Transforming geographies: Performing Indigenous‐Māori ontologies and ethics of more‐than‐human care in an era of ecological emergency

Abstract

This paper explores how spatial governance models oriented to the well‐being of the more‐than‐human might better enable Indigenous peoples' capacity to live‐well‐with and care for our more‐than‐human whanaunga (kin). The discussion positions Indigenous more‐than‐human ontologies as a cultural framework that supplants human‐centrism with a focus on holistic ecological well‐being. The paper considers how a culture of holistic ecological well‐being might be spatially emplaced through well‐being‐led planning tools that ground these ontologies in neighbourhoods, cities and wider afield. Currently settler‐colonial spatial governance and planning structures hold dominion in Aotearoa New Zealand, inscribing cultural territories fundamentally other to Indigenous norms. Yet the country's Te Tiriti o Waitangi contracts for tino rangatiratanga (Māori sovereignty), and to meet the Tiriti it is imperative that current spatial governance approaches swiftly converge with Indigenous ethical practices for mauri ora holistic well‐being. There is much at stake. The Petrocene—our current era of ecological breakdown, accelerated by a rapacious petrocapitalism—is a time of mass death of our more‐than‐human whanaunga (kin).

Emerging transitions in organic waste infrastructure in Aotearoa New Zealand

“…This participation and acknowledgment includes appreciating Māori approaches to materiality more generally. In her work with iwi and councils developing urban well‐being strategies, Yates (2021) (Ngāti Rangiwewehi, Ngāti Whakaue, Te Aitanga a Māhaki, Rongowhakaata) draws on concepts of mauri, the innate life force in all things. Mauri is a ‘network of interacting relationships’ (Durie, 2001, p. x), and a force of life present in all things, including things that in Western ontologies are often considered inanimate.…”

“…But often collective action looks more like what Day (2004) calls a politics of direct action , where people start to collectively build different kinds of worlds through everyday practices, like composting. Such collective action can be understood as hybrid assemblages, involving humans and nonhumans (Dombroski, 2016), or the whanaunga and kin identified in a Māori ontological start point (Watene, 2022; Yates, 2021).…”

Diverse more‐than‐human approaches to climate change adaptation in Thai Binh, Vietnam

“…Like Gibson-Graham et al (2013), we understand the concept of 'surviving well' to be about the ways in which livelihood decisions are made to secure material, occupational, social, community and physical wellbeing for communities, households and individuals. Surviving well, however, is not just about the wellbeing of humans but is also about the wellbeing of the wider ecological communities in which humans are embedded (Yates, 2021). Surviving well in climate disruption requires us to recognise that the wellbeing of the planet itself is under duress.…”

Pursuing Plurality: Exploring the Synergies and Challenges of Knowledge Co-production in Multifunctional Landscape Design

“…On the other hand, for the indigenous Māori, the high country is unceded, stolen land, which was taken by the colonial state through institutional trickery and whose social-ecological systems have been exploited and ruined by colonial land management. The reclaiming of this land under indigenous stewardship is a key part of Māori sovereignty claims in current day Aotearoa NZ (Yates, 2021). Such contentions were (and are) in the foreground of discussions within the COE regarding the future of the farm as a multi-functional landscape.…”