Our research

We contribute to more informed, imaginative, compassionate and equitable worlds through our research and creative practice, and by speaking truth to power as 'critic and conscience of society'.

We combine macro and micro knowledges — getting down to the nitty-gritty and zooming out for the larger picture — to develop understandings of life.

Focusing on the details

Institutions can empower the vulnerable and/or discriminate and attack. We study collective actions and categories: their causes, effects and resistance.

Critiquing institutions

People make, shape and break physical and political locations — and vice versa. We study kaitiakitanga, disaster recovery, health and migration — old and new.

Exploring places

Narratives help us to explain events, actions and motivations with a beginning, middle and end. We study the stories of others and create our own.

Telling stories

We draw on mātauranga Māori to create new knowledge, ideas and innovations for the benefit of Māori, iwi, local, national and global communities.

Our research

Our award-winning researchers increase understanding of the history, languages and contemporary life of Pacific communities in Aotearoa, the Pacific and beyond.

Discover our research

We raise intercultural understanding by researching language education, translation, film, literatures, history and religion in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

Discover our research

As historians, philosophers, theologians, poets, novelists and critics of art, theatre and literature, we all research the messy glory of being human.

Meet our scholars and creatives

From archaeologists to filmmakers to policymakers, our researchers explore power, inequality, conflict, youth, gender, technologies and creative expression.

Discover our research

Our research leads to cultural, social, environmental, economic and health benefits for our communities, our nation, our region and our world.

See our impact

We are home to a range of specialist and cross-disciplinary research centres.

Visit our centres

Come along to our research seminars and public lectures.

Browse events

Browse the research interests of our academic staff in our expertise database.

Browse our expertise