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Thinking on my walk this morning about what I mean when I tell people they’re ‘on Maori land’ without reinforcing and recycling conceptions of land ownership
First of all - given that the word Māori means normal or natural, first and foremost I mean that the land belongs to itself, and to disrupt suggestions that we own it in anyway.
Secondly - given that our tīpuna identified themselves as Māori when approached by settlers, I see the idea of Māori land as reflecting our relationship as descendants form the land similar (but obviously not quite the same) to the concept of tangata whenua
In this, the forced and violent removal of whānau, hapū and iwi from their land directly contributes dissociation of our people from their tūpuna, their teacher, their Ukaipo.
When I say you’re on Māori land, I say so as a way of remembering myself back to her. It’s not a matter of reiterating a grievance which has happened in our (colonial) linear past, but about recognising that my relationship with our whenua endures still.
& that my well-being, like that of a child removed from their whānau, is highly dependent on the restoration of whakapapa. To pursue well-being for our whānau is an absolute enduring right
For settlers to deny the possibility of “Māori land”, to deny the validity of "Māori land" as an invocation which renews our enduring and sustaining relationship to the whenua, is to reflect their own lack of imagination
their insistence on RE-inforcing violent colonial logics and their refusal to allow us to strive towards our own well-being.
