Carla Houkamau

Carla Anne Houkamau is a New Zealand social psychologist and a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in Māori identity, Māori business, the Māori economy, and Māori commercial fisheries.

Academic career

Houkamau is Māori, and is of Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tahu and Pākehā descent.

Houkamau completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree, followed by an Honours degree in Psychology, and a PhD in social psychology titled Identity and socio-historical context: transformations and change among Māori women, all at the University of Auckland. She also holds a Diploma in Journalism from Waiariki Institute of Technology. Houkamau completed postdoctoral research and then joined the faculty of the University of Auckland, before moving to a lectureship at the Eastern Institute of Technology in 2007. After two years she moved back to the University of Auckland, rising to full professor. Houkamau developed an internationally recognised model for ethnic identity research, the Multidimensional Model of Māori identity and Cultural Engagement. In 2012 Houkamau was awarded the Business School Early Career Research Excellence Award, and as part of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study team, won the University of Auckland Group Excellence Award in 2017. Houkamau also won the Auckland University Business School Research Excellence Award in 2021.

In 2025, with Dr. Robert Pouwhare, Carla Houkamau wrote Mana Moana: Ngā Urungi o Te Ohu Kaimoana Toitū mō Anamata (Navigators of Sustainable Fisheries for the Future), which chronicles the history of Māori commercial fisheries, connecting ancient Polynesian traditions to modern, ethical business practices in New Zealand's largest all-Māori-owned fisheries business, Moana New Zealand. She has also published on Māori perspectives of capitalism, Māori self-employment, and Māori values in business.

Selected works