You don’t get into indigenous research without asking yourself the BIG life questions such as, why am I here? So why am I here? I’m here for two reasons;

1. To lift our indigenous economies through research and knowledge development
2. To have global conversations and suss out what everyone else is doing and share what we are doing.

Sounds very noble, doesn’t it? Sounds like I am saving the world. But before you get too impressed by my nobility, it’s best I check you into reality. At this stage, my head is down and I’m mostly trying to learn and acquire tools to see me through to the end of a PhD. I’m building up my kete (basket) of knowledge, which is a little empty at the moment (but its slowly starting to fill up!). The other thing I’m learning to deal with is managing uncertainty. Which in this field is a given, because our job is to try and create certainty where there is none. We shine light on dark areas. And unfortunately there are a lot of dark areas that need our light in our indigenous communities. And before all of that, I have to navigate getting through day to day life of making a living, feeding kids, paying bills and being a good whanau (family) member. These two things – PhD and family, take up 99% of my time. And sometimes, only sometimes for that 1% of me that’s left, I put my superhero cape on and place my thoughts to saving the world.