Tangihanga Research Programme Team

Researchers: Prof. Ngahuia Te Awekotuku

Project Summary: Professor Ngahuia Te Awekotuku was a founding member of both the Centre for Maori Studies & Research (1974), and more recently the Maori & Psychology Research Unit. She is now the co-leader, with Associate Professor Linda Waimarie Nikora of Psychology, in the Tangi Research Programme. This research initiative offers an interdisciplinary focus for the study of dying, and the tikanga and reo of customary practice, grief, bereavement, healing, and end of life experience in the Maori world. It comprises a whānau of scholars, community practitioners, students, traditional ritualists and marae researchers. The image above records some of the project team at their immensely successful Inaugural Aotearoa Death Studies Symposium held in November 2010.

Keywords: Death, dying, tikanga and reo of customary practice, grief, bereavement, healing, end of life experience.