Ngahuia Te Awekotuku
(1949 - living) New Zealand
Professor, writer and activist
Short story writer, essayist and spokeswoman on Maori, feminist and lesbian issues, was born in Rotorua of Te Arawa, Waikato and Tuhoe descent. At Auckland University she was active in gay and feminist movements and Nga Tamatoa, the emergent Maori rights group. She completed an MA in English (1974), and PhD on the socio-cultural effects of tourism on the Te Arawa people (1981).
She was curator of ethnology at the Waikato Museum, 1985 - 1987, lecturer in art history at Auckland University 1987 - 1996, and is now professor of Te Kawa a Maui (School of Maori Studies) at Victoria University of Wellington.
Her first short story, Tahuri: the Runaway, was included in New Women's Fiction (1987) and in her own collection, Tahuri (1989). Loosely autobiographical stories of a young Maori girl's growing up and discovery of sexual identity, this collection makes Maori, and especially lesbian, women central and Pakeha peripheral, carrying out what Te Awekotuku has called her
"responsibility to the fierce women fighters, shamans and poets of Maori legend and myth the resilient courageous women of my own extended family to ensure their stories are not lost in a mawkishly romantic muddle of male translated history".
 She is working on a Marsden funded project located in the Maori & Psychology Research Unit. Ta Moko : Culture, Body Modification and the Psychology of Identity is a three year study which began in November 2001. It explores the origins, technology, and narratives of traditional Maori skin adornment, and also investigates contemporary practice, attitudes and expressions.
She has been working as a museum curator and Art History lecturer for the last twenty years, focussing on Maori and Pacific Art, and also the arts of other indigenous peoples. She is also interested in women's and gender issues, particularly in sexualities, performance, and ritual.
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