Rebecca Kiddle has recently completed a doctorate at the Joint Centre for Urban Design at Oxford Brookes University, in Urban Design. Becky's background, prior to undertaking her PhD is in Maori Development and Housing policy development for the Aotearoa/New Zealand government and as Private Secretary Housing for Aotearoa/New Zealand's Associate Minister of Housing in charge of Maori housing concerns.

Becky has joined Royal Holloway to undertake a pilot project aimed at developing principles of Maori urban design through the analysis of Maori performance.

Te Ahukaramu Charles Royal

Composer and researcher Te Ahukaramu Charles Royal is professor of Indigenous Development in the Faculty of Arts, University of Auckland, and Director of Nga Pae o te Maramatanga, one of New Zealand's eight centres of research excellence. This centre is dedicated indigenous development research.

Charles is the founder of the modern whare tapere, a cultural theatre/performing arts project first achieved in 2010 within Charles’s tribal community in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It is based upon his doctoral and masterate research. Charles has an abiding interest in the creative potential of indigenous knowledges and has written and/or edited six books all on some aspect of traditional M?ori knowledge and tribal histories and traditions.

www.charles-royal.com
www.facebook.com/ahukaramu
www.orotokare.org.nz

Ocean Ripeka Mercier (Ngati Porou, PhD)

Ocean lectures at the School of Maori Studies, Victoria University of Wellington. Her research includes filmmakers' experiences in the New Zealand 48 Hour Film Competition, kaupapa Maori readings of film, audio commentary as text and methodology, and the impact of digital mapping and place-based pedagogy on (Maori) student engagement.

Ocean joins the Indigeneity group at Royal Holloway on her first sabbatical. She will explore different notions - constraint and creativity, 'film sport' and the interplay of text and process - as frameworks for analysing her interviews with filmmakers in the 48 Hour Film Competition. She expects to publish the findings in a series of journal articles.