But how many researchers will survive the money malaise at Massey?
Massey University chiefs obviously were chuffed that seven Massey research projects – two Fast-Start grants for new and emerging researchers, and five Standard grants – secured a total of $4,948,000 from the Marsden Fund Awards 2023.
A press statement from the university said the successful projects explore a variety of topics, including how true crime podcasts shape public opinion, the plight of seafarers after COVID-19, alcohol advertising on social media and the desexualisation of te reo Māori domains.
The last of those is a project (granted $360,000) being undertaken by Dr Hona Black, from the Te Pūtahi-a-Toi School of Māori Knowledge. The statement explained:
Dr Black’s research explores and expands on mātauranga Māori regarding sexuality in te reo Māori. Using interdisciplinary methodologies, founded on tikanga Māori and kaupapa Māori, the research will identify how sexuality was traditionally expressed and defined by examining extant literature, compositions and corpora such as harihari kai, pao, haka, pūrākau, ngeri and idiomatic expressions.
It will also examine how sexuality is conveyed in more contemporary modes, performances and compositions such as those performed at Te Matatini. Lastly, it will interview te reo Māori experts to explore their perspectives on expressing Māori sexuality in both traditional and contemporary contexts
Marsden Fund grants are awarded annually to support research excellence and typically fund three-year research projects in humanities, sciences, social sciences, mathematics, and engineering.
But the futures of Massey staff in those realms of teaching and research are clouded.
RNZ reported last month that students and teachers at Massey University were pressing the vice chancellor to resign as the education provider plans significant job cuts.
The university has proposed cuts to more than 100 jobs across subjects including natural and social sciences. This comes after the university forecast a loss of more than $50 million this year.
Professor Ray Geor, pro vice-chancellor for Massey’s College of Sciences, has said the need to reduce costs and generate income to ensure financial sustainability was urgent for this year and for the near term.
Among the cost-trimming proposals, engineering qualifications no longer will be provided at any campus, and 60 percent of staff in the schools of natural sciences and food and advanced technology will be lopped.
RNZ said it was proposed those two schools would cease to exist at its Albany campus, instead having them only in Palmerston North.
Massey also planned to remove 40 full-time equivalent jobs from the current 130 at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The latest batch of Marsden grant winners included $870,000 for a research project based primarily in Otago,
Reconnecting communities and cetaceans using mātauranga Māori and archaeological science
Dr Monica Tromp, Senior Laboratory Analyst with Southern Pacific Archaeological Research (SPAR) at Otago, and Co-Primary Investigator Dr Amber Aranui of Te Papa Tongarewa, have received this grant for a project that will focus on the relationship between Oceanic peoples and whales and dolphins
Dr Aranui says:
“The relationship between Oceanic peoples and cetaceans (whales and dolphins) is a sacred one that has persisted for centuries. These relationships are culturally significant and expressed in whakapapa (genealogies) and pūrākau (oral traditions). Despite this, we know very little about how people interacted with cetaceans in the past in Aotearoa,”
Another project – granted $360,000 and the subject of a previous Point of Order report – will tackle the question:
Vision Mātauranga: is it past its use-by date?
Vision Mātauranga is a government programme
“.. about innovation, opportunity and the creation of knowledge that highlights the potential contribution of Māori knowledge, resources and people”.
This programme, presumably, is the focus of the research to be undertaken by Dr Tara McAllister, from Victoria University of Wellington. But much broader questions have been raised (by University of Chicago Professor Jerry Coyne among other scientists and academics) about the place of mātauranga Māori in New Zealand science institutions and education system.
Professor Jon Hickford, in the Department of Agricultural Science at Lincoln University, says this broader discussion calls for an unpicking of the difference between science and mātauranga Māori, because they are critically different concepts.
Mātauranga Māori is mostly backwards-looking but Māori – without a sound written history – are turning to it as the come to terms with and better define what they value in their world view.
“That history may inform where they choose to advance their creative and scientific endeavour in future, and of course it may dictate how non-Māori may think about the future – albeit only in New Zealand” Hickford suggests.
“Science – Western, Eastern and all stops in between – will proceed, and in most cases not care about what mātauranga might offer the world. In most cases this will be in English too. Science simply doesn’t care about culture or history or value systems, it just is!”
Science and mātauranga Māori can and probably should happily co-exist in our schools and Universities, Hickford insists.
“However, they are not interchangeable in the way that many (mis-) interpret them to be, which is not to say that mātauranga can’t in part inform some science direction and policy,” he says.
Mātauranga Māori literally translated means ‘Māori knowledge’.
That’s a modern term which encompasses Māori traditions and values.
By contrast, science is both the pursuit and application of knowledge.
“Typically, science is at its best and most enduring when it is devoid of any values and traditions,” Hickford says.
“It is neutral, as one might expect it to be in describing such things as gravity, electrical fields, chemical reactions, tectonics, evolution (which riles some folk), etc.
“It also tends to be universal, in that it is pursued equally across all, or nearly all cultures.”
Historically science was documented or archived in a multitude of languages, both ancient (such as Latin) and new. But today it is almost universally documented in English – including in China.
“This often leads to science being conflated with British colonialism (hence the Western Science slight),” Hickford says.
He says he would further stress the word “documented” – science has a rich written history that in most cases is available globally to all who might be interested.
“It’s power in part comes from its archiving in the written word, albeit mostly online these days,” Hickford says.
“There is little documented mātauranga”.
He had never considered science and mātauranga to be comparable (“which is not to be dismissive of either”), he said.
That was his argument at the time of the hugely contentious Listener letter, and yet neither the Royal Society of New Zealand or critics of the letter writers such as Siouxie Wiles (he says) were smart enough – or bold enough – to say just that:
“Mātauranga is not science, and vice-versa”.
But the two can probably happily cohabitate, Hickford insists.
“In our education system they already do, albeit they are at times merged into one – a dangerous thing to do especially in the early years. I wish our kids just learned how to read and write.”
Both mātauranga and science can be fun, Hickford points out.
His daughter’s class in learning mātauranga had fashioned “a rather flash Māori patu” out of modelling clay.
All cultures have systems for learning.
He understands that – universally – humans do most of their learning before age two, and it is mainly based on ‘trial and error’, and observation .
The last of those is a project (granted $360,000) being undertaken by Dr Hona Black, from the Te Pūtahi-a-Toi School of Māori Knowledge. The statement explained:
Dr Black’s research explores and expands on mātauranga Māori regarding sexuality in te reo Māori. Using interdisciplinary methodologies, founded on tikanga Māori and kaupapa Māori, the research will identify how sexuality was traditionally expressed and defined by examining extant literature, compositions and corpora such as harihari kai, pao, haka, pūrākau, ngeri and idiomatic expressions.
It will also examine how sexuality is conveyed in more contemporary modes, performances and compositions such as those performed at Te Matatini. Lastly, it will interview te reo Māori experts to explore their perspectives on expressing Māori sexuality in both traditional and contemporary contexts
Marsden Fund grants are awarded annually to support research excellence and typically fund three-year research projects in humanities, sciences, social sciences, mathematics, and engineering.
But the futures of Massey staff in those realms of teaching and research are clouded.
RNZ reported last month that students and teachers at Massey University were pressing the vice chancellor to resign as the education provider plans significant job cuts.
The university has proposed cuts to more than 100 jobs across subjects including natural and social sciences. This comes after the university forecast a loss of more than $50 million this year.
Professor Ray Geor, pro vice-chancellor for Massey’s College of Sciences, has said the need to reduce costs and generate income to ensure financial sustainability was urgent for this year and for the near term.
Among the cost-trimming proposals, engineering qualifications no longer will be provided at any campus, and 60 percent of staff in the schools of natural sciences and food and advanced technology will be lopped.
RNZ said it was proposed those two schools would cease to exist at its Albany campus, instead having them only in Palmerston North.
Massey also planned to remove 40 full-time equivalent jobs from the current 130 at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
The latest batch of Marsden grant winners included $870,000 for a research project based primarily in Otago,
Reconnecting communities and cetaceans using mātauranga Māori and archaeological science
Dr Monica Tromp, Senior Laboratory Analyst with Southern Pacific Archaeological Research (SPAR) at Otago, and Co-Primary Investigator Dr Amber Aranui of Te Papa Tongarewa, have received this grant for a project that will focus on the relationship between Oceanic peoples and whales and dolphins
Dr Aranui says:
“The relationship between Oceanic peoples and cetaceans (whales and dolphins) is a sacred one that has persisted for centuries. These relationships are culturally significant and expressed in whakapapa (genealogies) and pūrākau (oral traditions). Despite this, we know very little about how people interacted with cetaceans in the past in Aotearoa,”
Another project – granted $360,000 and the subject of a previous Point of Order report – will tackle the question:
Vision Mātauranga: is it past its use-by date?
Vision Mātauranga is a government programme
“.. about innovation, opportunity and the creation of knowledge that highlights the potential contribution of Māori knowledge, resources and people”.
This programme, presumably, is the focus of the research to be undertaken by Dr Tara McAllister, from Victoria University of Wellington. But much broader questions have been raised (by University of Chicago Professor Jerry Coyne among other scientists and academics) about the place of mātauranga Māori in New Zealand science institutions and education system.
Professor Jon Hickford, in the Department of Agricultural Science at Lincoln University, says this broader discussion calls for an unpicking of the difference between science and mātauranga Māori, because they are critically different concepts.
Mātauranga Māori is mostly backwards-looking but Māori – without a sound written history – are turning to it as the come to terms with and better define what they value in their world view.
“That history may inform where they choose to advance their creative and scientific endeavour in future, and of course it may dictate how non-Māori may think about the future – albeit only in New Zealand” Hickford suggests.
“Science – Western, Eastern and all stops in between – will proceed, and in most cases not care about what mātauranga might offer the world. In most cases this will be in English too. Science simply doesn’t care about culture or history or value systems, it just is!”
Science and mātauranga Māori can and probably should happily co-exist in our schools and Universities, Hickford insists.
“However, they are not interchangeable in the way that many (mis-) interpret them to be, which is not to say that mātauranga can’t in part inform some science direction and policy,” he says.
Mātauranga Māori literally translated means ‘Māori knowledge’.
That’s a modern term which encompasses Māori traditions and values.
By contrast, science is both the pursuit and application of knowledge.
“Typically, science is at its best and most enduring when it is devoid of any values and traditions,” Hickford says.
“It is neutral, as one might expect it to be in describing such things as gravity, electrical fields, chemical reactions, tectonics, evolution (which riles some folk), etc.
“It also tends to be universal, in that it is pursued equally across all, or nearly all cultures.”
Historically science was documented or archived in a multitude of languages, both ancient (such as Latin) and new. But today it is almost universally documented in English – including in China.
“This often leads to science being conflated with British colonialism (hence the Western Science slight),” Hickford says.
He says he would further stress the word “documented” – science has a rich written history that in most cases is available globally to all who might be interested.
“It’s power in part comes from its archiving in the written word, albeit mostly online these days,” Hickford says.
“There is little documented mātauranga”.
He had never considered science and mātauranga to be comparable (“which is not to be dismissive of either”), he said.
That was his argument at the time of the hugely contentious Listener letter, and yet neither the Royal Society of New Zealand or critics of the letter writers such as Siouxie Wiles (he says) were smart enough – or bold enough – to say just that:
“Mātauranga is not science, and vice-versa”.
But the two can probably happily cohabitate, Hickford insists.
“In our education system they already do, albeit they are at times merged into one – a dangerous thing to do especially in the early years. I wish our kids just learned how to read and write.”
Both mātauranga and science can be fun, Hickford points out.
His daughter’s class in learning mātauranga had fashioned “a rather flash Māori patu” out of modelling clay.
All cultures have systems for learning.
He understands that – universally – humans do most of their learning before age two, and it is mainly based on ‘trial and error’, and observation .
“Scientific practice (experimentation) is simply an advanced approach to trial and error learning. That is why we scientists never really grow up…..”
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
3 comments:
When allocating money as to Dr Black how do all parties maintain a straight face? is such work ragrded as contributing to GDP? A study of how maori exercise sexuality could/should be conducted at Hunter's Corner.
the orgasmic cheer within academia when allowed to suckle at the great teat of marsden grant is embarrassing...
It's unbelievable how money gets allocated as in the $861,000 for the study of Kua whetūrangihia koe - linking the celestial spheres to end-of-life experiences. How useful - not! One can only guess all that it requires is a fervent imagination and you could weave the most startling load of old codswallop in your claim to almost anything - for who could prove you wrong? An expensive joke by any measure but, admittedly, arguably beaten by the $870,000 allocated to the mentioned study on Oceanic peoples relationship and interaction with dolphins and whales.
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