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Indigenous peoples across the world have a shared experience of colonisation; a process that has resulted in war, disease and the decimation of their lands, homes and peoples. In New Zealand, the effects of colonisation are still evident with Māori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) experiencing poorer outcomes compared with non-Māori citizens across a range of social, health and well-being indicators. This paper is a case study of work being done in New Zealand, which may have resonance with work in South Africa, and other countries with a history of colonisation. It begins with a brief history of the impacts of colonisation on Māori before considering the concept of decolonisation. The author outlines the work her organisation does as an independent, tribally owned, Māori health research centre to advance a decolonisation agenda. Reflecting on their emancipatory and democratising ambitions as researchers provides the opening for a discussion about indigenous ethics. The paper presents a number of Māori ethical principles that guide their work, arguing that were such principles applied in the development and implementation of social policy and legislation, the effect would be a fairer, more equitable policy that better meets the needs of Māori as citizens. Recent legislation enacted to improve New Zealand’s care and protection system for children is discussed to illustrate the need for greater consideration of Māori values when developing legislation that directly impacts Māori. The paper concludes with a challenge to policymakers, practitioners, academics, and researchers alike to actively contribute to an agenda of liberation, emancipation and decolonisation for indigenous peoples.
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During the 1980s and 1990s biculturalism was the ascendant political philosophy for managing the relationship between the New Zealand Crown and the indigenous Maori population. Biculturalism understood Maori politics as a partnership between Maori and the state, grounded in the Treaty of Waitangi, the agreement signed in 1840 from which British government was established. Biculturalism was presented as morally superior to multiculturalism which was understood as setting aside Maori Treaty rights and rights of prior occupancy in favour of less substantive rights available to Maori as one of many ethnic minorities. However, a deeper reading of multicultural political theory provides an instructive critique of biculturalism's inherent limits from the perspective of the Maori right to self-determination. It shows why biculturalism's influence waned. It also shows why Matike Mai o Aotearoa, a blueprint for constitutional transformation commissioned by tribal leaders is unlikely to succeed as a contemporary attempt to reassert biculturalism's influence. Multicultural theory is not a panacea for the right to self-determination, but it does not restrict the development of a broader Maori-centred differentiated liberal citizenship in the ways that biculturalism precludes.
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This paper demonstrates that the philosophical premises underlying biculturalism and self-determination lead to different conclusions about where power properly resides with respect to Crown/Maori relations in New Zealand. It is argued that biculturalism is not the panacea for the realisation of legitimate Maori aspirations that has been assumed by both Maori and Pakeha policy elites over the past twenty years because it makes assumptions about power relationships which limit greater degrees of Maori autonomy ' one step towards self-determination is permitted, but the next prevented. Biculturalism can not realise greater autonomy because it is concerned primarily with relationships among people in institutional settings and within and among bureaucratic institutions. Therefore it is less likely to meet Maori aspirations than self-determination which is concerned with creating, to the greatest extent possible, independence and autonomy for groups, not necessarily in isolation from wider society, but certainly apart from controls and regulations imposed from outside the would be self-determining community. Self-determination locates power, at least to some extent, within traditional Maori social units, while biculturalism, although assuming a sharing of power, inevitably gives Maori the status of junior partner in a project designed to modify state institutions to make them more responsive to Maori interests. While in itself this is advantageous to Maori, biculturalism is not a substitute for the affirmation of traditional social structures as the central point in a Maori quest for greater independence from an historically intrusive state.
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Topic
- Self-Determination
- Biculturalism (2)
- Care and protection (1)
- Care ethics (1)
- Decolonisation (1)
- Indigenous ethics (1)
- Indigenous Politics (1)
- Maori (1)
- Māori (1)
- Multicultural (1)
- New Zealand Politics (1)
- Politics (1)
- Populist (1)
- Treaty of Waitangi (1)
Resource type
- Conference Paper (2)
- Journal Article (2)