Paul Tapsell

Paul Tapsell
Paul Tapsell
	Tapsell in 2025
Education	University of Oxford
	Scientific career
Workplaces	University of Auckland, University of Otago
Thesis	Taonga : a tribal response to museums (1998);

Paul Tapsell CRSNZ is a New Zealand academic, of Ngāti Whakaue and Ngāti Raukawa descent and as of 2020 is Professor of Indigenous Studies at Melbourne University. In 2024 Tapsell was elected a Companion of the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

Academic career

After working and studying at the University of Auckland and a 1998 PhD titled 'Taonga: a tribal response to museums' at the University of Oxford Faculty of Anthropology and Geography, Tapsell moved to the University of Otago, rising to full professor.

In 2024 Tapsell was elected a Companion of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, for "his far-reaching innovation, commitment, and leadership within Māori communities".

Selected works

Abram, Ruth J., Joanne DiCosimo, Stephen H. Baumann, Michele Gallant, Emlyn H. Koster, Gillian Kydd, Susan Pointe et al. Looking reality in the eye: Museums and social responsibility. University of Calgary Press, 2005.
Tapsell, Paul, and Christine Woods. "Social entrepreneurship and innovation: Self-organization in an indigenous context." Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 22, no. 6 (2010): 535–556.
Tapsell, Paul. "The flight of Pareraututu: An investigation of taonga from a tribal perspective." The Journal of the Polynesian Society 106, no. 4 (1997): 323–374.
Tapsell, Paul, and Christine Woods. "A spiral of innovation framework for social entrepreneurship: Social innovation at the generational divide in an indigenous context." Emergence: Complexity and Organization 10, no. 3 (2008): 25.
Tapsell, Paul. "Taonga: A tribal response to museums." University of Oxford, 1998.