Nicholas Drake

I’m a New Zealand philosopher from the iwi (tribe) Ngāi Tahu and the hapū (sub-tribe) Kāti Kuri, of Kaikōura. I’m currently a Research Fellow at the School of Regulation and Global Governance and a Research Affiliate at the School of Philosophy, at the Australian National University. My research is in Indigenous philosophy, ethics, and applied social and political philosophy, especially Indigenous rights and self-determination, Indigenous knowledge, philosophy of wellbeing and wellbeing measurement, and conceptual engineering.

I’m currently working on a project with ANU’s Vice President (First Nations), academics from across the university, and the Ngarluma Yindjibarndi Foundation Limited (NYFL), an Indigenous organisation in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. This work examines how agreements between Indigenous communities and resource companies can better support Indigenous peoples’ rights, interests, and self-determination; how consent should be understood in the context of those agreements; and how Indigenous data sovereignty tools and locally grounded wellbeing frameworks can support community priorities. A developing strand of my work focuses on Māori philosophy and the place of Indigenous knowledge in research, teaching, and public institutions.

Before beginning university study I studied and taught classical piano, founded and ran Te Whiti-o-Rongomai House, which provided accommodation for homeless people, and for some years lived a subsistence lifestyle in a hut on the edge of the forest in Hokianga, New Zealand. While in Hokianga I gained certificates in Māori studies and in horticulture at the small local branch of a technical institute. I’ve worked with children as a teacher’s aide, as an educator for the Wellington Zoo, and in out-of-school programmes, including on a holiday programme for autistic children and as the manager of a group of three out-of-school centres. I’ve also organized free camps for at-risk children in Te Tai Tokerau, New Zealand.

For Māori, where you and your people are from is more important than what you do for a living. On my mother’s side, my family is from the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, and before that from England and Ireland. On my father’s side, my family is of the Māori tribe Ngāi Tahu and the subtribe Kāti Kuri, of Kaikōura on the East Coast of the South Island, and from England and Ireland. The photos on this website are of Kaikōura . It’s a very good place to walk in the mountains or go to sea to see whales, dolphins, albatrosses, seals, and penguins.

I am very lucky to be married to a wonderful woman called Hannah Simpson, from Wellington, New Zealand. I like to go to wild places when I can, and have done quite a lot of alpine trekking. I very much like seeing and meeting wild animals. The best animals are penguins.