Metge Medal winner Melinda Webber: Lifting others up

"I love that the award is not just about the research you do, but what you do with your research," says Professor Melinda Webber, who is this year's recipient of the Dame Joan Metge Medal.

Awarded biennially by the Royal Society Te Apārangi, the Metge Medal recognises a social scientist who has shown excellence in their own research but also created connections and opportunities for others in the field.

Webber (Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Hau) is an educator in the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Arts and Education whose research has centred on what creates educational success and resilience for learners overall, and especially Māori learners.

She sees the award very much as recognition of collective effort and of an approach that hasn’t always been prevalent in academia; ensuring knowledge and benefits return to the communities you research alongside, as well as actively mentoring others to follow in your footsteps.

“I've put a lot of effort and time into both of those aspects; especially things like seeking out research grants and making sure my Māori and Pacific colleagues are co-principal investigators on them, which brings me a lot of joy,” says Webber.

She believes her early-career colleagues have as much to teach her as she does them, and credits much of her success to her own mentors over the years.

"I had amazing people like Angus Macfarlane, a professor of Māori research at the University of Canterbury, who just took me under his wing. He put me on grants with him, helped me design things, brought me down to lecture at his university, and wrote books with me. He was just so generous.

"People like Angus taught me to be the scholar I am now.”

She says her whole body of work has been about pushing back on the idea that we only go to school to learn academic stuff.

“We actually attend school to learn about who we are, how we fit with others and who we want to be. A lot of my work has been about redefining educational success and the role of schools.”

Her research has focused on what would help young people feel a sense of belonging in schools and in other educational settings, like universities.

This was the motivation behind her 2022 book A Fire in the Belly of Hineāmaru, written with Māori Studies scholar Te Kapua O’Connor. The book features 24 inspirational stories of Māori tūpuna (ancestors) from Te Hiku in the far north to Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland).

The book was translated into te reo by Māori language expert Quinton Hita, featured a cover by notable Māori artist Shane Cotton and was shortlisted for a 2023 Ockham New Zealand book award in the General Non-Fiction category.

Webber says many Māori grow up without positive narratives about themselves.

“In the north in particular, although that’s been true across Aotearoa. The common story is that we were the first to be ‘missionised’ and ‘Christianised’, and we then took up arms. But that, of course, is not the whole story.”

When you visit a marae up north, for example, she says the kaumātua (respected elders) talk about your tūpuna as heroes.

“Yes, they went to war, but they were also peacemakers, caring fathers, strategists and philosophers.”

In relation to Māori attending universities, she also wants them to know that the University isn't “this thing out here, and we're Māori finding our way in it”.

“We are the University too.”

One of the most important aspects for Māori research, says Webber, is that when the project finishes, the relationships don't.

“You are always in relationship with those schools and communities. You have to keep those relationships warm.”

Webber is currently involved in two major projects: a Marsden study exploring Māori women's leadership in Te Tai Tokerau, and a Health Research Council-funded project on the teaching methods used by mātanga (experts) who lead community hauora wānanga (health and well-being forums).

She’s actually met her medal’s namesake Dame Joan Metge (1930-2025), a notable social anthropologist and educator, and very much models herself on Dame Joan’s lifetime commitment to mentoring others and building bridges between Māori and Pākeha world views.

"Like Dame Joan, we can be scholars who lift others up, and who don't pull the ladder up behind us. We can walk alongside – rather than race ahead – of our colleagues."

Webber also received a 2017 Rutherford Discovery Fellowship to explore iwi-based metrics of success and was a qualitative researcher – and ultimately became the director – of the Phase Three of the Starpath Project.

This initiative worked with around 40 mid-to-low decile schools across Auckland and Northland to identify struggling students early and provide targeted support.