This article is a response to a paper presented to the New Zealand Historical Association in 1991 by J. G. A. Pocock, who suggests that Pakeha (European) settlers are now becoming tangata whenua (people of the land) in the same way that Maori did. The principal idea examined is what an 'indigenous' identity means once historical claims have been settled by Maori against the Crown, and whether there is any merit in the term 'indigenous'. The article then examines the logic behind the idea of 'original occupation' and the assumed rights associated with this concept.
This essay utilises the concept of the “Māori economy” to explore the story of Māori poverty following colonisation and enrichment after settlement. It merges settler colonisation and institutional economics theories into an analytical framework. Using this framework, it examines the role of settler institutions in Māori impoverishment and makes the case that there is no contemporary Māori economy, arguing a true Māori economy requires culturally-matched political, legal and economic institutions and that without these institutions Māori risk their Treaty settlement funds leaking back into the settler economy.
Māori property rights have been a much discussed topic over the years, but often under false assumptions and pretences. Traditionally accepted views highlight the communal nature of Māori property rights prior to European contact. It is now assumed that individual rights or property rights were a Western construct imposed on Māori, who it is believed held land in common. This article argues that there was no contradiction in the idea of a tribe holding its territory as a collective while also having individual ownership of land and resources. At the same time we need to be careful of over-extending western notions of property to Māori or any other non-western peoples, an outcome of the colonial narrative. This article attempts to remove the idea that property rights among Māori were communal and that individual title rights did not exist. It will do this by looking at the "Kaiapoi Experiment" of 1859.
This paper explores the influence of institutions on indigenous entrepreneurship within the muttonbird economy of Ngāi Tahu (a New Zealand Māori tribe). It determines that colonisation removed the traditional Ngāi Tahu institution of executive authority which once regulated muttonbird exchange. Without this regulatory functionwhānau(family) birders compete against each other at their own expense and to the benefit of traders. As a consequence the birders are constrained in applying their birding knowledge and abilities to realise market opportunity. Furthermore, declining returns and harvesting pressure is in some cases reducing the financial and natural capital ofwhānau, whilst threats to continuing birding culture potentially undermines the socio-human capital contained within inherited traditions and the maintaining of kinship connections. It is argued that the development of a contemporary executive authority to regulate exchange and market product may reinvigorate entrepreneurial birding activities.
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