Opponents of the pan-or non-tribal approach, however, argue (among other things) that any such prescription gives succour to assimilation impulses which continue to lurk within Crown circles and policies.Īny scholarly effort to define rangatiratanga precisely, or to limit it to particular organisational forms, ignores the clear evidence that different times, places and circumstances have presented different (and always contestable) definitions, configurations and opportunities. In such views, the strong continuation of tribal organisation and ‘mentality’ undermines the united endeavours necessary for negotiating autonomist arrangements. Few would now make such an assessment, but an influential sector considers that contemporary rangatiratanga resides most appropriately or predominantly in pan-tribal or non-tribal groupings – in urban authorities or some kind of regional or national organisation, for example, or in various other non-tribal manifestations of ‘Maoridom’. A number of scholars and others believed, when post-war urbanisation and assimilation policies were at their height, that hapu, iwi, whanau and other tribal configurations were becoming defunct (or changing into quite different types of entities). Te Runanga a Iwi o Ngapuhi was created to ‘confirm the enduring tribal structure to represent its Tino Rangatiratanga’, but in a way that aimed to preserve the ‘independence of each Constituent Community’ within it and to ‘recognise the fundamental importance of whanau’. Most iwi and other broad-based groupings, indeed, have stressed that they act as overarching bodies for their component parts. Rangatiratanga, then, can be expressed multiply, according to the tasks to be performed and the groups involved. Urban Maori advocates generally allow for its exercise within tribal or sub-tribal milieus. Proponents of rangatiratanga residing in either ‘original whanau’ or reconstructed whanau often also allocate rangatiratanga to higher level structures. Still others suggest flexibility: either iwi or hapu can perform the function, for example, according to the protocols and history of each tribal grouping while in certain cases, tribal federations are best placed to represent the people. Proponents of such views sometimes argue that only those institutions or collectives which they nominate can truly embody rangatiratanga. Others claim that the Crown’s negotiating focus on iwi is artificially and destructively imposed upon a socio-cultural situation in which hapu, whanau, urban organisations and pan-tribal or non-tribal bodies individually or severally occupy an important place within the socio-political foundations of modern Maori life. Many agree with this perspective, whether or not they accept the page 277 argument that iwi were reinvented or boosted in the 1980s in ways which suited the Crown and/or capitalism. The head of the Ngai Tahu negotiating team, Tipene O’Regan, defined rangatiratanga as ‘iwi in control of themselves and their assets in their own rohe’. Many Maori and pakeha have believed that iwi provide the sole or best possible basis for achieving rangatiratanga, and a number of both experiments with devolution and Treaty settlements have occurred at iwi level. The interpretation of Crown–Maori relations in this book, however, has avoided prescriptive or instrumental definitions and modes of rangatiratanga and its recognition.
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