.
Separate but Equal? Or Dominant Discourse?
Negotiating a Place for Māori Science
within a State -Mandated Science Regime, 1986-93
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Introduction
The period from the mid-1980s through until the mid-1990s in New Zealand witnessed the rapid acceptance of Māori science as an equal partner under the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi with what was to become specified and thereafter denigrated as “Western” science. This paper utilises four key Archives New Zealand files spanning the key years 1986-1993 to illustrate an example of successful policy intervention by a relatively small section of the contemporary Māori elite whilst also underlining its essential limitations.
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The Context
By the late 1980s the concept of an indigenous Māori science distinct from but equal with “Western” science was gaining influence in New Zealand among those charged with developing a national science policy for three main reasons. First. the ideology of culturalism was spreading rapidly through the education system and was beginning to penetrate the largely non-Māori, Wellington-based state bureaucracy (Openshaw, 2006). Second, as the nation marked 150 years since the signing of the Treaty, the activities of organisations such as the New Zealand 1990 Commission aimed at alerting a wider public to the potentialities of biculturalism. A Victoria University course planned for that year, for example, was intended by its organisers as one which would explore the natural world from a Māori perspective. Course organisers, aware that many of the participants would be non-Māori, were particularly focused on exploring areas of conflict between “Western” science and Māori understandings of the natural environment (R21170477, Te Pu Taiao. A Māori Perspective on Science).
Third, the legislative context for what was to be a successful policy coup for Māori science advocates had already been laid through a series of Acts passed under the Fourth Labour Government and inherited by the incoming National Government in 1990. These Acts sought to define the purposes of science and technology research within New Zealand; in effect harnessing them to the state and “the national interest.” The State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986, specified the principles governing the operation of State Enterprises, authorising the formation of various state – controlled companies to expedite governmental priorities including those concerned with science research. The Education Amendment Act, 1990, was intended to ensure that tertiary sector education and training would be consistent with the efficient use of national resources in the national interest. The Foundation for Research, Science and Technology Act 1990 established the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology as a Crown Agency with specific responsibilities. Taken together, these Acts were to supply the context for the creation of Crown Research Institutes [CRIs] to be formalised through the forthcoming Crown Research Institutes Act, July 1992. This latter Act provided for CRIs to carry out research and to provide for a range of scientific and advisory services. Thus, the legislative and policy framework for the triumph of Māori science was already extant.
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Enlisting Support
A landmark event for the acceptance of and support for Māori science on the part of those governmental agencies responsible for developing a national science and research policy was the hui called in March 1991 by a Kaumatua Committee set up by kaumatua Charles Mohi, under the auspices of the Crown Research Institutes Implementation Steering Committee [ISC] which convened in the Wellington Offices of the State Services Commission [SSC]. Mohi was evidently considered an ideal choice, given that he was also chairman of Te Runanganui o Ngati Kahungunui [TRONK]. From the outset the Kaumatua Committee Mohi headed was to become the catalyst that enabled Māori Science to gain traction within the Wellington-based policy establishment. A significant reason for this success lay in the Committee’s influential membership. It included Tom Winitana, Te Aue Davis, Rose Pere, Rangi Logan, Tam Nikora, Hareata Tawhai, Sam Taumati, Thelma Wihongi, and John Mackie [the Māori Development Representative]. These individuals collectively constituted an elite grouping of contemporary Māori leaders and opinionmakers. The hui and the recommendations it provided were thus destined to be a major step forward in the final acceptance of Māori Science as the equal partner of “Western” Science by Government ministers and the largely Pakeha bureaucracy.
A further factor in the rapid acceptance of the ISC Kaumatua hui’s ensuing recommendations by the various state agencies primarily responsible for developing a new national science policy was that it was able to draw upon the growing interest in, and passion for, the traditional science knowledge then being promoted by indigenous leaders worldwide on the part of radical academia. It is especially noteworthy in this context that the Kaumatua hui was attended by several members of the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network (WISN), an international organisation then centrally engaged in promoting the contribution indigenous cultures might make globally.
WISN was supported by several agencies concerned with promoting alternative and indigenous cultures located mainly in North America and Mexico. Canada, which country had supplied much of the inspiration for the promotion of biculturalism in New Zealand during the 1950s, featured prominently in the list of the hui’s supporters. These included CAMAI Alaska, an international network linking the Soviet Union and the United States in peace and economic issues; the international Council for Adult Education, a non-government organisation based in Canada; the International Science Centre, University of Calgary, funded by the Canadian Federal Government; the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network is a non-profit organisation conceived at the Indigenous Science Conference held at the University of Calgary in June 1989 and formalized in Mexico in March 1990; the Institute of Noetic Sciences, California, founded by former astronaut Edgar Mitchell to explore new paradigms of science; and the Women’s World Bank. In addition, WISN claimed support from several other agencies located in Mexico and in the United Kingdom. The current director of WISM was listed as being Dixie Belcher, a left-leaning American academic and advocate who was also Director CAMAI, and winner of the 1990 USSR Peace Prize. (International organisations supporting the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network).
The New Zealand Interim Committee of WISN which was to be responsible for the subsequent promotion and dissemination of Māori science within government departments similarly featured an impressive list of what might legitimately be termed the Māori “who’s who of the 1990s. They included: Wira Gardner, CEO, Iwi Transition Agency; Kara Puketapu, Director: Māori International; Whatarangi Winiata, Founder of Te Wananga O Raukawa (the Māori University); Eric Tamepo, Director, Māori and South Pacific Arts Council; Georgina Kirby, Director: Māori Women’s Development Fund; John Clarke, CEO: Manatu Māori; Miriama Evans, Manager: Ministry of Women’s Affairs-Māori Women’s Secretariat; Hector Busby, Nga Waka Association; Trevor Patrick, also of the Nga Waka Association; Marie Wehipeihana, a member of WISM; and Mahinaarangi Wehipeihana, of both the WISN National Committee and the WISN Support Committee (International Organisations supporting the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network).
The hui and its subsequent recommendations did not initially receive uncritical acceptance within the Wellington policy community, however. Two non-Māori observers who attended the ISC Kaumatua Hui have recorded their reactions to the event. In his report to Simon Upton, National’s new Minister for Science and Technology Ministerial Task Group Convenor, Andrew West, sagely observed that:
The hui was led by a well-prepared and politically motivated clique from the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network. Their agenda appeared to be a national recognition of them as the Māori spokes body on science issues, principally through personal membership. That aside, there was a substantial amount of useful discussion, given the silence from (more junior) Māori scientists (West, 1991).
West went on to recommend to Upton that any new MSTG member be “handpicked by you so as to ensure they make a constructive and relevant contribution.” West also believed that the Minister would find nominees from the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network “…highly divisive and unmanageable” especially within the timeframe allowed for further decision making. Wary regarding further nominations from the Māori Congress, he suggested that, if it was to be agreed that MSTG was to have Māori members, they should be more carefully selected (West, 1991).
Warwick Harris, who had earlier played a central role in the organisation of the earlier International Workshop on Ethnobotany at Te Rehua, was considerably more positive in his support of the hui’s general aspirations, believing that Māori aspirations for the inclusion of Māori Science should be embraced by all CRIs. However, he did note that:
There were some who held strongly to the view that things Māori should be left to the Māori, but perhaps a much greater but less vociferous number saw advantages in using the methods of science to restore traditional uses of plants and to build on that traditional knowledge (Harris, 1991, p.7).
Harris went on to point out that, in his view the hui raised questions that went well beyond the hui itself. Even so, he thought that two crucial questions remained unresolved at the hui – who owned knowledge about plants and who owned the plants (Harris, 1991).
These caveats raised by the two non-Māori observers at the hui appear to have been largely set aside at the time. Far more influential was to be a paper claimed to be based directly on the recommendations expressed at the hui and apparently co-authored by Mohi himself. Entitled “Science and the Māori,” this comprehensive paper was to provide the justification for subsequent deliberations across the various agencies collectively comprising the state science policy environment throughout 1992 and 1993 (Science and the Māori, 1991). The paper began by citing the so-called “risk factors” that the ISC Kaumatua Committee and the hui had identified. These included the sociological effects of urban drift and lack of contact between young Māori and their elders, these being defined specifically as tohunga and kaumatua. It was argued that whilst these were the people traditionally entrusted with Māori science and technological knowledge gained through a long period of training, urbanisation and lack of contact were formidable barriers to any Māori science and technology transfer to Māori youth. The paper also contended that the lack of a science policy and hence funding to support traditional Māori organisations concerned with promoting Māori science and technology nationally raised the danger of dominant Western scientific tradition taking control over the Māori scientific knowledge base. (Science and the Māori, p.7).
Drawing upon and amplifying the ideas developed in “Science and the Māori,” a subsequent 15 page paper produced under the auspices of the Crown Research Institutes Implementation Steering Committee in January 1992, sought to both define what was meant by the term, Māori science, and to set out its place in a future state mandated science and research regime (Crown Research Institutes, 1992). Matauranga Māori was defined as a national resource that would materially contribute to advancement of science and technology. As such, it should be organised so that “…Māori as tribally based social, economic and scientific entities [could] participate as partners in the science system. Hence, as full and equal partners with the Crown they would share the responsibility for the development of efficient and effective science and technology priority and funding policy and outcomes, the ultimate aim being to enable Māori to fully participate in science for the purposes of social, cultural and economic development.” (Matauranga Māori – a National Resource, p.2).
There were, however, some caveats noted. First, it was argued that Māori were essentially tribally based. As such, given the sensitivities concerning the guardianship role (tino rangatiratanga) of tribal groups over their Matauranga/intellectual property, the Kaumatua Committee and ISC had previously agreed at the hui that the information contained in the paper could be disseminated only at the discretion of the authors. It was also significant that the term “tohunga” was employed throughout the paper to imply that Māori leaders specialising in fields of matauranga alone could ensure that Matauranga Māori was practised in accordance with the protocols of their specialist disciplines (pp.3-4). Furthermore, unlike Western” science:
Matauranga Māori as accepted by the traditional Māori science community is embedded in Māori science protocols and traditions. Within these cultural confines tohunga have defined scientific principles, processes and practices within a multiple of disciplines to increase Māori knowledge about the physical, biological, natural and social universe.” (p.6).
On p.7-8, the paper outlined the cultural and traditional context of Matauranga Māori. It was emphasised that the myths and legends associated with the story of creation brought forward into the everyday world illustrated the complicated nature of the biological, physical, and social systems developed and managed by the mythological figures involved (p.7). For this reason it was argued that the interrelationship between the particular God involved and the roles they allegedly played in order to sustain the universe provided models for tohunga [defined as being Māori scientists] to interpret. Thus, tohunga alone, as the experts in interpretation, were able to categorise Māori science in terms of their links with the Gods and their wider relationship with physical, biological and natural universe. Selectively borrowing from “Western” science, the paper observed that:
“Esoteric learning [could] include the personification of the sciences eg mathematics comes under the influence of the God Tumatauenga, who [was] the personification of the left brain.” (p.8).
Here it was conceded that, given that here there were essentially two world views, the authors saw fit to caution that some aspects of Matauranga Māori would not link comfortably with the current “western styled science system,” although it was added that resolution of this difficulty “would have to be managed in accordance with Māori protocol” (p.9). In order to preserve Māori science knowledge from extinction, the Kaumatua Committee had the responsibility of establishing links between Matauranga Māori and “Western” Science. Doing this would “signal to Māori that there [was] a political will to establish administrative means for Māori to contribute to science priorities and funding.” Once again, however, it was emphasised that tribal Groups must maintain “kaitiaki” over their property.
This paper concluded by outlining several models for the envisaged partnerships between CRIs and Māori. It was claimed that the most desirable model was where a Māori forum [Whare Mienga] would ensure that Māori science interests [were] incorporated into the science system. The paper emphasised that 1993 would be the International Year for the World’s Indigenous Peoples, a further justification for a partnership approach between Matauranga Māori and Western Science which would carry both scientific and economic benefits, but nevertheless, one in which Māori intellectual property would be required to be efficiently managed.
Just three weeks later, a further draft paper reiterated much the same views, albeit with some modifications (Matauranga Māori. A National Resource, 1992). The paper confirmed that the views of the Kaumatua Committee as to Treaty partnership along with the concept of Māori society as consisting of tribally based social, economic and scientific entities, were integral in considering the future place of Māori science within an emerging state science policy (p.2). The definition of Matauranga Māori, however, was considerably expanded in this paper to include, “the knowledge, comprehension or understanding of everything visible or invisible that exists across the universe” (p.3).
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The Limitations of Partnership
In order to facilitate these highly ambitious objectives for the integration of Māori Science and its associated beliefs and practices into a future national science and research regime the Hon. Simon Upton, National’s Minister of Research, Science and Teaching ruled that the newly established Education and Science Select Committee would oversee a close collaboration between the ISC and the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology [MoRST]. These agencies, in consultation with the Foundation of Research, Science and Technology [FoRST], would be responsible for expediting and preparing the necessary legislation that would formalise the place of Māori Science.
It was also Upton’s intention that both the both the bill enabling the establishment of Crown Research Institutes and Foundation for Research Bill and a new Research, Science and Technology Amendment Bill, be introduced to the House and progressed through the Education, Science and Technology Select Committee simultaneously, To this end, the CRI Implementation Steering Committee,) currently chaired by Sir James Stewart; the Ministry of MoRST; and FoRST, were to work together to prepare their respective legislation regarding Māori science in strict accordance with Treaty principles (Simon Upton to Basil Walker, undated but extant February 1992).
Thereafter, events moved fairly rapidly. In October 1992, a two-day hui involving the CRI Implementation Steering Committee and the ISC Kaumatua Committee took place at Science House, Wellington. (Crown Research Institutes Implementation Steering Committee. ISC Kaumatua Committee Hui, 12/13 October 1992).
By the beginning of Day Two, hui participants had sufficiently progressed to outlining the future strategies necessary for the advancement of Māori Science within the national science policy framework. The hui agreed first, to identify the Māori science and technology transfer interests that were to be generic to all CRIs, including the identification of the resources required to develop a Māori science and technology strategic plan to be implemented by CRIs. Second, its participants resolved to clarify the role and functions of the ISC Kaumatua Committee in the development of individual CRIs responses to Māori science and technology issues. These included the provision of all necessary resources to enable the Kaumatua Committee to carry out its role and functions effectively.
Not surprisingly, even at this comparatively late stage in the negotiations several unresolved matters remained essentially unaddressed. Some of these would persist well into the next century. First, difficulties of interpretation between the Māori leadership and the state bureaucracy persisted. This was particularly evident regarding the issue of protecting Māori ownership of Māori science. Doctor Alan Frampton from the Agricultural Research Institute opined that “the outcome the Government would be looking for would be the development of enhanced science, technology and business contacts with Māori. Whilst this view implied a greater awareness of Māori interests which might then be targeted in individual CRI Statements of Corporate Intent and Business Plans,” it fell somewhat short of ISC Kaumatua Committee aspirations. Second, the hierarchical nature of Māori society meant that even amongst Māori themselves consultation was to remain essentially limited. As early as May 1992, a discussion paper was circulated and public submissions called for. Whilst over 100 submissions were eventually received, it was admitted that only two of these submissions were from identifiable Māori – a response rate of less than 1 per cent. Complaints that the consultation process rarely involved maraes, and that the time allocated to consultation were inadequate also surfaced (Māori Advisory Committee, 11 June 1993). The continuing elitist and therefore limited nature of consultation was to remain. A Māori Advisory Group that MoRST set up in November 1992, for example, consisted of 5 Kaumatua and a representative from the Māori Congress. (Erin Begley to ISC Kaumatua Committee, 12 November 1992). The same criticism can also be levelled at the state bureaucracy itself. Anagrams like ISC, TRONK, MoRST, and FoRST constituted a kind of in-house language that outsiders would have found difficult to penetrate let alone understand. Moreover, exactly what was to be meant by the term, Māori science, and the extent of its implications for either for CRIs or the general public at large was to remain unclear to many involved in the consultation process. (See for instance, Doug Gartner, Director, New Zealand Forest Research Institute to ISC Kaumatua Committee, 13 October 1992).
A further difficulty which was likewise to persist well into the next century concerned the vexed question of ownership that both Harris and Mohi had previously identified. One specific problem concerned the establishment of an efficient administrative mechanism by which Māori would retain access to policy process, particularly regarding priority and funding. Another related issue involved the establishment of a Māori science policy that protected indigenous science knowledge and technology, which in turn implied restricted access to them. Some in the state bureaucracies appear to have envisaged that Māori science had the potential to be utilised as an additional resource to stimulate economic development and business growth across the nation (see for instance, Sir James Stewart, Chair of CRI Implementation Committee to Dr Basil Walker, Chief Executive for Ministry of Research, Science and Technology, 22 October 1992).. The question of exactly whose businesses might benefit and to what end, however, was to remain enigmatic to this day.
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Concluding Remarks
Noting the rise of worldwide indigenous movements during the last three decades of the twentieth century intended to achieve social and economic justice for those marginalised during colonization, Rata argues that there were two major reasons why these ambitious goals were largely not achieved for the majority. The first of these concerned governmental responses to ethnic mobilisation. The second reason was the emergence of elites from within the policies and practices of those government responses (Rata, 2006, p.40).
Rata’s comments are amply borne out in this paper. From the outset of the Māori science policy implementation process, it is abundantly clear that an elite group of Māori leaders, exemplified by the membership of the ISC Kaumatua Committee, were to remain firmly in control of what was a strictly limited process of consultation and implementation. At the outset, it was to be the Committee membership that defined exactly what constituted Māori science. In essence, this meant laying down which Māori were to be regarded as exclusive experts regarding Māori cultural values, and which Māori [the silent majority] were presumably to remain mere consumers of those values. It is also clear that the ISC Kaumatua Committee had a clear interest in the exact nature of the proposed Māori partnership with the Crown regarding the development of a national science policy. Yet whilst more research is clearly needed, this paper also suggests that the non-Māori who made up the vast majority of those in state agencies and in government whilst seemingly supportive of these aspirations had in reality a much more limited notion of what constituted a workable partnership with the Crown.
It is, perhaps, the supreme irony that the ideology of culturalism, a Western European and North American construct, was embraced by Māori science advocates. They based their arguments for parity with what was increasingly defined as “Western” science on two main tenets of culturalism. First, it was argued that the primacy of culture entailed both cultural relativism and also an obligation to rescue indigenous culture from Western Imperialism. Second, it was maintained that placing Māori science on an equal footing with Western science would facilitate social justice for Māori in a Pakeha dominated society.
From a global perspective, the Māori elite responsible for advancing the cause of Māori science during the 1990s might best be described as constituting an ethnically based equivalent of the Professional Managerial Class [PMC]. This powerful group had been recently critiqued by radical American sociologist, Catherine Liu. According to Liu, the PMC in contemporary America is currently waging war, not against the oppressors, but against the victims they once supported (Liu, 2021, introduction). Whilst they consider themselves to be the “heroes of history,” fighting to defend innocent victims, and freely utilising emotive terms such as “empower” as a justification for activism, they at the same time dismiss those they claim to support as politically inert, therefore hardly worth consulting. As with the African American elite, the Māori elite’s aversion to so-called mainstream culture and ordinary Māori alike during the 1990s reveal a rather smug sense of cultural superiority. This conviction, however, has its cost, leading members of the ethnic elite to regard themselves as exclusive cultural leaders engaged in a moral quest of liberation whilst in reality limiting the extent of that liberation for the majority of those they claim to support.
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Begley, B. to ISC Kaumatua Committee, 12 November 1992. R1961565. Māori Science. Archives New Zealand, Wellington.
Crown Research Institutes. Implementation Steering Committee (ISC). Paper on Treaty of Waitangi Clauses in the Crown Research Institutes Bill, 31 January 1992. R1961563. Archives New Zealand, Wellington.
Crown Research Institutes Implementation Steering Committee. ISC Kaumatua Committee Hui, 12/13 October 1992. R1961565. Māori Science. Archives New Zealand, Wellington.
Gartner, G. to ISC Kaumatua Committee, 13 October 1992. R1961565. Māori Science. Archives New Zealand, Wellington.
Harris, W. (1991). Maha Maori O Te Wao Nui a Tana: The human dimension in the great forest of Tana. New Zealand Environment. No 58, pp.5-8.
International Organisations supporting the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network. R1961563. Māori Science. General Issues. Archives New Zealand, Wellington
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Māori Advisory Committee, Māori Participation in Consultation Processes to set long term priorities for the Public Good Science Fund [PGSF], 11 June 1993. R1961565. Māori Science. Archives New Zealand, Wellington.
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Te Pu Taiao. A Māori Perspective on Science. R21170477. Archives New Zealand Wellington.
Science and the Māori. R1961563. Māori Science. General Issues. Archives New Zealand, Wellington.
Stewart, S. To Walker, B. 22 October 1992. R1961565. Māori Science. Archives New Zealand, Wellington.
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Author Note
The author acknowledges the kind assistance of Archives New Zealand in the preparation of this paper.
Taken together, the four files: R1961563, R1961564, R1961565, and R21170477 are central to understanding the interactions between key Māori science advocates and the various state agencies responsible for developing a national science and research policy for the 1990s. It should be noted, however, that the data contained in these files frequently overlap in chronology and occasionally duplicate data, including policy papers, and often under different titles. It is therefore necessary for the researcher to shift between files in order to piece together a chronological sequence of events that allows for a more comprehensive appreciation of public policy development and implementation regarding Māori science during the crucial years,1986-1992.
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