BA, GradDipTchg (Secondary), MEd, PhD (Education) (Victoria, Wellington)
Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Ngāti Tama, Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Kāi Tahu, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga
Contact
Office 4S12 Richardson Building, South Tower
Email liana.macdonald@otago.ac.nz
Research
Liana is the Chair in Māori, Moriori and Indigenous Peace Studies and Co-Director of Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
She is an interdisciplinary researcher who is interested in how Māori and other Indigenous groups are positioned in colonised countries and resist oppression. To this end, her research forefronts Indigenous experiences of the social world, informed by the nexus between memory, history, people, power, and place. Prior to joining TAOR, she was a senior lecturer in sociology and a lecturer in education. She has also enjoyed an 11 year career as a secondary school teacher.
Liana is associated with the editorial boards of several international peer-reviewed journals (including a Co-Editor role). She co-authored Fragments from a Contested Past: Remembrance, Denial and New Zealand History (BWB, 2022) and with Dr Lana Lopesi co-edited the Genealogy journal special issue Decolonial (and Anti-Colonial) Interventions to Genealogy (2024). Her areas of research expertise and writing for publication include:
- Indigenous peace, peacebuilding and justice
- Māori and Indigenous perspectives of settler colonialism
- Decolonising research methodologies, including community-based participatory, storytelling and ethnographic methods
- Critical studies in education considering Māori and Indigenous philosophy, sociology, and history
- Land/Peace education and decolonial transformation
Liana is currently the Lead Researcher in the Boulcott Memorial Redevelopment Project (phase two). This research is commissioned by the Hutt City Council to investigate Māori and Pākehā narratives of the battle of Boulcott’s Farm in 1846.
Read more about phase one of the Boulcott Memorial Project Report
Teaching
PEAC 509 Introduction to Peace and Justice in Aotearoa New Zealand
PEAC 510 Indigenous Approaches to Peacemaking and Reconciliation
Supervision
Liana is interested in supervising students with projects in the following areas:
- Indigenous peacebuilding and peace practices
- Indigenous justice, decolonial and Tiriti-based perspectives of peace and conflict
- Hidden historical narratives of peace and conflict in Aotearoa
- Kaupapa Māori/Moriori and Indigenous peace traditions
- Indigenous conflict resolution traditions, including non-violent resistance
Publications
Funaki-Cole, H., MacDonald, L., Knox, J., & McKinnon, D. (2024). Living in the telling: Indigenous storytelling of post-COVID desires for academia. Art/Research International, 8(2), 499-518. doi: 10.18432/ari29739 Journal - Research Article
MacDonald, L. (2024). Building counter-colonial commemorative landscapes through indigenous collective remembering in Wānanga. Genealogy, 8, 88. doi: 10.3390/genealogy8030088 Journal - Research Article
Stewart, G. T., MacDonald, L., Matapo, J., Fa'avae, D. T. M., Watson, B. K., Akiu, R. K., … Sturm, S. (2023). Surviving academic whiteness: Perspectives from the Pacific. Educational Philosophy & Theory, 55(2), 141-152. doi: 10.1080/00131857.2021.2010542 Journal - Research Article
Wallis, K., & MacDonald, L. (2022). Remembering the past on the road to war: Journeying down the Great South Road. In J. Kidman, V. O'Malley, L. MacDonald, T. Roa & K. Wallis (Eds.), Fragments from a contested past: Remembrance, denial and New Zealand history. (pp. 91-107). Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books. doi: 10.7810/9781990046483 Chapter in Book - Research
MacDonald, L. (2022). Notes from the field: Visiting Boulcott's Farm and Battle Hill. In J. Kidman, V. O'Malley, L. MacDonald, T. Roa & K. Wallis (Eds.), Fragments from a contested past: Remembrance, denial and New Zealand history. (pp. 46-65). Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books. doi: 10.7810/9781990046483 Chapter in Book - Research