Browsing by Author "Wynyard M"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    ‘Not One More Bloody Acre’: Land Restitution and the Treaty of Waitangi Settlement Process in Aotearoa New Zealand
    (MDPI (Basel, Switzerland), 2019-10-31) Wynyard M
    Te Tiriti o Waitangi, signed between Māori rangatira (chiefs) and the British Crown in 1840 guaranteed to Māori the ‘full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their lands’. In the decades that followed, Māori were systematically dispossessed of all but a fraction of their land through a variety of mechanisms, including raupatu (confiscation), the individualisation of title, excessive Crown purchasing and the compulsory acquisition of land for public works. Māori, who have deep cultural and whakapapa (genealogical) connections to the land, were left culturally, materially and spiritually impoverished. Land loss has long been a central grievance for many Māori and the return of land has been a guiding motivation for whānau (extended family), hapū (sub-tribe) and iwi (tribe) seeking redress from the Crown. Since the 1990s, many groups have entered into negotiations to settle their historical grievances with the Crown and while land loss and the deep yearning for its return are central to many Māori claims, precious little land is typically returned to Māori through the settlement process. This paper seeks to critically examine the Treaty settlement process in light of land restitution policies enacted elsewhere and argues that one of the many flaws in the process is the paucity of land returned to Māori.
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    Reinvestigating social vulnerability from the perspective of Critical Disaster Studies (CDS): directions, opportunities and challenges in Aotearoa disaster research
    (Taylor & Francis Group, 2024-01-29) Uekusa S; Wynyard M; Matthewman S
    This article argues that resilience has been overemphasised in popular and scholarly discourse, while social vulnerability has been comparatively overlooked. We therefore need to shift the focus from resilience and adaptation towards vulnerability and the various structures that engender and maintain systemic inequality and disadvantage. This necessitates a shift from strict hazard management and resilience building to considerations of social justice. People should not have to be resilient to ongoing marginalisation and stigmatisation, and, in focusing on individual resilience, systemic disadvantage is obscured. Disaster scholars here must also reckon with the structural violence of colonisation. Aotearoa New Zealand has a unique hazard profile, and it has unique social infrastructures that can help deal with them. The best disaster mitigation and recovery programmes are inclusive and equity driven. Greater attention to Indigenous Knowledge – Mātauranga Māori – and Indigenous institutions, such as marae and the myriad relationships and connections that such institutions support, might potentially play a crucial role in future disaster mitigation and response.
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    Small stories, small acts in sites of struggle: the establishmentof Māori wards in Taranaki
    (The Royal Society of New Zealand, 7/03/2023) Piwari A; Bennett A; Morris C; Wynyard M; Shaw R
    Between 2001 and 2021, the eight iwi of Taranaki entered into Deeds of Settlement with the Crown. These settlements, which saw the Crown acknowledge and apologise for its historical breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, also served to extinguish the rights of Taranaki Māori to seek further redress from the Crown. The Treaty Settlement process over, Taranaki Māori and the many non-Māori that have settled in the rohe (tribal territory) are left to themselves to deal with any lingering tensions, ongoing enmity and forms of structural injustice stemming from the settler-colonial process. This paper is not about the formal processes of colonisation or Crown-initiated attempts to atone for the past through the Treaty Settlement process. Rather, this paper concerns the painstaking work of change undertaken on the ground by local people, Māori and non-Māori alike. It concerns the ‘small stories’ of colonisation, the myriad endeavours of local people working for change in local contexts. In particular, the article concerns the fight for Māori wards on Councils in New Plymouth and South Taranaki, and the extraordinary work done by ordinary people in attempting to forge some kind of future of togetherness in a region riven by the violence of colonisation.