In a world where fascism and the ‘Alt-Right’ are on the rise, researchers from across the globe came together at the University of Waikato for the Working to End Racial Oppression Conference 2025.
Professor Waikaremoana Waitoki (Ngāti Hako, Ngāti Māhanga) says the conference is particularly relevant today, being held at a time when racial disharmony is being exacerbated to drive through increasingly punitive legislative changes within New Zealand.
“While the Government is dismantling and undoing decades of social, health, justice, employment and housing gains across Aotearoa, there are many who continue to confront and mitigate institutional and interpersonal racisms in Aotearoa,” she says.
Professor Waitoki is Science Lead for the Working to End Racial Oppression (WERO) research programme which organised the conference.
“The conference was a safe space for researchers to come together to share, discuss strategies and to support one another. Researchers and academics have faced personal attacks and loss of employment for speaking out against racism and injustice,” she added.
The academic conference is the culmination of work produced by the WERO team during a five-year study programme funded by MBIE and led by the University of Waikato.
“Racism is one of the most significant and modifiable challenges facing Aotearoa. It is evident in inequitable outcomes across almost every indicator of wellbeing, including those within health, education, housing, employment and justice,” Professor Waitoki says.
“The end of racial oppression will benefit everyone – what is good for Māori is good for all of us.
“While this may be a difficult notion to understand, being anti-racist is about living in harmony with each other and the environment and being able to share other world views. When we oppress others, we oppress ourselves and our own humanity,” she explains.
The conference attracted keynote speakers of international renown including Princeton University Professor of African American Studies Dr Ruha Benjamin; Professor Chelsea Watego (Munanjahli, South Sea Islander) from the Queensland University of Technology; Professor Michelle Johnson-Jennings (Choctaw Nation), Director of the Division of Environmentally-Based Health and Land-Based Healing at the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute, University of Washington; and Dr Jeffery Ansloos (Cree and English) Associate Professor at the University of Toronto.
Leading local keynote speakers included Professor Tom Roa (Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato, Ngāti Apakura) from the University of Waikato; Dr Donna Cormack (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe) an Associate Professor, with joint positions at University of Auckland and University of Otago; and Distinguished Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou) from Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiarangi.
Early career researcher Dr Nate Rew (Papua New Guinean/Pākehā), lecturer in Indigenous Studies for Te Pua Wānanga ki te Ao – Faculty of Māori & Indigenous Studies at Waikato, spoke on ‘Aspiring to humanity by means of rebellion’.
“Colonialism dehumanises both the colonised and the coloniser,” he says.
His presentation unpacked how our modern world has “weaponised the façade of humanitarian values to support the interests of colonialism and capitalism”.
He gave the example of New Zealand representing itself as being concerned with the security of the Pacific, while profiting from the genocide in West Papua.
His presentation suggested directions to “rehumanise” society.
“We can’t know how the world will change, but we can identify what we want to bring into the future. Indigenous ways of being offer blueprints for a civilisation that truly embodies values like humanity,” Dr Rew said.
The conference bought together 260 academics across the four days.
