Current position(s)

Central to my research has been Aotearoa New Zealand’s environmental history and the negotiation of Māori and Pākehā narratives of place.
Since 2019 I have been commissioned by Te Arawhiti (Office for Māori Crown Relations) and the Waitangi Tribunal for several large research reports relating to historical Treaty of Waitangi claims and claims under the Marine and Coastal (Takutai Moana) Act in Northland, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne and Auckland.
I'm based in the Eastern Bay of Plenty (New Zealand) and near Hamburg (Germany).

Current project(s)

I’m currently developing a research project titled ‘Making public memory. Stories of small museums in Aotearoa New Zealand’. As local bicultural power relations are shifting post-Treaty settlements, community museums become, or are being made, increasingly aware of the contested space they occupy as a place of remembering the past. Through interviews, volunteering and archival work I’ll investigate how these museums in their local communities are contributing to ideas about the past.

Former position(s)

In 2016 I gained a PhD in Social Anthropology from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. My thesis investigated relationships of Māori, Pākehā and official agencies in respect to the governance of Ōhiwa Harbour in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.
From 2016 to 2019 I was contracted by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (New Zealand) to develop a heritage trail at Ōhiwa Harbour, working closely with tāngata whenua (people of the land).

Monographs (and dissertation)

(2022) Hukutaia Domain: the history of a local treasure, with Lorna Aikman, Ōpōtiki

(2016) Shared Landscapes – Ownership and Governance of Ōhiwa Harbour (Aotearoa/New Zealand). PhD thesis. Victoria University of Wellington.

(2016) Mana whenua and the ownership of nature. Challenges to the co-governance of natural resources in Aotearoa New Zealand. In Peter Adds, Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich, Richard Hill, & Graeme Whimp (Eds.), Reconciliation, Representation and Indigeneity. 'Biculturalism' in Aotearoa. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter (pp. 151-166)

(2008) Interkulturelle Bildung, Macht und Konflikt in Chile. Das staatliche Bildungsprogramm Educación Intercultural bilingüe – Anspruch und Wirklichkeit für das Volk der Mapuche. 156p., VDM-Verlag Dr. Müller: Saarbrücken.

Articles

(2019) Countering the Paradigm of ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’: Exploring Concepts of the Commons and Collective Action Institutions in Aotearoa New Zealand. Treaty Research Series (online), Treaty of Waitangi Research Unit, Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, Victoria University of Wellington

(2013) Einheit in Dualität? Crown-Māori Beziehungen in Aotearoa New Zealand [Unity in duality? Crown-Māori relations in Aotearoa New Zealand]. In: Wissenschaft und Frieden, Vol. 31, no. 4/2013, pp. 29-31.

Edited volumes

(2006) with Christiane Fröhlich: Zum Verhältnis von Religion und Politik in Israel. Dokumentation einer interdisziplinären Vortragsreihe an der Forschungsstätte der Evangelischen Studiengemeinschaft. Texte und Materialien, Reihe A, Nr. 51, 230p., Forschungsstätte der Evangelischen Studiengemeinschaft - Protestant Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies: Heidelberg.