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A diversity of perspectives and wide variety of cultural and social features characterize Māori society and there is no one consensus view held by Māori in relation to gender roles, political orientations, or Māori/government (or state) relations. Both Māori women and men have shared in the struggle to assert Māori resistance to colonial encroachment and one gender cannot be elevated over the other. Moreover, Māori views and perspectives on the different roles of Māori men and women are contested and differ tribally and between individuals. This entry describes aspects of precolonial Māori society that shaped traditional values and discusses key sociohistorical factors shaping gender roles among Māori. A focus on the contribution of Māori women to Māori development and advancement is offered. The relationship between Māori identity, culture, and the New Zealand government (or state) is highlighted throughout.

Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.

By 2051 the ethnic Maori population will almost double in size to close to a million, or twenty-two percent of the total New Zealand population. Even more dramatically, by 2051 thirty-three percent of all children in the country will be Maori?' This substantial change in our society will have major implications for Maori and wider society. Professor Durie discusses traditions and customs and addresses contemporary needs in order to build development strategies for the launch of the Maori population into the new millennium.

Māori customary rights to natural resources are a contentious issue between Māori and the New Zealand government and between Maori and non-Māori. The values and principles inherent in a treaty signed in 1840 between Māori and the British Crown have been undermined by the government’s refusal to allow Māori the right to go to the courts to determine proprietary rights to the foreshore, seabed and fresh water. Discriminatory Crown actions highlight the argument that when an injustice occurs then reparations should be made. The United Nations has chided the New Zealand government for its discriminatory behaviour and failure to provide guaranteed redress but it has had little effect.

In 2010 Indigenous peoples' rights continued to feature in discussions in a variety of international fora. Indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge (TK) associated with genetic resources (GR) were discussed under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) and within the World Trade Office (WTO). The United Nations (UN) General Assembly's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Indigenous Peoples' Declaration) featured in debate under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); the UN General Assembly's Third Committee; the work of the UN mechanisms with a specific mandate concerning Indigenous peoples; and, in a landmark ruling of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (African Commission), was adopted by the African Union. International human rights monitoring bodies also advanced their jurisprudence on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Aotearoa/New Zealand is not known for egregious breaches of indigenous peoples’ rights. Nonetheless, New Zealand’s legal system is ineffective at implementing international and domestic laws that protect the rights of Maori. This has been seen most starkly in the Foreshore and Seabed Act of 2004, which had the effect of extinguishing Maori aboriginal title to the foreshore and seabed areas and was passed despite almost universal Maori opposition.

In 1840, English officials on behalf of the British crown signed the Treaty of Waitangi—also known as Te Tiriti o Waitangi—with the Indigenous Māori population, affirming Māori sovereignty and guaranteeing their collective rights to the country’s land and resources. Since the 1700s, English settlers had been arriving in Aotearoa (the Māori name for New Zealand) to capitalize on the seal and whale trade. As the number of settlers increased, reports flowed back to Britain of general lawlessness and dubious private land deals, and the crown was forced to consider how best to control its citizens. A treaty with the Māori, officials decided, was the way to do so. The agreement, which established the basis for the relationship between the Māori and the British, is commonly cited as a shining example of how a treaty can recognize and protect Indigenous peoples’ rights by curtailing the reach of the state. But does te Tiriti live up to its sterling reputation? The answer, of course, is complicated.

Arguments for constitutional reform to recognise Rangatiratanga and Tikanga Maori.

This article considers research conducted on the impact of the Crown’s treaty claims settlement policy on Māori in New Zealand. It provides a brief background to the Treaty of Waitangi and the subsequent British colonisation process that relied on the Doctrine of Discovery in breach of the treaty. It outlines how colonisation dispossessed Māori of 95 percent of their lands and resources, usurped Māori power and authority and left them in a state of poverty, deprivation and marginalisation while procuring considerable wealth, prosperity and privilege for British settlers. The work of the Waitangi Tribunal, the commission of inquiry set up to investigate those breaches, is considered, as is the Crown’s reaction to the 1987 Lands case in developing its treaty claims settlement policy. The Crown unilaterally imposed the policy despite vehement opposition from Māori. Since 1992, it has legislated more than seventy ‘settlements’. The research shows that overall, the process has traumatised claimants, divided their communities, and returned on average less than one percent of their stolen lands. Proposals for constitutional transformation have drawn widespread support from Māori as a solution to British colonisation. United Nations treaty-monitoring bodies have recommended that the government discuss this with Māori

Between 1991 and 1994, Minister in Charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Douglas Graham and the recently established Treaty of Waitangi Policy Unit developed a series of policy proposals that outlined an ambitious plan to settle Māori historical treaty claims. These papers were refined via extensive consultation and discussion with Cabinet Ministers and government officials: Māori as treaty partner were not consulted. In late 1994 the proposed policy was approved by Cabinet and published as Crown Proposals for the Settlement of Treaty of Waitangi Claims. Why did the Crown decide to settle Māori historical treaty claims in the early 1990s? What did it expect to gain from settling treaty claims? Why, after nearly a century and a half of relative complacency, and nearly two decades after the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal to hear and make recommendations on Māori grievances, was the Crown suddenly prompted into action? And why would a right wing National government with little support from Māori voters and few current or previous Māori MPs launch a treaty claims settlement policy that would greatly antagonize its traditional voting base? These questions will be addressed via an examination of Cabinet papers, policy documents, legislation, deeds of settlement, published accounts and interviews with some of the key players. It will be argued that the treaty claims settlement policy was initiated as a consequence of New Zealand Māori Council v Attorney-General 1987, popularly known as the Lands case, and developed to achieve three specific outcomes: diversion of claimants away from the Waitangi Tribunal, containment of the financial risks posed by the Tribunal’s newly found binding and resumptive powers, and a progressive ‘winding back’ of Māori rights and Crown obligations embedded in legislation.

This article outlines the fraudulent practices of settler traders and land agents who employed alcohol to facilitate the alienation of Maori lands, highlighting the close relationship between Maori, liquor and land loss in 19th century New Zealand. Traders and agents developed a range of strategies, forged in Britain, tempered by colonial experience and wielded with deft precision in New Zealand to defraud Maori of their lands. Government efforts to pre-empt and prevent the worst excesses of settler crime proved ineffectual, self-defeating, paternalistic and ultimately unenforceable. Maori came to regard settler practices, the successive failure of legislation to alleviate the problem, and state connections with the liquor industry to be part of a thinly veiled conspiracy to destabilize their communities and alienate their lands. While this conclusion is highly problematic, it is likely that traders and agents had witnessed or were aware of similar practices in the settler colonies of Australia, Canada and North America, and made good use of them in New Zealand to access Maori lands.

Land and natural resources are at the core of conflicts between Indigenous peoples and Settlers in settler-colonial nations. This article explores the coloniality of natural resource law in the context of the New Zealand Crown Minerals Act 1991 (CMA) Block Offer process; the annual tender process for mineral prospecting and exploration. While there is often strong Māori participation, we will argue that Aotearoa New Zealand settler-colonial mining law is structured in such a way that Māori views rarely influence the substantive outcomes of mineral exploration decisions. Through a case study of the 2013 Epithermal Gold Block Offer in the Central North Island, we will explore the factors that might contribute to the mismatch between the level of Māori participation and the influence of Māori views on final decisions in the Block Offer process. We examine how different views are valued by bureaucrats within New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals, a government agency within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and explore whether the criteria applied to Māori submissions genuinely and appropriately reflect the full range of interests, aspirations and concerns raised by Māori participants. In particular, we consider how mining regulation is structured to exclude Māori law and jurisdiction in order to uphold settler-colonial authority over key natural resources and extractivist economies. Finally, we consider alternatives to the CMA process and explore the potential to ensure substantive outcomes that better reflect the Māori views and interests. In doing so we point to the need to shift from colonial extractivist models of natural resources law towards Settler-Indigenous partnerships in relation to environmental planning in settler-colonial states.

The election of Evo Morales as the first indigenous President of Bolivia in 2005 is widely credited to the Cochamba Water War (Spronk 2007: 8). The Cochamba Water War progressed from an indigenous movement and a specific issue to the creation of an indigenous political party and election of the first indigenous President. The Bolivian water war, the Puebla Panama Plan in Mexico, the Mackenzie Valley pipeline in Canada (Altamirano‐Jiménez 2004) and Māori resistance to the neoliberal agenda from 1984 onwards (Bargh 2007: 26) inspired much theorising about indigenous people successfully contesting neoliberalism (AltamiranoJiménez 2004, Bargh 2007, Spronk 2007: 8, Postero 2007). Bargh and others, for example, documented not only ‘overt Māori resistance to neoliberal policies, but also more subtle stories of activities, which The neoliberal state, recognition and indigenous rights implicitly challenge neoliberal practices and assumptions by their support for other ways of living’ (Bargh 2007: 1). Scholars make visible the persistence of the colonial in the concrete and material conditions of everyday neoliberal governance and life (Howard-Wagner & Kelly 2011: 103). As Bargh (2007), Altamirano-Jiménez (2013), Howard-Wagner (2010b, 2015) and others note, indigenous categorisations of neoliberal practices as a form of colonisation relate to a concern that neoliberalism in its multiple forms poses a threat to indigenous ways of life. This scholarship also critically reflects on the reshaping of the relationship between the state and indigenous peoples under neoliberalism (Altamirano-Jiménez 2004, Bargh 2007, Howard-Wagner 2009). For example, it draws attention to the increasing intervention in the lives of indigenous peoples (Howard-Wagner 2007, 2009, 2010a, 2010b) and the dispossession of indigenous people through privatisation (Wolfe 2006, Howard-Wagner 2012, Altamirano-Jiménez 2013, Coulthard 2014). It does not, however, preclude agency, resistance and decolonisation. Interpretive micro-studies about indigenous peoples’ engagement with neoliberalism provide particular value. They tell us about actually existing neoliberalism in the context of intervention in the everyday lives of indigenous peoples, contests over rights, contests over policy and the complex decisions indigenous people are making about how to protect their rights and navigate diverse economies involving neoliberal policies and practices.

The very question of Indigenous authenticity, as Jeffrey Sissons reminds us, “…has deep roots within colonial racism” (2005, 43). Racialisation and the practice of creating and imbuing racial categories with seemingly impermeable boundaries and indestructible meanings has, after all, underpinned a range of colonial practices from the systematic alienation of Indigenous land and resources to child abduction. Regimes of biological and cultural authenticity continue to shape state policies and practices that regulate the everyday lives of Indigenous people around the world. Indeed, in some contexts, expectations of Indigenous cultural purity or environmental naturalness exist alongside the imposition of varying degrees

Whānau Ora is a new state-led, cross sectoral policy approach introduced in 2010. It places whānau outcomes at the very heart of social service delivery, and, in doing so represents a shift away from traditional approaches that delivered services to individuals. Furthermore, by focussing on collective outcomes, the approach is one that is intimately connected to Māori values and practices. This thesis traces the evolution of the Whānau Ora approach to social service delivery. In doing so, it explores the relationship between a philosophy of whānau ora, and the policy of Whānau Ora as it is enacted by various government institutions. Drawing upon data collected from interviews with key informants, the thesis argues that Whānau Ora presents opportunities for a new way of thinking about social service provision but a number of barriers may limit the potential of this approach to achieve wellbeing for Māori. First there is a danger that Māori language and culture are simply co-opted by the state in ways that transform their original meaning, and that Whānau Ora may in fact serve as a vehicle to shift responsibility for core service provision from government to Māori. Second, the differential treatment of Māori service providers by funding bodies illustrates the way in which institutional racism continues to impact on Māori. Finally, Whānau Ora is vulnerable to a political environment in which discourses of Māori privilege can impact on the longevity of policies that are seen to target Māori. As such, Whānau Ora’s contribution to greater self-determination for Māori is limited. The thesis ends by identifying key constitutional and institutional changes that are more likely to provide an environment in which self-determination can be achieved.