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This Kaupapa Māori writing inquiry explores “Tāngata Tiriti” (People of the Treaty) as a settler/invader identity term in Aotearoa New Zealand. Derived from the failed policy platform of “biculturalism” and “Indigenous inclusion,” Tāngata Tiriti is a byproduct of neoliberalism and settler/invader colonialism that fails to provide for Indigenous inclusion, mana motuhake (Indigenous sovereignty) and tino rangatiratanga (self-determination). This article argues that Tāngata Tiriti should be abandoned due to the 2014 paradigm shift surrounding Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Te Tiriti) and mana motuhake from the Te Paparahi o Te Raki report and the author’s subsequent research on non-signatory hapū and iwi. Pākehā settler/invader perspectives on Tāngata Tiriti are compared with Tāngata Moana and Asian scholarly understandings. The author advocates adopting Tāngata Moana thinking around letting Māori as mana whenua lead “wayfinding” and “meaning-making” to define allyship and promote a “collective future” together based on Māori constitutional values that are generally universal throughout Pacific cultures. Instead of settler/invader identity constructs and the doctrine of the nation as a White possession, movement toward a collective future must begin from a place of sovereign relationality. The pedagogy of teaching Te Tiriti must change, the ill-conceived Tāngata Tiriti identity must be abandoned, and “New Zealand” as a settler/invader colonial enterprise must end. Our future must be post-settler/invader colonial and post-Tiriti and must recognize unceded mana motuhake or sovereignty.

This article discusses the place of Mana Wahine theory in decolonising gender relationships in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Mana wahine theory is grounded upon and informed by Māori language, practices, protocol and knowledge forms. It is through this lens that we are able more deeply come to understand and theorise issues faced by Māori women and in doing so to reclaim and reassert our place on our own lands. This is both a movement and a theory that has at its centre the resurgence and reaffirmation of the mana of Māori women, past, present and future.

Many studies have documented the effect that colonisation has had on takatāpui, that is, Māori (the Indigenous peoples of New Zealand) with diverse gender identities, sex characteristics and sexualities. In this paper, we explore whether current Aotearoa New Zealand (hereafter Aotearoa) mental health policies meet the needs of takatāpui. We identified five mental health policy needs, informed by the literature. We then explored policy documents from government ministries, district health boards and non-government organisations to see the extent to which policy met these needs. Four themes were present in the literature analysed: an overall lack of acknowledgment of takatāpui and intersectionality; promising engagement with the needs of takatāpui by NGOs; symbolic commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi; and some limited engagement with Māori health models. The findings show promise in some areas but demonstrate a lack of engagement by policy to meet the needs of takatāpui.

New Zealand's indigenous Māori were colonized by the British (now referred to as Pākehā). Scant systematic investigation addresses bicultural/biracial identity for Māori who identify with ethnic groups other than Pākehā. Taking a narrative approach and applying thematic analysis, this paper explores interviews with forty-four Māori Italians, conducted in New Zealand in 2013. We show how Māori Italians negotiate the challenge of constructing positive ethnic identities in a milieu where ethnic hybridity has been defined primarily in relation to the Māori-Pākehā colonial encounter. Focusing on racism and stigma, we demonstrate that Māori Italians run a gauntlet of identity challenges shaped by socio-political contexts. Conversely, Māori Italians draw boundaries between themselves and the dominant Pākehā culture and draw from both Māori and Italian identities to buffer discrimination from Māori, Pākehā, and Italians. Our analysis reveals a multiplicity of interpretations of Māori-Italian identity not yet articulated in social psychology or New Zealand literature.

This article analyses the protections the New Zealand intellectual property framework provides for the haka and matauranga Maori. Part II of this article defines the key terms of" misappropriation"," traditional knowledge" and" matauranga Maori" in order for the reader to fully understand these concepts in an indigenous, and specifically Maori, context. Part III of this article discusses the importance and signficance of haka in Maori culture, particularly looking at the history and significance of Ka Mate, the most well-known haka in New Zealand and the world. Examples of different companies, both New Zealand and internationally-owned, using the haka for commercial benefit are analysed to establish whether or not their use of the haka is misappropriation, and if so, the harm this misappropriation has caused Maori. Part IV discusses the current legal protections New Zealand provides for matauranga Maori and whether they sufficiently protect the haka and matauranga Maori generally. It will assess the Haka Ka Mate Attribution Act 2014 as a case study. Part V outlines the limitations of the intellectual framework. Part VI of this article looks to what legal protections would be sufficient to protect against the misappropriation of the haka and matauranga Maori generally.

In 2010, the Electoral (Disqualification of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill marked a significant change in prisoner voting rights policies in New Zealand, disenfranchising all prisoners regardless of sentence length. A decade later in 2020, the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill re-enfranchised prisoners serving sentences of less than three years. Over this time, a Waitangi Tribunal Inquiry and a number of Māori politicians and public figures highlighted the disproportionate effects of prisoner disenfranchisement for Māori given over-representation of Māori in the prison population. However, less attention has focused on the specific effects of disenfranchisement for wāhine Māori (Māori women) in prison, and what this reflects about the relationship between wāhine Māori and the state. While women make up a significantly smaller percentage of the general prison population than men, wāhine Māori made up 61% of the women’s prison population in 2021 (Office of the Inspectorate, 2021). Additionally, wāhine Māori had a drastically different experience of colonisation to tāne Māori (Māori men). Colonial actions worked to destroy traditional Māori social organisation, which disrupted the balance between men and women and confined wāhine Māori to a social position that falls behind Pākehā men and women and Māori men. This thesis takes a Māori-centred, Mana Wahine lens to draw on the content of interviews with key informants and analysis of parliamentary readings of the 2010 and 2020 bills in order to explore how prisoner disenfranchisement in the 21st century reflects broader patterns regarding the treatment of wāhine Māori by the state. Disenfranchisement is likely to uniquely affect wāhine Māori due to their importance in te ao Māori as nurturers, the managers of households, and their centrality to the intergenerational transfer of knowledge. This not only presents barriers to voting and re-enrolment on the electoral roll post-release from prison, but also serves to practically disenfranchise the whānau and communities that wāhine Māori belong to. The lack of consideration of the needs and experiences of wāhine Māori in state discussions of prisoner voting rights mirrors the ongoing invisibility of wāhine Māori in state policy. The state has framed prisoner voting rights around male and tāne Māori norms, which cannot account for wāhine Māori. Moving forward, if prisoner voting rights policies are revisited in the future, an intersectional approach must be taken that effectively addresses the needs of wāhine Māori.

Policies increasingly reinforce the self-determination of Indigenous peoples, but issues remain around group definitions. Colonization has led to (de)identification with Māori (New Zealand's Indigenous peoples) identity markers. We explore differences between Māori on combinations of descent, ethnicity and Iwi (extended kinship group) knowledge in the 2013 Census, and self-reported discrimination. There were six groups within the Māori descent population: two did not know their Iwi – some identified solely as Māori ethnicity (2.8 per cent) – or Māori plus another ethnicity(-ies; 6.8 per cent); two did not identify as Māori ethnicity: more named their Iwi (7.2 per cent), than not (6.9 per cent); the largest groups knew their Iwi and identified as Māori ethnicity, either solely (30.8 per cent), or alongside another ethnicity(-ies; 34.3 per cent). We found a pattern of differences across demographics and discrimination, highlighting the complexity of Māori identity and the need to account for differences within Indigenous groups.

The ways in which we understand bodies and fatness are complex. While coloniality unduly influences and shapes normative meanings of the body in everyday contexts, Maori conceptualisations of the body and of fatness remain inscribed within the moana, the whenua, te reo Maori and our whakapapa. These understandings provide insight into fatness and bodies from a Maori worldview. Our whakaaro in this article speaks into Maori ways of being and knowing, including meanings of momonatanga as bountiful, rich, fertile, and powerful. This article develops an expansive and holistic Maori understanding of bodies and fatness from the whenua, from the moana, from our whakapapa.

This chapter examines settler colonial crime control and its impacts on Indigenous women. High rates of victimisation and high levels of over-policing and over-incarceration mark Indigenous people’s experience of settler colonialism. This chapter explores the historical and contemporary conditions of colonialism through a gender lens, exploring in particular the impact of prison on Indigenous women’s lives. The chapter is based on an interview with and subsequent written notes by Professor McIntosh in 2020 discussing women, incarceration and settler colonial control in the Aotearoa New Zealand setting.

Several writers have argued that New Zealand’s colonial history has thwarted optimal identity development among Māori (Awatere, 1984; Lawson Te-Aho, 1998a; 1998b). In recent decades the view that Māori identity may be restored via enculturation has gained widespread acceptance (Broughton, 1993; Edwards, 1999). Recent research indicates, however, that many Māori perceive their identities in ways that differ from the enculturated ideal (Borrell, 2005; Te Hoe Nuku Roa, 1996; 1999). Relatively little is known of the diverse interpretations that comprise ‘alternative’ Māori identity forms. This thesis aims to contribute to current understandings of Māori identity by exploring identity change across three generations of Māori women. For the purposes of the research, identity was treated as ‘held’ within personal life-stories and transformations were investigated by comparing the life-stories of 35 Māori women from different age groups. Attention was given to the impact of three socio-historical processes on identity: the mass migration of Māori from rural to urban locations after the 1950s, the drive towards Māori assimilation which underpinned Government policy towards Māori until the late 1960s, and the Māori political and cultural renaissance which gathered momentum in New Zealand from the 1970s. Data analyses found participants born prior to urbanisation evaluated their Māori identities positively and this seemed to reflect their isolation from Pākehā and exposure to competent Māori role models during their formative years. Participants aged between 35 and 49 expressed disharmony and tension around their Māori identities which many attributed to their early exposure to negative evaluations of Māori people. ‘Post-renaissance’ Māori, aged between 18 and 35, reported prizing their cultural distinctiveness from a young age and affirmed Māori political, cultural and social equality despite what they perceived as enduring Pākehā prejudice. This interpretation appeared to reflect their early exposure to educational experiences which imparted a sense of cultural pride and a national news media which publicised Māori political activism. Women’s life-stories reveal distinct intergenerational differences, a multiplicity of interpretations of Māori identity not widely articulated in literature, and the need to expand current paradigms of Māori identity to incorporate the individuality of group members.

Kaupapa Māori methodologies in Aotearoa New Zealand have often been applied to content of immediate and direct relevance to Māori communities. Some of these include research about aspects of cultural revitalisation or examinations of the position Māori occupy within broader ethnic disparities, particularly in health and social outcomes. This article seeks to expand the application of Kaupapa Māori paradigms to research topics outside 'te ao Māori' (the Māori world). We argue that the Kaupapa Māori theorising of a Māori visual arts and culture scholar can provide crucial insights on white privilege in Aotearoa New Zealand with a view to addressing disparities and creating more embracing and equitable perspectives of belonging, citizenship and nationhood.