Associate Professor Alice A Te Punga Somerville

Associate Professor / Manukura

Qualifications: PhD (Cornell), MA (Auck)

Personal Website: http://oncewerepacific.blogspot.co.nz/

Iwi: Te Ātiawa, Taranaki

About Alice

At its heart, Alice's research is about texts by Māori, Pacific and Indigenous people. Dr Te Punga Somerville's work is underpinned by her belief that we (Māori, Pacific and/ or Indigenous peoples) are constrained when the stories about us are limited. She therefore focus on texts as evidence, sites and foundations of stories that are far more complex than those that are told about us by other people or even those that are generally told by ourselves.

Dr Te Punga Somerville's MA and PhD focused on Māori written literatures, and as she deliberately sought broader contexts for exploring this writing she developed a twin interest and expertise in Indigenous studies and Pacific studies. She also writes the occasional poem.

Papers Taught

Research Interests

Māori, Pacific and Indigenous literary and cultural studies. Pacific studies. Indigenous studies.

Keywords

English; Indigenous Rights; Maori; Maori History; Maori Identity; Maori Research; Pacific Issues

Indigenous studies, Pacific literary and cultural studies, Comparative Indigenous studies, Indigenous (esp Māori) diasporas