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The history of educational policy-making in Aotearoa New Zealand is also a history in myth-making. Myths about Māori in education are deeply embedded in educational and social thought, because they have their origins in the first political interactions between Māori and Pākeha. These interactions were motivated by contradicting forces—Māori determination to participate in the changing economic and technological landscape, contrasted against British perceptions of their own cultural superiority and inherent right to rule indigenous populations. British superiority was enshrined in aggressive and racist laws that disenfranchised and dispossessed Māori of lands, resources, economies, and attempted to de-culturalise Māori. Laws were in turn translated to policy and practice that reinforced deep seeded myths that have negatively positioned Māori socially, politically and educationally. As Aotearoa New Zealand education progresses toward a commitment to teach our dual and difficult histories, it is necessary to also expose and analyse the ways negative positioning of Māori has been purposefully built into our education system. Understanding how political histories have influenced our education system may better equip education professionals to identify and question their own conscious and unconscious biases, and to challenge and change a system that has its origins racist philosophy, reinforced by policy. Education professionals who are able to deconstruct carefully fortified, damaging myth-making about Māori will be well positioned to lead authentic movement toward a shared future.

This article considers the puzzle of the location of tino rangatiratanga in the post-Treaty settlements era in the context of current controversy in New Zealand over recognising Maori self-determination or tino rangatiratanga as guaranteed by Art 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi. On one level, the current political and legal struggles reflect a fundamental tension between Maori aspirations for tino rangatiratanga and the state's desire to maintain centralised sovereignty. At a deeper level, the government opposition to co-governance stems from questions about the evolving role of the Treaty - in particular the guarantee of tino rangatiratanga and its ability to apply to a much wider range of Treaty issues (other than natural resources) and Treaty partners; for example, non-tribal Maori collectives serving urban Maori and not bound like tribes by kinship ties. The Waitangi Tribunal, originally established to facilitate Treaty settlements, is now at the centre of this shift in thinking to expand the interpretation of tino rangatiratanga. In a recent series of reports, the Tribunal has recognised the diversity of Maori identity and the legitimacy of non-tribal collectives as Treaty partners, particularly when these organisations are created by and responsive to the socio-economic needs of Maori. The proliferation of Treaty partners thus raises issues of co-ordination and coherence - how do these many partners engage effectively with the Crown and is every Maori organisation a Treaty partner for the purposes of Art 2 tino rangatiratanga? And does provision of social services by these Treaty partners violate the right to equality?

Norman v Tūpuna Maunga o Tāmaki Makaurau Authority is a judicial review of the Tūpuna Maunga o Tāmaki Makaurau Authority's decision to fell and remove all the exotic (non-native) trees on Ōwairaka/Mt Albert. Whilst the High Court dismissed the review and allowed the operation to proceed, that decision was overturned by the Court ofAppeal because the Maunga Authority failed to consult in accordance with statutory requirements. The Norman litigation has implications and lessons for all co-governance arrangements in Aotearoa New Zealand. This article argues that whilst the relevant Treaty of Waitangi settlement legislation allows for meaningful power-sharing within the Maunga Authority, and the co-governance partners sought to meaningfully share power, the Maunga Authority could have done more to consult and act in good faith. It also contends that tikanga Māori gives rise to a duty to consult and ought to be contemplated by counsel as a basis for a duty to consult in the future.

This paper explores how the Indigenous-led, community-supported campaign #ProtectIhumātao became a site for decolonisation work that nourished productive bicultural relations. For six years, we worked together, alongside others, to stop a transnational corporation building houses on culturally significant, but contested, whenua (land) at Ihumātao, Auckland. Pania draws strength from her Indigenous Māori whakapapa (ancestral relations), and Frances from being a New Zealander of Irish descent. Committing ourselves to the campaign kaupapa (values, principles and plans), we embraced different roles: Pania as a kaitiaki or land protector and Frances as a hoa tū tata or close friend, standing by, ready to assist. Along the way, we became our own whānau (extended family); a kaupapa-based whānau (people mobilised for a shared purpose). Here, we share knowledge from our campaign experiences to explore what becoming whānau means to us in relation to Ihumātao. Thinking and writing at the interface of Māori and Pākehā ways of knowing, we interact with ideas from Māori philosophy and Indigenous–Settler relations. Through telling our stories, we illuminate relational qualities that made our different roles and evolving relationship possible, and glean insights to inform ongoing Indigenous-led, decolonising practices at Ihumātao, and elsewhere.

This case study explores competing corporate and Indigenous visions for the future of Ihumatao, one of the oldest continuously occupied settlements in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Valued for centuries by the hau kainga [home people], Ihumatao is also recognised as an exceptionally significant cultural heritage landscape. Here, transnational corporation Fletcher Building Limited acquired contested whenua [land] for a commercial housing development. Its vision of the future met sustained resistance from the Indigenous-led Save Our Unique Landscape (SOUL) campaign, now known as #ProtectIhumatao. This case study weaves the sociological insights of critical futures studies with the ethical-political challenges of decolonising research to explore conflicting future imaginaries at work in this escalating crisis. We critically examine selected campaign, corporate, government and United Nations texts. While the success of Fletcher's plan seemed inevitable, the SOUL campaign earned widespread support enabling the aspirations of the hau kainga to be heard. #ProtectIhumatao challenges our nation's commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, tino rangatiratanga [the exercise of unqualified authority or self-determination] and key international agreements on Indigenous rights. Further action is needed to secure a future for Ihumatao defined and controlled by the hau kainga. Only then will justice be assured.

In her 1984 book ‘Māori Sovereignty’, Donna Awatere sustains a blistering polemic on ‘white culture’ that still retains its rhetorical force 40 years later. Her construction of a sharply delineated binary between a monolithic notion of ‘white culture’ as against ‘taha Māori’ can come at the cost of simplification. But this is not at all to say that Awatere is wrong when she says it is ‘Māori Sovereignty or death’. In this paper, we extend Awatere’s work by analysing relationships between colonialism and capital. We begin by situating Awatere’s work in its historical context, outlining major shifts in the global political economy, and drawing on Awatere’s analysis of Fascism to account for contemporary Far Right movements. Building from the inextricability of Fascism from the settler colonial/imperialist economy, we explore Awatere’s framing of whiteness as a system of racial exploitation and violence that enforces the state’s genocidal claims to sovereignty, defined through necropower – capitalism’s consumption of racialised death. We then consider the contradictions between capitalism and constitutional transformation. By scanning revolutionary movements elsewhere (in particular the Chilean movement for plurinationalism), we identify the need for extra-parliamentary, broad-based, popular power and constituent authority from below, as well as Indigenous solidarities and international alliances to circumvent anti-Māori populism and confront capital. In reflecting on the power of death, and the need for counter-hegemonic culture capable of securing the transition out of capitalism, we are drawn to the revolutionary essence of whakapapa as an Indigenous ontology that eternally resists necropower.

Starting with the whakapapa of the Waikeria Prison Uprising in 2020/21, this article examines what the suppression of prisoners’ freedom of speech tells us about the struggle to defeat the far right. Drawing on the authors’ personal experience of censorship at the hands of the Crown, the article demonstrates the futility of relying on the capitalist state to achieve the liberation of exploited and oppressed people. The article critiques liberal ‘safetyism’ as a demobilising force, which prioritises fear for personal safety over the necessity of struggle. In contrast, the authors argue that it is only through mass struggle that we can defeat the far right and liberate ourselves.

The 2023 New Zealand general election was marked by media narratives about a youth crime crisis, with special emphasis placed on ram raids and the Māori children and young people blamed for perpetrating them. We show that empirical data do not support the claim that youth crime is surging, and argue that fears of ram raids tap into longstanding beliefs about Māori. Using archival sources from the era of early European settlement in Aotearoa, we show that Pākehā settlers constructed Māori children and young people as uniquely dangerous delinquents. Using Louis Althusser’s theory of ideology and subjectivation, we argue that this delinquentisation played a key role in constituting a colonial ideology that would justify primitive accumulation, colonisation, and the imposition of the capitalist mode of production in Aotearoa. Looking to the contemporary neoliberal era, we argue that moral panics about ram raids continue this colonial ideology of delinquentisation. By subjectivating children and young people as delinquents, the capitalist class is able to use the criminal justice system to displace responsibility for the crisis of social reproduction precipitated by neoliberal economic policy. We conclude by showing the limitations of this strategy and arguing for intensified struggle against the ideology of delinquentisation.

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 is a response to the recent surge of interest over extractive industry in New Zealand and the opposition to this by many iwi. The New Zealand government has in recent years made offshore exploration and production a high priority. By the extractive industry, we mean the people, companies, and activities involved in removing oil and gas, metals, coal, stone and other useful resources from the ground.

In 2021, Aotearoa New Zealand's Foreign Minister, Nanaia Mahuta, sketched out a kaupapa Māori (collective Māori vision) foreign policy for New Zealand based on four tikanga Māori (Māori customary practices and behaviours): manaakitanga (hospitality), whanaungatanga (connectedness), mahi tahi and kotahitanga (unity through collaboration), and kaitiakitanga (guardianship and the protection of intergenerational wellbeing). This article makes a novel contribution to the global International Relations body of literature by questioning to what extent New Zealand's ‘Māori foreign policy’ has been applied to its relationship with China. Through assessing the communications of Mahuta and other officials, it is found that New Zealand is utilizing a kaupapa Māori framework towards China: ‘the taniwha and the dragon’. It is argued that New Zealand is attempting to consolidate the maturity of the Sino-New Zealand relationship, as well as differentiate itself from the other Anglosphere countries that have recently pushed back on China. In doing so, not only is New Zealand something of an outlier, it is demonstrating how eschewing a western-centric understanding of foreign policy for a more relational view based on indigenous knowledge and perspectives (in this case, from te ao Māori: the Māori worldview) can be applied at a time of increasing great power competition.

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.

This article provides an overview of the history of the Maori Land Court, as well as present day developments of the Court. It considers the role that tikanga (Maori customary values and practices) plays in the Maori Land Court, and how the Court has applied tikanga in a number of contemporary judgments. It then considers the Waitangi Tribunal (a Commission of Inquiry which examines Crown breaches of its obligations to Maori), and how tikanga can be demonstrated in the process and the findings of the Tribunal. It discusses how both judicial bodies have approached the challenge of competing tikanga claims. Finally, the article poses ideas of how tikanga can be applied going forward.

In 1840, some of the sovereign nations of Maori signed te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Maori language version of the Treaty of Waitangi) with the British Crown. Hone Heke was the first Maori leader of the northern nation of Ngdpuhi to sign, but by 1844 he was leading a significant revolt against British colonialism in Aotearoa New Zealand by chopping down British flagpoles erected on his lands. While Maori may have initially welcomed the intent of te Tiriti as a means for seeking British help to protect their international borders, the British prioritised the English version of the Treaty which recorded the transfer of sovereignty from Maori to the British. As the British transposed their dominant legal traditions of governance, including bringing to the fore their doctrine of parliamentary supremacy, Maori have been seeking their survival ever since. We extend this by focusing on why the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty needs to adapt to the Treaty's promise of bicultural power sharing.

Treaty principles have provided the framework for Māori-Crown relationships to advance Treaty settlements and other outcomes since the 1980s. Principles are Crown interpretations of the Treaty’s intent, even if they are widely utilised by Crown and Māori alike. If both language texts of the Treaty/Te Tiriti o Waitangi are considered from a kāinga perspective, we can consider different approaches to its interpretation and implementation. Foundational to a kāinga view is a reciprocal relationship of accountability between Crown kawanatanga (Article 1) and Māori tino rangatiratanga (Article 2). At the heart of this relationship is as a double trusteeship: the protection of rangatiratanga (trusteeship leadership; sovereignty; self-determination), in exchange for kawanatanga (governance) which in the context of Crown-Māori relationships means the Crown has fiduciary-like obligations to protect rangatiratanga. The potential of the double trusteeship is explored through a multi-marae-based venture “Pā to Plate” as an example of a novel food sovereignty system that harnesses economic and cultural wealth generation. While the Crown—in this case the sixth Labour government struggled to engage with the venture, Pā to Plate demonstrates significant potential for rangatiratanga advancement. The double trusteeship can underpin any kāinga-led endeavour that calls on Crown engagement, commitment and support.

Legislation emerging from Treaty of Waitangi settlements provide Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, with new opportunities to destabilize and decolonize the colonial knowledge, processes and practices that contribute towards negative material and metaphysical impacts on their rohe [traditional lands and waters]. In this article we focus our attention on the Nga Wai o Maniapoto (Waipa River) Act 2012 and the Deed of Settlement signed between the Crown (the New Zealand government) and Ngāti Maniapoto (the tribal group with ancestral authority over the Waipā River) as an example of how the law in Aotearoa New Zealand is increasingly stretched beyond settler-colonial confines to embrace legal and ontological pluralism. We illustrate how this Act serves as the foundation upon which Ngāti Maniapoto are seeking to restore, manage, and enhance the health of their river. Such legislation, we argue, provides a far higher degree of recognition of Māori rights and interests both as an outcome of the settlement process and by strengthening provisions under the Resource Management Act 1991 regarding the role of Māori in resource management. We conclude by suggesting that co-governance and co-management arrangements hold great potential for transforming river management by recognizing and accommodating ontological and epistemological pluralism, which moves Aotearoa New Zealand closer to achieving sustainable and just river futures for all.

Maori election petitions to the 1876 Eastern Maori and the 1879 Northern Maori elections were high-stakes political manoeuvres. The outcomes of such challenges were significant in the weighting of political power in Wellington. This was a time in New Zealand politics well before the formation of political parties. Political alignments were defined by a mixture of individual charismatic men with a smattering of provincial sympathies and individual and group economic interests. Larger-than-life Maori and Pakeha political characters were involved in the election petitions, providing a window not only into the complex Maori political relationships involved, but also into the stormy Pakeha political world of the 1870s. And this is the great lesson about election petitions. They involve raw politics, with all the political theatre and power play, which have as much significance in today's politics as they did in the past. Election petitions are much more than legal challenges to electoral races. There are personalities involved, and ideological stances between the contesting individuals and groups that back those individuals. Maori had to navigate both the Pakeha realm of central and provincial politics as well as the realm of Maori kin-group politics at the whanau, hapu and iwi levels of Maoridom. The political complexities of these 1870s Maori election petitions were but a microcosm of dynamic Maori and Pakeha political forces in New Zealand society at the time.

This article explores the broad area of rangatahi Māori climate activism. As a research team made up of academics, rangatahi and rangatahi Māori activists, this perspective piece discusses the importance of whakapapa, belonging and connections to the environment as a foreground to climate activism. While we highlight the lack of academic research focussed on rangatahi Māori climate activism, we show that there is a plethora of activity happening through digital and social media which provides a rich space for sharing innovative ideas for a just future in which nature is centered. We suggest that there are many commonalities between the current articulations of Nature-Based Solutions and rangatahi Māori activism and that greater dialogue between these spaces is vital for any solutions being offered for an environmentally just future for Aotearoa.