MASS is short for “Māori Association of Social Sciences”. MASS is an inclusive organisation that engages broadly with the social sciences to promote our kaupapa that focuses on Māori development. In a very useful contribution at our 2008 conference Moana Jackson framed Māori social scientists as ‘Māori community knowledge bearers’.

The aim of MASS is to promote networking amongst Māori social scientists in their many settings and to foster the realisation of their research efforts in contributing to to Māori development and advancement. Maintaining active links and research relationships can improve the outcomes for our small, scattered, but growing Māori social science workforce by enhancing capability-building, generating research clusters and providing the benefit of collective voice on issues of importance to Māori and social science.