Arapata Tamati Hakiwai is a New Zealand museum curator of Māori collections. He is a principal investigator with Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, a Māori research centre at University of Auckland.^[1]

He is the current Kaihautū, or Māori leader, of Te Papa, and was the museum's acting chief executive before the appointment of Rick Ellis.^[2][3]

In 2014 Hakiwai completed a PhD at Victoria University of Wellington with a thesis on the politics of Māori tribal identity.^[4]

Hakiwai was a teacher at Wellington High School before starting work in the museum sector in 1989.^[5]

While at Te Papa he has been involved in the repatriation of a number of Maori kōiwi tangata (human remains) from overseas institutions, and has also led a project involving the "digital repatriation" of taonga (cultural treasures).^[3][5]

Hakiwai is of Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongowhakaata, Ngāti Porou and Ngāi Tahu descent.^[1]