Pratibha Singh | Seelye Kupe Leadership Scholar

Master of Indigenous Studies

My grandparents were farmers during the time that the Green Revolution, imposed by the North, was causing suicides across the agricultural landscape in India. The other set of grandparents crossed the border when Britain partitioned India into two states, resulting in one of the biggest and bloodiest mass migration movements in human history.

Having grown up in both India and New Zealand, where the memory of colonisation still lingers in the institutions and worldviews, the erasure and resistance of entire peoples, their ways of life and the ‘natural environment’ are issues I care deeply about. There is a need for leadership to go beyond Western modernity and work outside of systems that have long imposed one universal vision of the world as the natural, correct one. I am passionate about these alternative solutions and working towards a just and sustainable Aotearoa that honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi. 

Sponsor: Ralph and Eve Seelye Trust

Mentor: Louise Marra, Programme Director for Leadership NZ, Associate at Centre for Social Impact, Partner at Spirited Leadership and Founder of Unity House.