Maori and Pacific students ‘battle racism and tokenism’

New research details the extent of racism, othering and tokenism faced by Maori and Pacific postgraduate students in Aotearoa New Zealand, reports RNZ News. The paper, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, was based off responses of 43 Maori and Pacific students in science, technology, engineering and maths subjects.

Many of the respondents detailed being made to feel out of place, having their place at university questioned, or being made a token representative for funding applications. In one instance, one Maori student’s name was added to a funding application by the faculty despite them expressly saying ‘no’. “My name (my mana and reputation) was used against my will to secure funding for a project that I refused multiple times to be part of,” one participant said.

Lead researcher Dr Tara McAllister of the University of Auckland told RNZ ‘Nine to Noon’ there were a lot of shocking stories. “Every time I read people’s responses to the question, I had to kind of mentally prepare myself for reading, you know, really horrific experiences of racism and all the kind of other things that go with that,” she said.
Full report on the Asia Pacific Report site