Danika Maitai

A student of History and Māori and Indigenous Studies, Danika Maitai sees her study as a path towards practising her tino rangatiratanga in every aspect of her life.  

Danika says that after going to high school in Australia she felt a calling to come home and study at Waikato.  

“I want to work with my people and work on our whenua. The University of Waikato was the first choice for me – the Māori lecturers and the Māori history here meant that I felt the pull to come to Waikato over any other university.”  

Danika says various papers throughout her degree gave her opportunities to reconnect to her tūpuna  and ground herself in her whakapapa.  

HISTY302: Blood, Land, DNA: Contemporary Indigenous Histories and Archives saw Danika do an assessment involving her nan.  

“I traced her whakapapa back through her being whāngai and worked to understand the intergenerational mamae that might be there. It brought me closer to my nan,” she says.  

Danika enjoyed MAORI200: Mana Wāhine too, a paper that explores the impact of colonisation on Māori and Indigenous women and their contributions to decolonisation.  

“There were ways for me to see myself in those papers which was awesome.”  

Having completed her Bachelor of Social Sciences, Danika has started her Master of Social Sciences in History.  

She’s tutored while studying, an experience she says she has loved. “Through tutoring I’ve been able to engage with my lecturers on more of a colleague level, and it’s helped my understanding of my own assessments. Collaborating with tauira has been awesome too,” she says.  

Danika is also a co-founder of the first Māori History student association at the University. Ngā Tapuwae Tūpuna, meaning the footsteps of our ancestors, is a space for tauira Māori to feel comfortable practising their tino rangatiratanga and to connect with others studying History.  

The first in her family to go to university, Danika hopes to one day work in policy with iwi organisations. 

Her advice for students is summed up by the whakataukī ‘e noho tauira mai, ka tū tauira atu’, meaning ‘remain a student until you become the example’.  

“Coming to university is a big accolade in itself,” Danika says. “It’s all part of your journey – you have to persevere and persist.”