Professor Emerita Ngahuia Te Awekotuku | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Te Awekotuku in 2010 | |
| Born | 1949 (age 74–75) |
| Nationality | New Zealand |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Auckland |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Māori Studies |
| Institutions | Victoria University of Wellington, Waikato University |
| Doctoral students | Mere Whaanga |
| Notable works | Mau Moko: the world of Maori tattoo |
Ngahuia Te Awekotuku MNZM (born 1949) is a New Zealand academic specialising in Māori cultural issues and a lesbian activist.[1] In 1972, she was famously denied a visa to visit the United States on the basis of her sexuality.
Te Awekotuku is descended from Te Arawa, Tūhoe and Waikato iwi.[2][3]
As a student she was a member of Ngā Tamatoa at the University of Auckland.[4] Her Master of Arts thesis was on Janet Frame[4] and her PhD on the effects of tourism on the Te Arawa people.[4][5]
Te Awekotuku has worked across the heritage, culture and academic sectors as a curator, lecturer, researcher and activist. Her areas of research interest include gender issues, museums, body modification, power and powerlessness, spirituality and ritual.[6] She has been curator of ethnology at the Waikato Museum; lecturer in art history at Auckland University,[4] and professor of Māori studies at Victoria University of Wellington.[4] She was Professor of Research and Development at Waikato University.[2] She and Marilyn Waring contributed the piece "Foreigners in our own land" to the 1984 anthology Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women's Movement Anthology, edited by Robin Morgan.[7] Although now retired, she continues to write and mentor students. Notable students include Mere Whaanga.[8]
In 1972, Te Awekotuku was denied a visitor's permit to the USA on the grounds that she was a homosexual. Publicity around the incident was a catalyst in the formation of gay liberation groups in New Zealand.[9] This may have been related to a TV interview she gave in 1971, in which she described herself as a 'sapphic woman'.[10]
Te Awekotuku has researched and written extensively on the traditional and contemporary practices of tā moko (tattoo) in New Zealand. Her 2007 (re-published in 2011) book Mau Moko: the world of Maori tattoo, co-authored with Linda Waimarie Nikora, was the product of a five-year long research project conducted by the Māori and Psychology Research Unit at Waikato University, funded by a Marsden Fund grant.[11][12]
Te Awekotuku took a moko kauae (facial moko) to mark the death of Te Arikinui Dame te Atairangikaahu in 2006.[13][14]
In 2009 Te Awekotuku and Linda Waimarie Nikora received a $950,000 Marsden Fund grant as lead researchers in the Māori and Psychology Research Unit at Waikato University for the research project 'Apakura: the Maori way of death'. A further $250,000 was received from the Nga Pae o te Maramatanga National Institute of Research Excellence to explore past and present practices around tangihanga.[15]
In the 2010 New Year Honours, Te Awekotuku was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori culture.[16] In 2017, she won an Auckland Museum Medal.[17] Also in 2017, Te Awekotuku was selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's "150 women in 150 words", celebrating the contributions of women to knowledge in New Zealand.[18]
