Tanja Rother

Kia ora, I am a freelance researcher, historian and writer with a special interest in environmental history and Māori and Pākehā narratives of place. I received a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington in 2016 and was subsequently contracted by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council to develop a heritage trail at Ōhiwa Harbour, working closely with tāngata whenua. Since 2019 I have been commissioned by Te Arawhiti (Office for Māori Crown Relations) and the Waitangi Tribunal for several large research reports relating to historical Treaty claims and claims under the Marine and Coastal (Takutai Moana) Act in Northland, Bay of Plenty, Gisborne and Auckland.

I’m currently developing a research project titled ‘Making public memory. Stories of small museums in Aotearoa New Zealand’. As local bicultural power relations are shifting after Treaty settlements, community museums become, or are being made, increasingly aware of the contested space they occupy as a place of remembering the past. Through interviews, volunteering and archival work I’ll investigate how these museums in their local communities are contributing to ideas about the past.

I’m originally from Berlin, Germany, and have been living in Aotearoa New Zealand since 2006. I’m based at Ōhiwa Harbour near Ōpōtiki in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. I’m available to travel for research.

Website:
www.sharedlandscapes.com

Recent publications:

– Hukutaia Domain: the history of a local treasure, with Lorna Aikman, Ōpōtiki, 2022

– Countering the Paradigm of ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’: Exploring Concepts of the Commons and Collective Action Institutions in Aotearoa New Zealand. Treaty Research Series (online), Treaty of Waitangi Research Unit, Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, 2019

– Mana whenua and the ownership of nature. Challenges to the co-governance of natural resources in Aotearoa New Zealand, in Peter Adds, Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich, Richard Hill, & Graeme Whimp (Eds.), Reconciliation, Representation and Indigeneity. ‘Biculturalism’ in Aotearoa. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, book chapter, pp. 151-166, 2016