Rate My Professor Rauhina Kohuwai-Banks

Rauhina Kohuwai-Banks (né Scott-Fyfe), of Kāi Tahu (Kāi Te Ruahikihiki), Kāti Māmoe, and Waitaha descent, is the Māori Archivist at Uare Taoka o Hākena | Hocken Collections, University of Otago Library. Affiliated with Kāti Huirapa Rūnaka ki Puketeraki and Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, she was appointed to lead a 12-month digitisation project on the James Herries Beattie Papers, concentrating on Kāi Tahu material. Funded by a University of Otago Alumni grant and executed in collaboration with New Zealand Micrographic Services, the project involves local rūnaka including Ōtākou, Puketeraki, and Moeraki, as well as Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu Archives Team, under Head Curator Anna Blackman. Aimed at treating the materials as taoka and making them accessible online by early 2024, this initiative underscores her commitment to preserving and sharing Māori historical knowledge. A former University of Otago Māori Studies student and Māori language tutor, Kohuwai-Banks is training as an archivist while contributing her expertise to research and cultural projects.

As a takatāpui poet, writer, and researcher based in Ōtepoti/Dunedin, she has prepared a report titled Mātauranga Māori Project on the New Zealand Sea Lion for the Department of Conservation and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. She delivered the third annual Hoani Parata lecture at Theology at the University of Otago and spoke about James Herries Beattie at events commemorating the southern historian. Kohuwai-Banks serves as the Te Uepū Representative for the University of Otago branch of the Tertiary Education Union. Featured in the Hocken Blog, she discussed Māori perspectives in the exhibition A Different Light: First Photographs of Aotearoa. Her ORCID profile lists her as affiliated with University of Otago as a writer and researcher. Through these roles, she enhances access to archival taonga and promotes mātauranga Māori.