Tahu is the incoming Co-Director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga and is Professor of Demography at the National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis, University of Waikato. She specialises in Māori and Indigenous demographic research and has written extensively on issues of Māori population change, Māori identity, official statistics and ethnic and racial classification.
She is a founding member of the Māori Data Sovereignty Network Te Mana Raraunga and the Global Indigenous Data Alliance. She co-edited the landmark book Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward an Agenda (ANU Press) and a forthcoming edited volume Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Policy (Routledge).Tahu has undertaken research for numerous iwi, Māori communities, and Government agencies, and is a member of the Chief Science Advisor Forum. She was formerly a journalist and has degrees in History, Demography and Sociology from The University of Waikato and Stanford University.
Related Projects
Scoping project
Project commenced:The guiding research question for this project are:
1) How has Tuurangawaewae Marae fostered community mauri ora (wellbeing) within Waikato and in Te Ao Maaori more broadly?
2) What role has Tuurangawaewae Marae played as both a repository and a place of action for te Reo me ngaa Tikanga in Waikato and in Aotearoa-New Zealand?
3) What are the factors underpinning Tuurangawaewae Marae’s endurance as a centre for Maaori political action and manaakitanga (caring for community) both nationally and for Waikato whaanau
Kia Ārohi Kia Mārama - Scoping Excellence
Project commenced:We have identified a set of questions relating to indigenous data governance, ownership and access, along with potential solutions for benefit sharing and value generation.
What are the key challenges to realising indigenous data sovereignty and how might they be addressed?
What are the key mechanisms needed to realise indigenous data sovereignty at global, national and local scales?
What is the transformative potential of indigenous data sovereignty for Māori?
What can we learn from ‘best practice’ examples of indigenous data sovereignty that already exist?