Arini Loader receives Royal Society Te Apārangi Te Kōpūnui Māori Research Award
The new award recognises innovative Māori research by promising early career researchers.
Dr Arini Loader has received the Royal Society Te Apārangi Te Kōpūnui Māori Research Award for pushing the boundaries of Māori Studies by incorporating history, Te Reo Māori and literary studies into her research.
Dr Loader (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Whakaue, Te Whānau-a-Apanui) is a lecturer in the history programme in the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations (HPPI) at Victoria University of Wellington. Her area of speciality is nineteenth-century materials written in Māori. Her scholarship offers major new interpretations of works written in Māori between 1840 and1930 by such figures as Tāmihana Te Rauparaha along with other less well known figures, including women, who were using the medium of paper, writing and print for their own social, political and intellectual purposes.
Working across both te reo Māori and the English language, her research resists simple definition and this flexibility has seen her emerge as a scholar whose work sits equally well in the fields of English literature, History, and Māori Studies.
While there are extensive public and private archival holdings of texts written in te reo Māori by Māori ancestors, sadly few scholars can read, comprehend and therefore access these works. Arini seeks to repatriate these voices which lie ‘buried’ in the archives to Māori and to the rest of the world.
Read the the full story on the Royal Society Te Apārangi's website.
You can also read a press-release on Victoria University's website.