Jenny Te Paa-Daniel 1: Outgoing Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa Māreikura and Co-Director Jenny Te Paa-Daniel (third right) poses with Te Tumu Dean Patrick Vakaoti (far right), Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa Co Directors Professor Richard Jackson (second right) and Dr Liana McDonald (second left), Vice-Chancellor Grant Robertson (fourth right), and National Peace and Conflict Studies Trustees Marjory Lewis (far left), Sir David Moxon (third left), Janfrie Wakim (fourth left) and Trust chair Maui Solomon (centre).
An important figurehead in the Tiriti facing transformation of Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa believes the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies will flourish anew with the establishment of the new co-leadership team.
Emotions were high for former co-Director and Māreikura Jenny Te Paa-Daniel, who was farewelled in October.
Te Paa-Daniel was associated with the Centre from the time of its early beginnings at Otago in 2009.
“I had an involvement right from the very beginning, and I was so proud of the fact the original trustees by way of an MOU insisted way back then that the Centre would be Tiriti facing, that it would embrace Moriori research and redress aspirations and it would do all it could do to generate interest and inclusion for Pacific students,” she said.
Outgoing Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa Māreikura and Co-Director Jenny Te Paa-Daniel poses with Te Tumu Dean Professor Patrick Vakaoti and Dr Vanisha Mishra-Vakaoti.
In 2013, a chance meeting with the NCPACS founding director led to her becoming a senior research fellow with the Centre. It was during her tenure there that she became acutely aware of just how incredibly successful the Centre was as a postgraduate centre of global excellence for many international students.
“The research and publications outputs were absolutely impressive. Sadly however, the same was not yet so for Māori, Moriori or Pacific students and there were no indigenous Faculty members”.
Eventually becoming a Trustee for the Centre enabled her to work more purposefully toward fulfilling the vision of the MOU. In spite of some turbulence, Te Paa-Daniel’s commitment to the kaupapa was unwavering. She returned to the Centre in 2018 as Te Māreikura, a respected leader appointed to help guide and support what she now insisted be known as Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa on its MOU mandated journey.
With unequivocal support from fellow Trustees, mana whenua within the University as well as numerous Māori, Pākehā and Pacific leaders, she wanted Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa to become an institutional taonga for scholars and researchers to gather around the kaupapa of peacebuilding, advocacy, conflict resolution and peacekeeping interventions.
“The goodness of the original MOU vision had not been lost. It had simply been on a detour, it had been variously suppressed, devalued, deferred. So what was needed was a reorienting exercise, a hikitia moment or a chance to rise to the challenge of embedding the Tiriti facing mandate.”
It was a challenge that could not have been met without the unflagging support of the University, or the repatriation of Rongomaraeroa under the manaaki of Te Tumu.
“I knew there was an honourable commitment from the University toward giving Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa the redemptive chance it needed, so I had to make sure Rongomaraeroa was reciprocating that incredible level of trust.
For Te Paa-Daniel, the conclusion of her time working directly with the Centre is the closing of another chapter in a book that remains as yet incomplete. She will continue working as a Trustee and as an Honorary Fellow which means she will continue to contribute in accordance with the obligations that each role holds.
Outgoing Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa Māreikura and Co-Director Jenny Te Paa-Daniel (third left) poses with Office of Māori Development staff members (from left) Maioha Watson, Rhonda Bryant, Karin Fraser, Kiritea Smith and Hata Temo.
The time has come, however, for her to pass the leadership mantle on to Dr Liana MacDonald (Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō, Ngāti Koata), the newly appointed inaugural Chair in Māori, Moriori and Indigenous Peace Studies. Dr McDonald will work alongside fellow Co-Director of Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa, Professor Richard Jackson.
Professor Jackson acknowledged Te Paa-Daniel’s work with Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa and said her generous warmth and care was valued by staff and students alike.
“Her hard work, leadership, support, encouragement and wise counsel have been essential to our growth, and she has guided and led us through some rough waters in the past couple of years,” he said.
“I can’t thank her enough for everything she’s so selflessly and generously given to all in the Rongomaraeroa whanau , and I am delighted she will continue to be with us on this journey as an Honorary Fellow.”
As politically-stirred race-based conflicts simmer around the country, Te Paa-Daniel says the need for an intellectual space such as Rongomaraeroa with its original Tiriti facing mandate is clearer than ever.
“I believe so much that we as ngā taua te iwi Māori have so much to contribute to the space. Peace and Conflict Studies is not an abstract concept for us because experientially that’s been our life’s journey.
“Right now Māori are rightly organising, we are pushing back against any and all politically motivated attempts at Tiriti facing erasure, diminution, exclusion with dignity, decency and unyielding clarity around what we see going on.
“In fact when you stop to consider the approaches being taken as iwi leaders lead the way whether at Waitangi, Ratana, Turangawaewae and elsewhere at various hui a iwi, it’s almost a perfect case study in Indigenous peacebuilding.”