Abstract
-
This article brings perspectives from three Māori activists, each promoting issues of selfdetermination
in different ways. It centres on tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake, two
concepts that inform modern Māori activism and life and practice, and more recently
conceptions of Māoridom as “nation”. Using a Gramscian framework we argue that the New
Zealand state has over time created a notion of one people within one state, and has in the
past incorporated challenges to its legitimacy within a framework of popular consent. The desire
by some Māori activists for self-determination promotes a separateness that to some extent
challenges this idea of nation–state unity. An examination of these modern Māori activist politics
allows us to observe the operations of hegemony as it forms and reforms in modern New
Zealand.