20 December 2016
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Māori constitutional law lies in stories not statutes
A Victoria University of Wellington law researcher studying Māori constitutional principles is focusing on traditional
kōrero pūrākau (stories) rather than documents, statutes and court reports.
Dr Carwyn Jones, a Senior Lecturer in Victoria’s School of Law, has received one of three new Treaty of Waitangi
Research Fellowships awarded as part of the University’s commitment to ‘Enriching national culture’, one of its areas of
academic distinctiveness.
The Fellowships are for researchers engaging with the foundational importance of Māori culture to New Zealand and the
Treaty of Waitangi as a partnership that enables communities to foster dynamic and productive interactions.
Dr Jones aims to use his Fellowship project to find mechanisms to ensure Māori constitutional principles underpin the
application of the Treaty of Waitangi.
The project builds on his research identifying aspects of legal reasoning and process in the kōrero pūrākau of his iwi,
Ngāti Kahungunu.
“To explore the operation of Māori constitutional practice from inside the Māori legal system itself, so as to
understand Māori constitutional traditions on their own terms, requires the constitutional scholar or practitioner to
look for statements of constitutional law and principle in places other than written constitutional documents, statutes
and court reports,” says Dr Jones.
“Māori constitutional law and principles can be found in a range of cultural expressions, including kōrero pūrākau,
waiata (songs), whakairo (carvings) and karakia (prayers/chants). These sources reveal, among other things, particular
patterns of authority and decision-making (and constraints on constitutional authority).
“I will collect a set of kōrero pūrākau that demonstrate the way Māori concepts such as whanaungatanga (centrality of
kinship), mana (spiritually sanctioned authority) and tapu/noa (the balance between sacred and the everyday) provide
guidance on constitutional matters, in the same way concepts such as the rule of law and the separation of powers inform
existing constitutional arrangements of the New Zealand state.”
Another of the Fellowships has gone to Dr Nikki Hessell, a Senior Lecturer in the School of English, Film, Theatre and
Media Studies.
Dr Hessell will look at the diplomacy involved in journalist Rēweti Tūhorouta Kōhere’s use of British poetry quotations
to reinforce points in his articles in Māori language newspaper Te Toa Takitini during 1926—a year when Māori rights under the Treaty of Waitangi were being contested in parliamentary and popular
debates on the Māori Land Amendement and Māori Land Claims Adjustment Act.
“Because the target readership of the newspaper is so clearly Māori, I’m interested in the fact Kohere sometimes prints
the quotations in English as well,” says Dr Hessell. “I think part of what he’s doing is trying to indicate to a Pākehā
audience that some of their culture is being used in this way. It’s a way of reaching out and saying, ‘We are interested
in your literature, in your culture, and we are talking about it.’
“So I see it as a way of building a bridge to a Pākehā audience that can’t read the Māori content of the newspaper
necessarily but will know they are not being ignored.”
Dr Hessell’s Fellowship research is part of a larger book project in which she is also studying use of British poetry
for indigenous diplomacy in Africa and the United States.
The third recipient of a Treaty of Waitangi Research Fellowship is Dr Simon Perris, a Senior Lecturer in the School of
Art History, Classics and Religious Studies.
Dr Perris aims to remedy national and international neglect of Agathe Thornton (1910–2006), a distinguished classicist
and scholar of Māori oral literature, who he describes as “one of Aotearoa’s unsung cultural heroines”.
As well as recuperating Thornton’s work and bringing it to a new audience, Dr Perris will use Thornton as “a starting
point for rethinking the very idea of classical–Māori comparisons”.
He sees himself as following her lead: “As a scholar of languages, literature and culture, and as a Pākehā living and
working in Aotearoa, my aspiration for this Fellowship is to inspire people, especially other non-Māori, to take Māori
language, myth and literature seriously.”
Dr Maria Bargh, co-chair of Victoria’s ‘Enriching national culture’ steering group and head of the University’s Te Kawa
a Māui/School of Māori Studies, says the three Fellowship recipients exemplify the kind of cross-cultural and
transdisciplinary inquiry that makes Victoria New Zealand’sleading institution for vigorous, imaginative and challenging
research on national culture.
“We are delighted to be able to provide this extra support for Dr Jones, Dr Hessell and Dr Perris through these
Fellowships and very much look forward to the results of their research.”