Clockwise from top left: Tessa Petersen, Associate Professor Thomas McLean, Dr Wahineata Smith, Associate Professor Cilla Wehi and Associate Professor Miranda Johnson. Dr Paerau Warbrick and Professor Henry Johnson are not pictured.
Congratulations to the six successful projects from Te Kete Aronui – Division of Humanities to receive 2025 University of Otago Research Grants (UORG).
Interim Pro-Vice Chancellor, Division of Humanities, Professor Hugh Campbell congratulates all the recipients and says Humanities researchers make effective use of this funding support.
“The UORGs continue to create opportunities for researchers to undertake investigations that can lead to important milestones in their research journeys.”
Funded by the University’s Research Committee, the UORG scheme has an annual budget of $2 million to support excellence in research and scholarship at Otago. The assessment panel prioritises funding for early career and newly appointed researchers; Māori or Pacific research or researchers; and seeding new collaborative or community engaged research activities that will translate into the benefit of society.
For the 2025 round, the Research Committee awarded 52 grants across the University, with early and mid-career researchers comprising 59 per cent of successful applicants.
Successful applicants
Associate Professor Cilla Wehi (Centre for Sustainability)
Received funding from the Life Sciences Panel for her project: 'Fuelling kākāpō recovery: diet patterns in an endangered parrot'
The number of kākāpō is increasing. However, this success also creates pressure on the small islands where they currently live. This project aims to help kākāpō thrive. Understanding the dietary needs of these birds, and whether these are being met, is key to expanding the work of the Recovery Programme and identifying suitable future habitats.
The team will quantify the proportions of important food items in the diet of kākāpō from a range of islands and seasons, and explore the effects of this variation, including the adoption of omnivory by some individuals. This work will assist decision-making about future translocations of kākāpō and ensure members of this taonga species receive the necessary nutrients to thrive in new habitats. This project is in partnership with the Kākāpō Recovery Group, iwi, and Dr Amandine Sabadel at AUT.
Professor Henry Johnson (Music)
Received funding from the Humanities Panel for his project: 'Border beats: Identity and hybridity in the drumming traditions of the southwestern Japanese Islands'
This new research project examines the phenomena of discrete island identity and musical hybridity in the drumming traditions of southwestern Japan. The study highlights the diverse roots of these traditions and how their unique cultural and geographic characteristics represent distinct island and regional identities. These identities are shaped by Okinawan and Japanese influences, along with recent global cultural flows, at the crossroads of prefectural and international borders.
Three interconnected research questions underpin the study: "What are the roots of these drumming traditions?", "Why has hybridity occurred?" and "How is island identity represented in performance?".
By using a historical approach to study written materials, and incorporating ethnographic research, this project provides a comprehensive analysis combining cultural and musicological approaches. The study will culminate in the publication of the first book dedicated to this topic, offering new insights into the cultural significance of drumming traditions in southwestern Japan.
Associate Professor Miranda Johnson (History) and Dr Paerau Warbrick (Te Tumu)
Received funding from the Humanities panel for their project 'Indigenous Petitioning in Nineteenth Century New Zealand'
The last thirty years have witnessed a surge of interest in petitions among historians and other scholars across the globe. In nineteenth-century New Zealand, Indigenous leaders and ordinary people, men and women, petitioned missionaries, local administrators, the colonial state, and the British monarch on a wide range of issues. Despite its extent, there is no comprehensive research on Māori petitioning in the New Zealand context.
This project will make wide-ranging research possible by collating the Māori petitionary archive in New Zealand and bringing it together in a single, accessible, database. In a second phase, the team will seek further grant funding to make the petition database available online.
The project will develop a method for research into petitioning in twentieth-century Aotearoa as well as other parts of the Pacific, a critical region for broadening our understanding of the role of petitioning in colonial and postcolonial contexts.
Tessa Petersen (Music)
Received funding towards her project: 'The Journey of Mataatua Whare'
In collaboration with Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa and New Zealand composer Dame Gillian Karawe Whitehead, this project will present to new audiences the remarkable story of the creation and journey of Mataatua Whare halfway around the world and finally back home to its birthplace of Whakatāne.
The new composition by Gillian Whitehead honours and empowers Māori knowledge by using oral and musical traditions to retell the past. Historic photographs sourced with the help of Dr Anna Petersen, curator of photographs at the Hocken Library, will make up the visual element along with surtitles.
Ōtepoti/Dunedin is part of the whare’s narrative, as 2025 marks 100 years since it returned to New Zealand from overseas to be displayed in the New Zealand & South Seas Exhibition of 1925.
Funding will support the première performance, to be staged in the Dunedin Town Hall on June 28, 2025 by the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra, with Tessa Petersen as Concertmaster. Full details of the performance and artists involved will be released by the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra in late November.
Dr Wahineata Smith (Te Tumu)
Received a grant in aid from the Humanities panel to progress her project: 'Mā te Māori, Mate ma’a Tonga, matemate ā-one: Exploring the complexities of raising children with Māori and Tongan whakapapa'
Dr Smith’s project will continue research into what it means to have genealogical links to both Māori and Tongan cultures, and to explore the complexities of raising children with dual cultural heritage.
The first part of this research of interviewing four Māori and Tongan whānau, living in the Otago region, will be completed in 2024.
This funding is a contribution to stage two of the project focusing on Māori and Tongan children being raised in other regions and towns. Interviews will be extended to include Māori and Tongan families who will be residing in the Waikato region. Once completed, the aim is that stage three of this research will further investigate the complexities of raising children of dual cultural heritage on a national scale.
Associate Professor Thomas McLean (English and Linguistics)
Received an Otago University Prestigious Writing Grant for his book proposal: 'Frances Browne’s Ulster Tales: the First Critical Edition'
Frances Browne (1816–1879) was originally from Stranorlar, County Donegal in the north of Ireland. Known as “the Blind Poetess of Ulster,” she published poems, short stories, and novels. Her fame faded after her death, but there has been a resurgence of interest in her work in the 21st century. A dozen scholarly articles and chapters have appeared, and an annual Frances Browne Literary Festival now takes place in October in her birthplace.
One of her notable publications was a series of short stories 'The Legends of Ulster'. These stories, which mix historical events with ghostly or mysterious occurrences, were published between 1847 and 1852 in four different periodicals, but they have never been collected in one volume. Associate Professor McLean will be preparing the first edition and the first critical edition of 'The Legends of Ulster'.