BWB congratulates the Imagining Decolonised Cities project team who have won the 2021 Te Rangaunua Hiranga Māori Award, presented by Te Apārangi the Royal Society of New Zealand.
The award recognises excellent, innovative co-created research conducted by Māori that has made a distinctive contribution to community wellbeing and development in Aotearoa.
Among the outputs from this project, alongside a co-designed board game led by Porirua rangatahi, is BWB Text Imagining Decolonisation which has sold over 7,000 copies.
The core team is a collaboration between Ngāti Toa Rangatira iwi members Bianca Elkington (Education) and Jennie Smeaton (Māori Development Environmental Management); Moana Jackson, Ngāti Kahungungu, Ngāti Porou, Rongomaiwahine (Indigenous Rights and Te Tiriti); Te Herenga Waka —Victoria University of Wellington researchers Ocean Mercier, Ngāti Porou (Māori Science); Mike Ross, Ngāti Hauā (Whānau and hapū development); Amanda Thomas, Pākehā (Political Geography) and Rebecca Kiddle, Ngāti Porou, Ngāpuhi (Urbanism) who worked alongside rangatahi and the wider public to imagine utopian decolonial possibilities for Porirua.