Dr Lily George.
Dr Lily George of Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Hine and Ngātiwai believes Massey University was the place of her blossoming.
Twenty-one years ago she arrived at the Auckland campus, a solo mother on a benefit with little idea of her own intellect. This week Dr George leaves Massey not only with a PhD to her name, but a long legacy of research and inspiring others to educational achievement.
It was a Work and Income New Zealand caseworker who suggested university study to her and Dr George says once she found social anthropology she was hooked. “It’s all about culture and people. I was on my own reclamation journey to find my cultural roots and as they say, you come to understand yourself the more you study other people.”
In 1998 Dr George started teaching and tutoring. She says, “I loved teaching, especially working with Māori who were on their own journey of self-discovery. It was such a privilege to watch people become aware of the power of their intellect and to witness their blossoming.”
Dr George gained her doctorate in social anthropology in 2010 following research with Awataha Marae in Auckland that explored innovation of Māori tradition through three periods of cultural renaissance.
A postdoctoral fellowship from the Health Research Council gave her the opportunity to investigate Māori women’s experiences of incarceration. Dr George’s findings around the need to acknowledge historic trauma contributed to the development of new rehabilitation approaches within Corrections Department systems.
Recently Dr George teamed with Ngatiwai in the Far North to develop two suicide prevention programmes for young people and says while the work was extremely challenging, it was also rewarding to see the transformation in some of the rangatahi. The research results were also challenging in their simplicity. “We found they need love, secure homes with sufficient resources and most importantly a purpose in life,” she says.
Research is a passion for Dr George who gained a Strategic Innovation Fund grant last year to run the Te Tai Tokerau Research Symposium in Whangarei to encourage community engagement in the Far North with researchers. She says Māori communities are sceptical about research because in the past they were researched “on” rather than “with”. She says that has to change. “I believe in the power of research as a development tool not only for economic growth but most importantly for growth of our people as well.”
Dr George will be able to put her passion to good use in her new role as Research and Innovation Manager at the Western Institute of Technology Taranaki in New Plymouth where she will lead development of the institute’s research culture and systems.