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In First World colonised nations such as Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, population statistics form the evidentiary base for how Indigenous peoples are known and ‘managed’ through state policy approaches. Yet, population statistics are not a neutral counting. Decisions of what and how to count reflect particular assumptions about Indigenous identity, ways of life and wellbeing. More often than not, the requirements and priorities of government take precedence over the informational needs and priorities of Indigenous communities. Whereas National Statistics Offices (NSOs) once rendered Indigenous peoples invisible in official statistics through non-recognition, the more pressing problem in the 21st century is that of misrecognition. In seeking to move beyond statistical misrecognition, we propose a set of guiding principles for bringing government reporting frameworks and Indigenous concepts of identity and wellbeing into closer proximity. We argue that a principled approach to collecting, disseminating and analysing Indigenous data not only avoids misrecognising Indigenous peoples but enhances the functionality of official statistics for Indigenous peoples and NSOs alike.

This book examines how Indigenous Peoples around the world are demanding greater data sovereignty, and challenging the ways in which governments have historically used Indigenous data to develop policies and programs. In the digital age, governments are increasingly dependent on data and data analytics to inform their policies and decision-making. However, Indigenous Peoples have often been the unwilling targets of policy interventions and have had little say over the collection, use and application of data about them, their lands and cultures. At the heart of Indigenous Peoples’ demands for change are the enduring aspirations of self-determination over their institutions, resources, knowledge and information systems. With contributors from Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand, North and South America and Europe, this book offers a rich account of the potential for Indigenous data sovereignty to support human flourishing and to protect against the ever-growing threats of data-related risks and harms.

Addressing Indigenous rights and interests in genetic resources has become increasingly challenging in an open science environment that promotes unrestricted access to genomic data. Although Indigenous experiences with genetic research have been shaped by a series of negative interactions, there is increasing recognition that equitable benefits can only be realized through greater participation of Indigenous communities. Issues of trust, accountability and equity underpin Indigenous critiques of genetic research and the sharing of genomic data. This Perspectives article highlights identified issues for Indigenous communities around the sharing of genomic data and suggests principles and actions that genomic researchers can adopt to recognize community rights and interests in data.

Governments in multicultural democracies are increasingly being challenged to justify the collection of ethnic and racial data, and the targeted policies they support. Given mounting opposition to ethnicbased policies in New Zealand, it is timely to consider two questions that have arisen from ongoing debate. The first is what criteria ought to apply to determine who is Māori for policy purposes. The second is which Mäori ought to benefit from targeted policies and programmes. This paper addresses both questions empirically and makes two suggestions: (1) that statistical and legal definitions of Māori be amended to take account of both self-identified ethnicity and descent; (2) that programmes which seek to militate Māori disadvantage be oriented towards those who strongly identify as Māori, since they are the most likely to be in need.

Is this the springboard for a bigger resurgence in 2023?

In 2014, the Internet Mana alliance unsuccessfully ran in the New Zealand general election gaining just 1.42% of the party vote and failing to secure an electorate seat. The leaders of the alliance attributed their poor election result to the narratives constructed by the mainstream media, which they believed negatively influenced the public?s perception of Internet Mana. This study agrees that the mainstream media was complicit in the alliance?s poor election result, and drawing upon the discourse dynamics framework for metaphor analysis, it shows how these potentially damaging public narratives were predominantly constituted through complex sets of systematic metaphors which together created broader schematic frames or conceptual scenarios and carried certain evaluative and attitudinal perceptions. This analysis shows how systematic metaphors such as the internet mana alliance is a marriage of convenience and the internet mana alliance is a colonial trade were used to construct a negative public narrative.

In the run-up to the 2017 General Election, the economy, housing, health, education, inequality and justice were important policy issues. General Elections are a time when voters exercise their democratic right to vote for their preferred party and parliamentary candidate to represent themselves, their whānau and community. In many cases, political parties’ policies seek to improve the wellbeing of people who are living in more deprived communities, but people in deprived communities are typically less likely to vote. The recently released New Zealand Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) enables users to explore deprivation in electorates across the country. This paper compares the distribution of deprivation and voter turnout across a selection of General Electoral Districts (GEDs) and demonstrates that while overall patterns of deprivation may be similar between GEDs, the drivers of these patterns can differ immensely.

Colonisation has deeply harmed Maori communities, seriously and consistently undermining their vitality, aspirations and potentials, particularly since the 1860s, at inestimable cost to the entire nation. The British arrival in Aotearoa commenced a relationship between two very different peoples that has profoundly influenced their distinct and collective fortunes ever since. Despite manifest breaches of te Tiriti o Waitangi, this relationship has centred settler interests ensuring that Maori sovereignty has been displaced in favour of colonial hegemony, entrenching longstanding, preventable inequities in health and other important domains of social life. In this paper we trace some broad indicators of relational health and wellbeing in Aotearoa and consider how Maori thinking about whenua, health and wellbeing might lead healing opportunities for people and whenua. We outline ways in which a unified, dynamic, relational Maori concept based on whenua as the determinant of health could contribute. We believe this could expand, strengthen and revitalise prevention, protection and promotion approaches, to counter the injustices of colonisation, contribute toward health equity and move toward just, sustainable shared futures for the benefit of all New Zealanders.