born in 1930 in the small community of Ahipara, in Te Tai Tokerau. The youngest of 10 children of Hariata Poata (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kuri) and James Urlich, who had migrated to the North from Dalmatia (Ngāti Tarara), Dorothy attended secondary school at St Mary’s College in Ponsonby.

Dorothy completed a PhD in the mid-1970s, and set up a research consultancy in Adelaide, working on a range of public health and social issues. In 1993, she was offered a position as associate professor at the University of Auckland, with her time spilt between the Geography Department and the newly established James Henare Research Centre.

Upon retirement from the University, she wrote an acclaimed biography of her ancestor, Hongi Hika (2003). As her daughter Jen Cloher reflected in the eulogy she gave at Dorothy’s funeral, “At a time when it was still rare to find women in the upper echelons of academia, she inspired many of her younger nieces and nephews to aim high.”

Text sourced from: Suffrage125-Women in Science

Dorothy received her PhD from Monash University in 1975 (Source: Suffrage125-Women in Science)

Richard Benton with anthropologist Judith Huntsman in 1995.
Anthropology Photographic Archive, University of Auckland, Reference: 494310

Dr Richard Benton

Dr Richard Benton studied linguistics, completing his doctorate at the University of Hawai’i (Mānoa) in 1972. Returning to Aotearoa, he joined Ngā Kaiwhakapūmau i te Reo and supported the te reo Māori claim to the Waitangi Tribunal. He and his wife Nena Benton’s years of research and numerous detailed and eloquent papers on te reo provided an authoritative sociolinguistic research corpus which underpinned the evidence presented by claimants to the Waitangi Tribunal in Wai 11.

Richard Benton has been Tumuaki, Te Wāhanga Kaupapa Māori of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Deputy Director of the Centre for Maaori Studies and Research at the University of Waikato (1996–99), Director of the James Henare Māori Research Centre at the University of Auckland (1999–2003), Adjunct Professor with Te Mātāhauariki Institute at the University of Waikato (2004–07), and President of the Polynesian Society.

Text sourced from: Te Ara

Professor Merata Kawharu

Professor Merata Kawharu (Ngāti Whatua, Ngāpuhi) comes from a family where education is highly valued, but grounded in reality, leading her to always keep in mind her father’s advice to think about the practical use of what you do, or in other words, ask ‘so what?’

As a Rhodes scholar, she completed her DPhil in Social Anthropology on kaitiakitanga in 1998 at University of Oxford. In 2012, she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for her services to Māori education. Merata‘s research activities have over-arching themes of supporting Māori leadership, community and education.

Text sourced from: Otago University

Professor Merata Kawharu (Source: Otago University)

Our Co-Directors

Associate Professor Marama Muru-Lanning

Waikato, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Whātua

Manutaki Rangahau | Research Director

Marama Muru-Lanning is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and a Co-Director of the James Henare Research Centre. Her scholarship is dedicated to transdisciplinary research with Māori communities in Tai Tokerau and Tāmaki that prioritises equity and social justice. As a social anthropologist she focuses on the cultural specificity of tangata whenua groups and their unique sense of place and belonging in their takiwā. What distinguishes Marama internationally as a social scientist is her specialisation in four interrelated research areas: 1. Water; 2. Human-environment relationships; 3. Mātauranga; and 4. Transdisciplinary methods. Over the past five years she has also advanced approaches and methods for conducting researching with and for kaumātua with her James Henare Research Centre colleagues.

Dr Tia Dawes

Ngāpuhi

Manutaki Te Tai Tokerau | Director Te Tai Tokerau

Dr Tia Dawes is a Co-Director at the James Henare Research Centre exploring the relevance and role of kaumātua in the production of knowledge and maintenance of mātauranga in Māori communities. His main focus as a Co-Director is Te Tai Tokerau rohe.