Hawaiian Award for feminist

Mana (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 6, 15 September 1977, Page 2

Hawaiian Award for feminist

Ms Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, from the University of Waikato has received a joint Doctoral Research Internship Award from the East-West Culture Learning Institute in Honolulu, Hawaii. The award will allow Ms Te Awekotuku to do field research for her Ph.D. in Hawaii while participating in the Institute’s project, “Culture and the Interactive Process”. The joint doctoral research intern programme is designed to strengthen East-West Centre relations with educational institutions by enabling Ph.D. candidates to work in specific East-West Centre projects

‘relevant to their dissertations. Ms Te Awekotuku will receive her Ph.D. from the University of Waikato while East-West Centre staff paricipates on the dissertation committee. This is the first time that a New Zealand university has participated in this programme and that a New Zealander has received such an award. Ms Te Awekotuku’s doctoral thesis is on the sociocultural impact of tourism on the Te Arawa people of Rotorua. It focuses on arts and crafts, entertainment, and the role of women in the historic and contemporary context of the travel industry. Having completed a detailed survey of the relevant ethnohistoric materials, Ms Te Awekotuku is currently compiling field data prior to her leaving for Hawaii early riext year. Born in Ohinemutu, Ms Te Awekotuku has been actively involved in the Rotorua area, having worked as a tourist guide and as the Rotorua Progressive Businessmen’s Association’s Miss Rotorua Courtesy Maid, promoting Rotorua and New Zealand tourism in Australia. She attended the University of Auckland, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in English in 1971 and a Master of Arts in 1974. There are approximately 25 joint doctoral resesearch internship awards given annual-

ly throughout Asia, the Pacific and the United States by the East-West Centre and are for a period of between 12 and 24 months. The awards cover travel to and from Honolulu, academic expenses, accommodation, health insurance, and a monthly stipend for living expenses. The East-West Culture Learning Institute is part of the East-West Centre which was established by the United States Congress in 1960. Its mandate is to “promote better relations aid understanding among the nations of Asia, the Pacific and the United States through co-operative study, training, and research”. The East-W est Centre has five institutes which are oriented towards the problems of communication, population, the environment, and resources as well as culture learning.