Lewis Williams, Founding Director and Chair

Lewis cropped 500Ko Mataatua te Waka, Ko Mauao te Maunga, Ko Tauranga te Moana, Ko Ngai Te Rangi te Iwi, Tihei Mauriora! Born in Tamaki Makaurau (Auckland), Aotearoa New Zealand, Lewis is a scholar, community organizer, and social innovator. Of Ngai Te Rangi and Scottish (Isle of Arraine) origins, she is committed to the resurgence of Indigenous communities and worldviews and recovery of Indigenous ways of being within all peoples in ways that contribute to human-planetary well-being. This ethos has been key in guiding her work over the past decade in particular, and includes her founding of the Koru International Network (KIN), the publication “Radical Human Ecology: Intercultural and Indigenous Approaches” (2012, 2016), and her previous work as an Associate Professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. She is currently working on a book “Intergenerational Resilience as a De-colonial practice” and is particularly interested in the role of Indigenous Feminist ontologies within this work. In a previous professional life she founded the organization Women Experiencing Eating Difficulties and helped to co-found a women’s centre at Carrington hospital, Auckland. More about Lewis can be found at www.kalewiswilliams.com