East Coast 'son' Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship
university-of-waikato
Mon Sep 03 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
East Coast 'son' Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship
Monday, 3 September 2007, 11:02 am
Press Release: University of Waikato
East Coast 'son' wins Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship
Nāpia Mahuika will record the oral histories of different generations of Ngāti Porou with the support of a Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship awarded by the Tertiary Education Commission.
Nāpia Mahuika (Ngāti Porou and Waikato), lecturer in history at the University of Waikato Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, was one of 28 recipients of the keenly sought after national scholarships announced recently.
His whānau live at Whakawhitira and Tikitiki on the East Coast. His tipuna, Api Mahuika, a great uncle and Chairman of the Ngāti Porou Runanga, says both his family and Ngāti Porou are immensely proud of Nepia's achievement.
"As his tipuna, my pride is enormous. Nāpia is one of the university graduates in our family and words are inadequate to express the depth of pride we have in his achievement. If my brother – Nepia's namesake and his grandfather – was alive his pride would be as great as ours. Others of Nepia's family have degrees with honours in law, languages, education, sports, recreation and management.
"For Ngāti Porou, this is testimony of the capability and capacity of our young people to scale the heights of academia and in this regard they demonstrate the face of the future leadership for our people," he said.
Nāpia graduated from the University of Waikato in 2004 with conjoint Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Teaching degrees in English and history, with Honours in history. He completed his Master of Arts degree also with Honours in history last year.
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A latecomer to tertiary study after working as a factory hand in an aluminium plant, Nepia says he plans to look at the ways in which the Ngāti Porou people of the East Coast draw on oral traditions to construct their own stories and make sense of their lives.
"I'll be talking to about 50 people from different generations, different families and different generations within the same families. I want to hear their stories in their own words."
Nāpia says the objective is not to document tribal history, rather to consider various ways in which individuals construct perceptions of the self – who they have been, who they are now, and who they would like to become.
He also aims to contribute to reframing current understanding and practice in relation to oral history and oral tradition with a specific focus on how researchers might better employ approaches within a more rigorous form of scholarship.
The University of Waikato won three prestigious, national Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarships in the latest Tertiary Education Commission round.
The other successful Waikato recipients were: Matthew Jervis, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Marisa Till, School of Science and Engineering.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Roy Crawford congratulated each of the recipients on their success. "There is strong competition for Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarships. Not only do the scholarships provide valuable financial support, they acknowledge New Zealand's best and brightest scholars. We are very proud of them."
ENDS
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