Karanga tahi – Calling future Māori scientists
Kimiora Hēnare (Ngāti Hauā, Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa), Leilani Walker (Te Whakatōhea, Thai) and Eloise Jillings (Ngāti Maru Hauraki) are in different fields of scientific research, but they all agree that more rangatahi Māori are needed within the health and science sectors.
Questions for discussion
Kimiora, Leilani and Eloise give lots of reasons for rangatahi to choose science careers. Which reasons speak to you?
Leilani talks about stories and storytellers. What do you think she means by this?
What stories would you like tell?
Transcript
Dr Kimiora Hēnare (Ngāti Hauā, Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa, Research Fellow at Waipapa Taumata Rau – University of Auckland)
We need more Māori or rangatahi considering careers in science across all areas. I think the true pathway to achieving a lot of the bigger goals is that we have Māori everywhere, and that includes biomedical research. We absolutely need them as doctors treating our patients, looking after our communities at the frontline. But medicine is built off research, and research needs to be done in the right way and in particularly as it pertains to Māori health. And I think that the solution to that is growing more people who understand te ao Māori, understand tikanga and things like that and being able to bring that and embed it into the environment.
Dr Leilani Walker (Te Whakatōhea, Thai, lecturer in the Faculty of Health and Environmental Science, Auckland University of Technology)
Every scientist brings their own background and their experience to the way that they not necessarily do their science but the types of questions that they’re interested in and what they take away as being the most important story to tell. So we need rangatahi to be sharing those stories because we haven’t had enough of it.
Professor Eloise Jillings (Ngāti Maru Hauraki, veterinarian and educator, Massey University)
We need more Māori and indigenous Pacific in the veterinary profession in New Zealand. We have a real problem in that our profession is so poorly representative of Aotearoa – 2% of veterinarians identify as Māori and not even a half a percent identify as Pacific.
Dr Leilani Walker
The Western science story has been told and published for a long time now, and we need those other stories because they’re cool and because they’re important – also because we need those stories about different places that are important to different people.
And you can take a really utilitarian kind of approach to it, which is that, because the challenges we’re facing – biodiversity loss, climate change – are so wide reaching, that if we want to make our way out of them, we need everyone to be engaged and motivated. And for that reason, for 100 different places we need 100 different storytellers.
Dr Kimiora Hēnare
In New Zealand, there’s a lot of information we don’t have. We don’t have a lot of data for Māori and that makes it difficult to reach all the patients, and so we need more researchers shaping how we develop and adapt new medical technology. We want Māori insights and world views and ideas and brilliance.
Acknowledgements Dr Kimiora Hēnare, Waipapa Taumata Rau – University of Auckland Dr Leilani Walker, Auckland University of Technology Professor Eloise Jillings, Tāwharau Ora – School of Veterinary Science, Massey University Advisors: Professor Georgina Tuari Stewart and Dr Sally Birdsall Biomedical Engineer Dr Mahonri Owen working on neural prosthetic hand, Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi Mycologist and Plant Pathologist from A PhD in ethnobotany, Dr Rebekah Fuller Pharmacist, University of Auckland. CC BY 3.0 Medical student Antonia Hoeta with poi, The Science of Medicines, Te Tari Hauora Tūmatanui Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago Students with horse on treadmill and veterinary clinic at Tāwharau Ora – School of Veterinary Science, Massey University Ecologist Yvonne Taura taking water sample; and Yvonne with fellow ecologists Dr Bev Clarkson and Cheri van Schravendijk-Goodman examining plant from Cultural indicators, Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research and University of Waikato Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato
