Introduction to the Special Issue

Marama Muru-Lanning is a professor in anthropology at the Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of Auckland and the chair of the Waikato-Tainui College for Research and Development. Her teaching and research is dedicated to Māori communities and prioritises tikanga, equity and interdependence. As an environmental anthropologist she focuses on the cultural specificity of tangata whenua groups and their unique sense of place and belonging in Aotearoa. Her professional expertise includes building research relationships with Māori communities, especially with coastal and river groups, and also ecological consciousness, food security, kai sovereignty, kaumātua gardening, kai gathering and food politics. She is from Tūrangawaewae Marae with whakapapa that connects her to Waikato, Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāti Whātua.

Hilary Lapsley, PhD, is a research psychologist and an honorary academic in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of Auckland.

Lynn Lewis-Bevan has a PhD in zoology from the University of Oxford, UK, and is research coordinator at the Waikato-Tainui College for Research and Development and an honorary research fellow in anthropology at Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of Auckland. She is a biological anthropologist whose research focuses on how environmental factors influence primate behaviour, using direct observation and geospatial analysis. Since joining WTCRD in 2025 she has embraced social anthropology and is committed to kaupapa Māori methodology.