Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Te Wāhanga Aronui

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Research projects

Explore some of our research projects undertaken by staff and students at the Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

There are many research projects underway in the Faculty, involving a wide variety of organisational participants, either as funders or collaborators.

Research highlights

Many colourful pills

Drug checking at festivals: reefer madness v the facts

Research shows drug checking does not increase the use of illegal drugs or encourage people to start using them
A close-up black and white image of a barbwired fence with a security camera in teh background.

We need a legitimate police service

Police reforms are regularly undermined by the over-policing of Māori, a drift towards coercive policing, and the under-policing of many victims.

Election: Key social media trends

Professor Jack Vowles and Dr Mona Krewel analysed parties' Facebook posts during the last four weeks of the election in the New Zealand Social Media Study.

Marsden Fund projects

The Marsden Fund is a contestable research fund that supports research excellence in the social sciences and humanities, as well as science, engineering, and mathematics.

Administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand, it is the most significant avenue of external funding for researchers in the Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. There are also Marsden Fund Fast-Start grants that come from a special pool of funds set aside for emerging researchers.

Marsden grants are regarded as the hallmark of excellence for research in New Zealand, and competition for them is intense. Our researchers in WFHSS have been highly successful in recent Marsden rounds.

Recently funded projects

Signs of development: Sociolinguistic variation and change in New Zealand Sign Language in times of status change and globalisation

Associate Professor Rachel McKee (School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies) has received a standard grant for her research project which will look at how innovation and change in New Zealand Sign Language correlates with the social characteristics of the users and the particular context in which the language is used.

Kai Ora: Food of Hope and Wellbeing

Associate Professor Jo Smith (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha) (School of English, Film, Theatre, Media and Communication, and Art History) and Dr Jessica Hutchings (Ngāi Tahu, Gujarati) have received a standard grant for their research project which will investigate how kaupapa Māori approaches to food might transform what we eat, how we obtain it, and how we value it, particularly when imagining new food nation futures.

Mountain or coast? Solving the Austronesian homeland puzzle

Dr Victoria Chen (School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies) has received a Fast-Start grant for her research project which will bring together new linguistic data with the latest findings in archaeology and anthropology to re-examine the Austronesian homeland puzzle and enable a better understanding of the people of Southeast Asia, as well as Polynesian and Māori prehistory.

Other research

More information on other research happening in the Faculty is available on our research centres and institute sites and each School's research pages: