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- Herausgeber: Huia Publishers
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Serie: Huatau
- Sprache: Englisch
This book discusses the roadside checkpoints that were set up by Māori to protect communities during the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. Case studies of four different checkpoints are examined, each of which looked slightly different, but all of which were underpinned by tikanga Māori. The checkpoints are discussed as practical expressions of whanau, hapū, iwi and Māori rangatiratanga and indicate the ongoing existence and flourishing of rangatiratanga.
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First published in 2021 by Huia Publishers39 Pipitea Street, PO Box 12280Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealandwww.huia.co.nz
ISBN 978-1-77550-671-3 (print)
ISBN 978-1-77550-677-5 (ebook)
Copyright © Luke Fitzmaurice and Maria Bargh 2021
Logo copyright © Jacob Wilkins-Hodges 2021
This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the prior permission of the publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.
The assistance of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga is gratefully acknowledged
Ebook conversion 2021 by meBooks
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Introduction
Chapter Two
What is Rangatiratanga?
What is Rangatiratanga?
Te Tiriti o Waitangi
Rangatiratanga Was Never Ceded
The Realisation of Rangatiratanga
Chapter Three
Māori-led Covid Checkpoints — Four Case Studies
Case Study 1 — Wharekahika (Te Whānau a Tūwhakairiora)
Case Study 2 — Maketu
Case Study 3 — Urenui (Ngāti Mutunga)
Case Study 4 — Ngataki (Te Aupōuri and Ngāti Kurī)
Chapter Four
What Do the Checkpoints Demonstrate?
What Motivated Iwi Members to Set Up the Checkpoints?
On What Authority Were the Checkpoints Established?
What Resources Were Required to Set Up and Maintain the Checkpoints?
What Can Be Learned from the Checkpoints?
Chapter Five
Rangatiratanga and Constitutional Transformation
Chapter Six
Conclusion
Bibliography
About the authors
Foreword
Stepping Up: COVID-19 Checkpoints and Rangatiratanga provides an insightful examination of practical expressions of rangatiratanga that is both grounded and deeply reflective. The roadside checkpoints that form the basis of the case studies in this book are striking examples of community-led responses to crisis. In each of these case studies, Māori communities took action to try to protect their people from the COVID-19 pandemic. The communities concerned did not wait for instructions, permission or resources from government but acted swiftly to keep their people safe.
While these checkpoints can be understood as the practical exercise of rangatiratanga, the central objective was not, of course, to demonstrate the autonomy of Māori communities. The checkpoints were a public health response, aimed at protecting health and wellbeing. The motivations for establishing the checkpoints are explored in this book and can be understood in the context of both the history and current circumstances of Māori health. Māori health professionals noted that the experience of Māori in previous pandemics provided a warning of the potential impact. The 1918 influenza pandemic saw a death rate for Māori that was seven times as high as the non-Māori death rate. Rates of hospitalisation and death in the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic were also much higher for Māori than for other ethnic groups. And today, disproportionate rates of chronic disease and other factors, such as poorer access to and quality of health care, significantly increase the risk of more serious health outcomes for Māori. As the case studies in this book demonstrate, it is that context that created the urgency to act, the obligation to ‘step up’ and the need to provide leadership to protect the health of the community.
The exercise of rangatiratanga here is, therefore, inherently bound together with the rights and duties of kaitiakitanga and manaakitanga, including obligations to nurture, care for and protect others. The case studies show that the establishment of the checkpoints was an action that derived from and was driven by tikanga Māori. Concepts such as aroha and whānau feature prominently in the way in which participants describe their motivations and actions.
In this compelling and timely examination of these cases, Luke Fitzmaurice and Maria Bargh show us that not only were the obligations to act drawn from te ao Māori, but so too was the authority to act. Although the checkpoints in the case studies were organised in different ways, they all drew on authority sourced in their own communities. These were clear expressions of rangatiratanga. Significantly, this exercise of rangatiratanga also provided the foundation for opportunities to work collaboratively and productively with police and the authority of kāwanatanga. In fact, in a report on human rights and Te Tiriti o Waitangi during the COVID-19 state of emergency, the Human Rights Commission identified these checkpoints as an example of Te Tiriti partnership working in practice.
The case studies explored in this book give us important insight into the ways in which Māori communities understand their rights and obligations of rangatiratanga and how that rangatiratanga can be given practical expression. Fitzmaurice and Bargh show how these checkpoints, born out of the extraordinary circumstances of a global pandemic, can help us to identify and address some of the challenges of giving effect to rangatiratanga in our constitutional arrangements. Importantly, this work encourages us to reflect on how these concrete examples of rangatiratanga, grounded in the practices of Māori communities, can provide us with conceptual tools to engage in a broader programme of constitutional transformation to ensure that rangatiratanga and Te Tiriti are at the heart of public policy and decision-making in Aotearoa.
Carwyn Jones
Te Wānanga o Raukawa
Acknowledgements
We would like to, first and foremost, thank the people and their whānau who were involved in the checkpoints. Your hard work, courage and determination kept communities safe. We also thank those who took the time to talk with us about their checkpoints. Thank you to Mihiata Pirini for peer reviewing the manuscript and insightful comments. Needless to say, any remaining errors or omissions are ours. To Carwyn Jones, whose work has informed much of our research and who kindly wrote the Foreword – ngā mihi ki a koe. Finally, to all our own whānau who inspire us on a daily basis – thank you. Mauri oho, mauri tū, mauri ora ki a koutou!
Chapter One
Introduction
The arrival of COVID-19 in Aotearoa was momentous. Having watched the spread of COVID overseas, New Zealanders were faced with the reality that it had finally reached our shores. For many people, it was cause for panic. Most people were unsure how far the disease would spread, how deadly it would be and how long it would be before life returned to normal. Those unknowns were a huge source of anxiety for many New Zealanders.
For Māori, the arrival of COVID-19 was cause for action. All over the country, Māori took action to protect their communities. Across health, education and other social services, Māori began to respond to the threat that had reached our shores. Their responses were varied but were all aimed at keeping our people safe.
This book examines one of the most prominent examples of those responses, the roadside checkpoints that were established by Māori in many parts of the country.1 To the general public, the checkpoints were controversial at times, but they were ultimately successful in preventing the spread of COVID-19 into the areas in which they were established. Despite some initial tensions, the checkpoints also eventually came to be supported by the police.
This book is based on research undertaken in late 2020 on whether the checkpoints are a case study in the expression of rangatiratanga. Our research was guided by four questions:
1.What motivated iwi members to set up checkpoints in response to COVID-19?
2.On what authority were iwi checkpoints established?
3.What resources were required to maintain the checkpoints?
4.What can be learned from the iwi checkpoints, and how could those lessons be applied in future?
We found that in all four cases, checkpoint organisers were motivated by a desire to keep their people safe. All four checkpoints were different. Some were led by iwi or iwi collectives while others were hapū or whānau-led. Some were a ‘hard border’ with no-one allowed in or out, while others were more of a ‘soft border’ with most people still allowed to travel through. At the same time, all four checkpoints had commonalities. The authority for the checkpoints was grounded in tikanga, not state law. All four were resource intensive, with the checkpoint often just one part of a wider COVID response programme. And all four were an example of Māori taking action on the basis of tikanga in order to serve their people.
This book describes the findings of that research and takes the discussion one step further, to discuss what the lessons learned from the checkpoints might mean for the future of Aotearoa. In the past twenty years, laws, policies and public conversations about the importance of tikanga Māori have shifted dramatically. Key tikanga concepts are reflected in our laws, government policy increasingly recognises the value of Crown–Māori partnerships and the post-settlement era has created opportunities for Māori-led solutions to some of our biggest problems. But to many people, concepts like tikanga and rangatiratanga remain poorly understood. Enthusiasm may be increasing, but concrete examples of what the shift towards the increasing importance of tikanga Māori in public life could look like remain rare. We wrote this book because we believe the Māori-led COVID checkpoints provide a concrete example of the impact the increasing recognition of tikanga Māori could have.
The title of this book comes from interviews with checkpoint organisers, who repeatedly described a sense of ‘stepping up’ and doing what needed to be done in a time of crisis to keep their people safe.
This is not the definitive book on COVID checkpoints. There were dozens of checkpoints established around Aotearoa, and the four case studies this book discusses barely skim the surface of that wider effort. It is not the definitive book on rangatiratanga; Māori scholars and tohunga have been discussing that topic for centuries, and this book includes just a fraction of their wisdom. And it is not the definitive book on the future of Aotearoa; that is a topic to which thousands of people, if not more, will contribute. Instead, it is an attempt to bring those topics together and make suggestions on what the checkpoints might say about our collective future. The checkpoints provide a concrete illustration of several ideas that remain unfamiliar to many New Zealanders. Our hope is that this book can help to change that, as part of a wider conversation about tikanga Māori in twenty-first-century Aotearoa.
