Aroha Harris

Aroha G. Harris is a Māori (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) academic. As of 2020, Harris is an associate professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in Māori histories of policy and community development. She is also a member of the Waitangi Tribunal.

Early life[]

Harris was born to parents Margaret née Leef and Milton Harris, a truck driver. She grew up in Te Atatū South, and was educated at St Joseph's Māori Girls' College in Napier. She credits her paternal grandmother, Violet Otene Harris, a Ngāpuhi and Mormon, as having a significant influence on her during childhood.^[1]

Academic career[]

Harris has said that she studied history "partly because she’s a 'failed novelist' who wanted to write and be a storyteller".^[1] Harris completed an MPhil in social policy at Massey University titled Maori land development schemes, 1945–1974, with two case studies from the Hokianga in 1996. After a PhD titled Dancing with the state: Māori creative energy and policies of integration 1945–1967 at the University of Auckland in 2007, Harris was employed at the University of Auckland, where she is an associate professor.^[2]

Harris was a founding member of , the New Zealand national association for Māori historians. She is a co-editor of the Te Pouhere Kōrero journal.^[3]

Her first book, Hikoi: Forty Years of Māori Protest, was published in 2004. described political protest in the second half of the twentieth century, showing that individual protests are part of a cohesive movement.^[1]

She was appointed as a member of the Waitangi Tribunal in 2008, and is a member of the Te Rohe Potae (Wai 898) panel.^[1][4]

Honours and awards[]

In 2017 Harris was selected as one of the Royal Society Te Apārangi's 150 women in 150 words, celebrating the contributions of women to knowledge in New Zealand.^[3]

Tangata Whenua: an illustrated history, a book co-authored with Judith Binney and Atholl Anderson, won the Royal Society Science Book Prize in 2015, and the illustrated non-fiction category award in the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.^[3][5]

Selected works[]

• Aroha Harris; Waitangi Tribunal Division (1996). Crown acquisition of confiscated and Maori land in Taranaki, 1872–1881. Wellington: Waitangi Tribunal. ISBN 978-1-86956-160-4. OCLC 156739428. Wikidata Q105037711.
• Aroha Harris; Melissa Matutina Williams; Atholl Anderson (2017). Tangata whenua: an illustrated history. Part three. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. ISBN 978-1-988533-45-2. OCLC 1108077788. Wikidata Q105037712.
• Aroha Harris (2004), Hīkoi: forty years of Maori protest (in undetermined language), Wellington: Huia Publishers, OCLC 253321388, Wikidata Q105037714
• Aroha Harris; New Zealand Health Information Service; Health Research and Analytical Services; Population Health Services Section (1994), Measuring the effectiveness of health services for Maori consumers, Wellington: Ministry of Health, OCLC 152419248, Wikidata Q105037715
• Aroha Harris (2007), Dancing with the state: Māori creative energy and policies of integration, 1945-1967 : a thesis ... in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History, University of Auckland, OCLC 166411879, Wikidata Q105037716
• Aroha Harris (1996), Maori land development schemes, 1945–1974, with two case studies from the Hokianga: a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Social Policy at Massey University, OCLC 154520143, Wikidata Q105037717

References[]

External links[]

Profile of Harris at University of Auckland