DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Biography

Mere Taito (she/hers/iạ) is the inaugural Postdoctoral Fellow (2025-2027) at the Centre for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR) and the Department of English. Born in Fiji, Mere is originally from the island of Rotuma, specifically the ancestral districts of Malha’a and Noa’tau. She immigrated to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2007 where she recently completed her Ph.D. at the University of Otago. For her doctoral research, Mere applied creative and form-specific reading methods to analyse early to mid-twentieth century multilingual Rotuman mission archival texts and designed a genre of poetry – archi digi vispo – in response to these methods of reading. Multilingual archi digi vispo fuses archival content, multilingual text, visual elements, and digital functionalities and is positioned in her doctoral research to support Rotuman language regeneration in the diaspora. Her dissertation was awarded Exceptional Status by the Division of Humanities, University of Otago. Her research interests include Indigenous histories and archival texts, comparative and trans-indigenous reading of Indigenous literary texts, multi-media poetics, multigenre texts, digital storytelling, and computational methods of developing language data sets for language regeneration purposes.

Specializations

Indigenous and Pacific literature, Rotuman literature, archival studies, creative and critical approaches to archival texts, creative practice as Indigenous method (ology), multilingual poetry, creative writing, visual poetry, archival poetics, digital poetics, Indigenous language regeneration

Books

Katūīvei: Contemporary Pasifika Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand  (co-editor with David Eggleton and Vaughan Rapatahana, Massey University Press, 2024)

Vā: Stories by Women of the Moana (contributing author, Tatou Publishing, 2021)

Bonsai: Best Small Stories from Aotearoa New Zealand  (contributing author, Canterbury University Press, 2018)

So Many Islands: Stories from the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Indian and Pacific Ocean (contributing author, Saqi Books, 2018)

Manifesto: Aotearoa. 101 Political Poems (contributing author, University of Otago Press, 2017)

The Light and Dark in our Stuff  (MT Publishing, 2017)

Selected Publications

• “Trace-ing and re-constructing uha through multilingual, digital and visual archival poetics.” Auckland Museum. Blog. Published online 2024.
• “Three Pacific writers from Aotearoa discuss Indigenous languages and visual poetry.” Co-authored with Ammon Hāwea Apiata and Marama Salsano. To Feel the Earth as One’s Skin: An Anthology of Indigenous Poetry, edited by Lara Felsing, Astra Papachristodoulou and Marama Salsano. Poetry Atlas, 2024, pp. 90-97.
• “Haerenga/Sal Fạiva: Two Indigenous women and their creative practice doctoral journeys.” Co-authored with Marama Salsano. Waka Kuaka: Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol 133, no 1, 2024, pp. 77-95.
• “He wahine māia, he wahine toa: A gathering of reflections on the work of Haunani-Kay Trask.” Co-authored with Hineiti Greensill, Sam Iti Prendergast, and Wanda Ieremia-Allan. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, vol 46, no 1, 2023, pp. 55-72.
• “Tupuna Wahine, Saina, Tupuna Vaine, Matua Tupuna Fifine, Mapiạg Hạni.” Co-authored with Hineiti Greensill, Jess Pasisi, Jessie Lujan Bennet, Marylise Dean, and Maluseu Monise. Public History Review, vol 24, 2022, pp. 55-72.
• “Review of the museum exhibition E Hina e! E Hine e! Mana Waahine Maaori/Maoli of Past, Present and Future.” The Contemporary Pacific, vol 34, no 1, 2022, pp. 228-230.
• “A collaborative creative work.” Co-authored with Nalani Wilson-Hokawhitu and David Fa’avae. The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, vol 20, no 3, 2021, pp. 61-80.