Tracking Traditional Maori Institutions of Resource Use into Modern Times

Abstract

This study attempts to track the institutions of resource use and management of traditional Maori society into modern Maori institutions. In particular we examine the evolution of these institutions by comparing, contrasting and analysing traditional societal institutions governing the use of resources with the modern evolving institutions. It does this by tracing the historical influences on Maori tribal society and identifying the significant arrangements that made the traditional resource use unique. The paper then compares traditional arrangements with modern structures. The loss of land and the resource base has had a significant effect on the evolution of the Maori, rendering them as a people incapable of developing a particular Maori mode of production. This loss of the 'what might have been' weighs heavily on the mind of many living Maori and now forms a significant component in the Treaty claims process See Douglas Graham (1997) Trick or Treaty, Victoria University Institute of policy Studies, pp 35 - 36. See also Andrew Sharp (1990) Justice and the Maori. Maori Claims in New Zealand Political Argument in the 1980s, pp 20 - 26, where Sharp identifies this grievance as a demand for a social justice developing into two claims, 'reparative justice' and justice in distributions'. However in the restructuring of newer Maori bodies to meet the expectant compensation is it too high an expectation of Maori that the new institutions can deliver the holistic social and economic arrangements that prevailed in traditional Maori societal existence? Or is this possible only under a tribal society? This small study begins with the historical evolution of the Maori tribal society and tracks those elements through to modern times. Key words: tracking the evolution of traditional resource use, metaphysics, whakapapa, rangatiratanga, whanaungatanga, collective society, disenfranchisement, colonial capitalism, State instruments, alienation, Treaty of Waitangi claims, institutional arrangements, corporate iwi