Michael ROCHE, Massey University, New Zealand, New Zealand
Robin KEARNS, Massey University, New Zealand, New Zealand
Dorothy Urlich Cloher (1930-2011) trained in Historical Geography in New Zealand and Australia. She left the academy to establish a research consultancy before returning to the University of Auckland as deputy director of a research centre dedicated to furthering the economic and social development if her people in Te Tai Tokerau (Northland) and to develop a course on Maori Geography. Her thinking about the role Anglo-American geography and geographers might play in indigenous development and about the relationship between a Western ‘geography of Maori’ and a ‘Maori Geography’ developed in several stages, through internal reflection without recourse to critical cultural geography. She encountered ‘push back’ from those steeped in a Western academic tradition but also, unexpectedly for her, from some Maori. As one of the first Maori woman to have a PhD in human geography, she was almost alone at the time in working in the borderland between two quite different geographies.
Keywords: New Zealand | Western Geography|Maori Geography
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