Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.

Accepted Paper:

Creating 'Un-natural' Groupings to Appropriate an Ancestor  
Marama Muru-Lanning (University of Auckland)

Paper short abstract:

How 'natural' are 'large natural groupings'? The Government's policy of 'large natural groupings' forces Maori groups to gather together to negotiate their Waitangi Claims with the Crown. This paper examines the implications of this policy for Maori settled around the Waikato River.

Paper long abstract:

Maori have a long history of settlement and movement along the Waikato River and, for many, the river is a tupuna, an ancestor which can't be 'owned'. In recent times Maori have been re-territorialised in a way that is better understood in 'metaphorical' terms as, rather than being physically separated from the river by forced land sales and public works developments, they are being alienated from the river by the creation of modern iwi identities. To broker compensatory agreements with the Crown, Maori have to demonstrate that they are robust iwi entities who occupy ancestral territories. This paper examines the emergence of contemporary subjects and spaces of the Waikato River such as 'iwi authorities'and 'iwi-stakeholders'.

While the new iwi structures created to manage tribes and administer their finances have had some success, the prevailing modus operandi of tribal self governance has been questioned (see Cheater and Hopa 1997; Poata-Smith 2004 and van Meijl 1990, 2003). The State's reconstruction of iwi as the singularly most important unit of Maori identity has excluded long-time Maori city dwellers from Crown reconciliation monies and tribal customary rights. The Government's 'large natural groupings' policy and legislation such as the Waikato Raupatu Settlement Act 1995 has seen power captured by tribal members who in the past may not have been eligible to hold influential tribal positions. Consequently, a number of Maori living in traditional settlements along the Waikato River feel that their whanau (family) and marae (family clusters) are not represented by the sanctioned iwi authorities.

Panel P36
Owning water: elusive forms and alternate appropriations
  Session 1