Abstract

How do we leverage state-funded research programmes for genuine transformation? This session is a collection of short papers and discussions on recent Community Economies action research work in Aotearoa New Zealand, funded by the National Science Challenge Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities. The research programme Huritanga: Systems Change for Holistic Urban Wellbeing in an Era of Ecological Emergency includes co-design work with iwi (tribes) and hapū (clans) in urban areas, as well as community organisations. It draws on Māori cultural knowledges of holistic wellbeing and the knowledges of settler and Indigenous community organisations already acting for change at the urban scale. For the community economies researchers in the research programme, the process has been one of intellectual partnership and community partnership with partially overlapping start points, and negotiating with Indigenous knowledges, diverse community aspirations, State-led research priorities and university bureaucracies, as well as the challenges of producing good empirical research and imaginative design to a schedule.