Journal article

The guaranteed Māori seats are a distinguishing and controversial feature of New Zealand’s democracy. In recent years, a number of reports, commentators and politicians have called for the seats to be abolished on the grounds that they are no longer “needed” in New Zealand’s proportional electoral system. These claims are usually grounded in principles of equality. This paper makes the opposite claim: that principles of equality create convincing and coherent justifications for the Māori seats.

In recent times, during the Māori language revitalisation era, there has been a renewed interest in learning and promoting Māori dialects. Iwi identification is often signalled by younger speakers of Māori through pronunciation, idiom, vocabulary and written forms that are thought to be associated with a particular iwi or region. To date, there has not been promotion of a standard form of Māori; standardisation efforts have instead largely focused on lexical/technical development and promoting orthographic consistencies for writing Māori.

Many Māori researchers have mahi-toi skills. Mahi-toi, arts and the production of art, is where a concept takes physical form, and is brought into the physical realm by mahi-ā-ringa. The mahi-toi practitioner is the conduit. When the practitioner is also the researcher and vice versa, these vernaculars can enrich each other, and structure the work. Setting research writing practice beside mahi-toi practice also lends theoretical and analytical frameworks that could be useful for mahi-toi practitioners making the transition to academic research.

The founding of the esteemed Atamira Dance Company (ADC) in 2000 signified a new wave of Māori dance, integrating cultural strengthening with innovation. For instance, the distinguished and founding members of the ADC, Louise Potiki Bryant and Jack Gray, seized the opportunity to collaborate with the inspirational scholar Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal. This paper provides a glimpse into their combined efforts towards developing the breadth and depth of haka through their contribution to the whare tapere recovery.