Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
Decades of Auckland University of Technology (AUT) rainbow research has been collated in a new online portal - Ia - which the university hopes will make it accessible to everyone.
Its name reflects the university's intended sentiment for the portal - Ia is an inclusive and genderless Māori pronoun, also meaning current or flow.
Ia is the first collection of its kind in the world and can be accessed by anyone - students, researchers and the general public. It houses rainbow-specific dissertations and theses, reports, books and queer themed published research journal articles which have come out of AUT.
It is the first project from AUT's Rainbow Initiative. Launched in 2022, the initiative aims the give voice to rainbow knowledge and ensure a strong pathway forward for future rainbow researchers and leaders.
AUT hopes Ia builds a bridge between communities by making rainbow research and knowledge accessible to everyone.
Rainbow Initiative spokesperson professor Welby Ings says the need for such a portal was identified after the group tried to find examples of this done internationally and was unable to find anything.
"There are research hubs in universities - but nothing that draws decades of one university's rainbow research into a single, interdisciplinary, easily-accessed portal. So we just rolled up our sleeves and did something about it," Ings said.
Welby Ings recently directed the film Punch. Photo: Supplied
Ings - a lecturer, writer, filmmaker and illustrator - has his own research featured in the portal. It sits alongside work such as Tangaroa Paora's research on Takatāpui identity, a screenplay and exploration of the intergenerational space shared (in)between queer pasifika family members by Joshua Iosefo-Williams and a graphic novel exploring a diverse range of queer stories in Aotearoa by Sam Orchard.
Ia was designed to become a nationally-networked series of archives that affiliate with rainbow research from other universities and organisations, including the Te Pūranga Takatāpui o Aotearoa - Lesbian and Gay Archives of New Zealand and audio archive PrideNZ, Ings said.
Many of those involved in the project were receiving emails from students and communities who were searching for material that could only be found in subscription-only journals, he said.
"Ia is built on the principle of open access and a commitment to research never being shut away in academic journals that people can't afford to access."
The university acknowledges the significance of rainbow research, Damon Salesa says. Photo: supplied by AUT
AUT vice-chancellor Damon Salesa said the university was proud to be at the forefront of promoting and supporting such research.
"Ia is for anyone interested in rainbow knowledge, from a high school student writing an essay, to an academic researching the nation's Rainbow history, to media seeking expert knowledge," Salesa said.
"Ia serves as a living example of visibility and value, demonstrating that AUT is proud of, and acknowledges, the significance and necessity of such research."
Ia was partially funded through donor support.
