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  • In New Zealand, the Crown and Local Authorities are required to engage with iwi in resource management matters, yet iwi engagement is a widely recognised weakness in many resource management professionals' skillsets. Coloniality permeates many interactions with iwi, and reflects a profession where practitioners' skillsets have not kept pace with developments in resource management legislation that better recognise the rights and interests of mana whenua. This article explores the real‐life impacts of this skill paucity on Ngāi Tahu environmental kaitiaki, and, through a Braided River methodological approach comprised of Kaupapa Māori research and Narrative Inquiry, offers recommendations for best practice mana whenua engagement. The article concludes by discussing the coloniality of planning, and how this impacts practitioners' ability to implement these best practice recommendations.

  • This report sets out the findings and recommendations from research into Māori governance and its potential to effect change in persistent inequalities that affect Māori. Māori governance is a form of Indigenous governance to be found in Aotearoa New Zealand that gives collective voice and agency to tribal and nontribal aspirations and imperatives at local, regional, national and international levels. Māori governance is, however, constrained by state and nonstate actors, and must adapt accordingly to achieve its development goals. In this research, we use kaupapa Māori theory, which emphasises ‘by Māori for Māori’ research processes that are transformative, grounded in mātauranga Māori, tikanga Māori, and te reo Māori. This research asks: what is the potential for new governance structures to intervene in persisting social, cultural, political and economic inequalities that disproportionately accrue to Māori? Three sub-elements were explored: (1) governance structure, form, function; (2) governance and developmental imperatives; and (3) governance and aspirations. We reviewed the Indigenous and Māori governance literature and conducted case study research of Māori governance from three perspectives: community outcomes at a marae level in a Ngāti Kahungunu, health outcomes at a provider level in the Mataatua district, and Māori economic outcomes in the Manawatū. At the community level, we found that Māori engage in governance using Māori values, Māori knowledge and relationships, in both Māori and non-Māori governance structures to achieve Māori aspirations. Māori governance roles within hapū and iwi need to be more broadly accessible to allow different voices and capabilities to emerge. At a health provider level, we found that health system governance, while inclusive of attempts at partnership arrangements, have not been effective at displacing structural inequities, with particular criticism of the uneven effects of the devolution policy in health for Māori. Covid-19 responses demonstrated that bureaucratic control of Māori governance arrangements could be relaxed with positive effects. In terms of the economic perspective, we found that national policy sees self-determined Māori economic development as effecting change in Māori socioeconomic outcomes. However, Māori representation in the governance of economic development is low, and regionally, Māori economic development is constrained by resource limitations despite the advent of treaty settlements. A focus on collaboration across iwi, capability and intent of Māori business networks, and an equitable share of economic resources will assist.

  • Māori land data produced through colonial systems of dispossession lack interoperability, preventing kin-based communities from tracking their land. Our novel approach to repatriate and harmonise historic land data traces the history of the 45,500 acre Opuatia Block allocated to hapū Ngāti Tiipa in 1866, following the confiscation of 1.2 million acres of Waikato land. Ngāti Tiipa resisted Crown and settler pressures for 30 years, but 80% of Opuatia was alienated within a decade. We discuss the devastation of ‘judicial raupatu’ and the implications of this work for hapū data sovereignty and wider international efforts to achieve Indigenous data sovereignty.

Last update from database: 8/17/26, 4:11 AM (UTC)