Papatūānukutanga: Reframing Political Ecologies
Literature Review 2 // Emily Rākete’s, Human: Parasites, Posthumanism, and Papatūānuku”
Emily Rākete's In Human: Parasites, Posthumanism, and Papatūānuku offers an exploration of political ecology through a Te Ao Māori lens, while contesting Western anthropocentrism by redefining concepts of agency, sovereignty, and relationality. At the centre of her argument is Papatūānukutanga, a perspective that positions Papatūānuku not as passive landscape but as an active force, a sovereign entity that destabilises colonial frameworks of land ownership and human-centric agency.[1]
This reorientation demands a shift in political ecology: If sovereignty is traditionally assigned to human institutions, then recognising Papatūānuku as a political agent requires redefining sovereignty itself. Rākete argues that colonial systems sever the reciprocal relationship between tangata and whenua, reducing land to property. In contrast, within Te Ao Māori, Papatūānuku is not separate from people, she is our tīpuna, and we are her mokopuna.
Geoff Park writes:
Whenua is a product of people living in Pacific ecosystems in which they understood and regarded themselves as tied to the land, water and life around them, as children of a surrounding, sustaining Earth Mother - Papatūānuku for Māori.[2]
This framing directly challenges Western political thought, where land is inert matter to be owned, extracted from, and controlled. If political agency is not limited to human institutions but extends to land itself, what does this mean for Indigenous governance? What does it mean for environmental ethics? These are questions Papatūānukutanga demands we ask.
Central to Rākete’s argument is whakapapa, which structures relationships not through hierarchy but through connection. Unlike Western ontologies, which prioritise classification and separation, whakapapa recognises all beings, human and non-human, as genealogically linked, forming an indivisible network of mutual dependence.
Hana Burgess and Te Kahuratai Painting describe this structure:
In Te Ao Mārama, all of existence descends from Ranginui and Papatūānuku, our primordial parents. With this, the complementary nature of te ira tane and te ira wahine (masculine and feminine essence) flows through all of creation. Ranginui and Papatūānuku, in their loving embrace, brought into being their children, ngā atua, who found domains in the natural world. After which, ngā atua had children of theirown, and so the natural world, in all its diversity, came (and continues to come) into being as one whānau.[3]
If all beings share whakapapa, then agency is not individual but relational; it is exercised through reciprocity rather than domination. According to Mere Roberts, whakapapa dismisses fixed classifications by situating everything on a scale of mutual reliance.[4]
Roberts goes on to describe this relationship by stating:
Relationships extend beyond the biological to material objects such as stars, as well as spiritual and historical things which are all perceived as somehow related in space-time.[5]
This has profound implications. If whakapapa binds humans, whenua, and all life together, then political structures built on individualism are fundamentally at odds with Indigenous governance. Rākete’s argument suggests that to uphold tino rangatiratanga, Māori sovereignty cannot be discussed solely in human terms, it must also recognise the sovereignty of land itself.
Rākete’s argument that whenua holds agency is not merely theoretical, it is increasingly being recognised in legal frameworks. The 2017 recognition of Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River) as a legal person set a precedent for Māori understandings of land and water sovereignty to be acknowledged within colonial law. More recently, Mount Taranaki was granted legal personhood, reinforcing the idea that whenua is not an inert resource but an active political and legal entity.
This shift mirrors the principles of Papatūānukutanga, where land is not separate from human life but is a tīpuna, an ancestor with authority. If Mount Taranaki is now recognised as having rights and standing within the legal system, it directly challenges the Western notion that land is something to be owned and controlled. It also supports Rākete’s claim that governance must extend beyond ‘human actants’ to include whenua itself.
Māori legal scholar Jacinta Ruru has described these legal changes stating:
It is remarkable that our country has been able to recognise a large forest and a long river as having legal personality as Indigenous ancestors. This is something I never thought would happen, despite arguing it was possible.[6]
By recognising that whenua has legal personhood, the New Zealand government has had to acknowledge a worldview where land possesses mana, agency, and the ability to demand care and respect. This legal shift reinforces the political and ethical obligations outlined in whakapapa; if we are Papatūānuku’s descendants, then our role is not to dominate but to uphold our relational responsibilities to whenua.
The performative space of Papatūānukutanga extends beyond theory into contemporary Māori art, where whenua is not simply depicted but participates as an active agent. Rākete’s argument finds strong parallels in artists such as Areta Wilkinson and Ross Hemera, who incorporate earth pigments into their works to honour whakapapa and the agency whenua holds. Wilkinson’s Tūmatakuru Wears Me uses kōkōwai (red ochre) to symbolise blood, linking the work directly to ancestral practices.[7]
Kahu Kutia states:
There is little more important to us as Māori than our whenua, when we have lost so much of it through colonisation. As such, whenua is and must be treated with care. Even a smear of earth left in a mortar or on the pestle will be saved.[8]
This extends into my own practice, where Matakanatanga (the deep connection to Matakana Island) shapes my approach to whenua. The gathering of earth pigments is not just an act of collection but of exchange. It recognises the mana of the land, my tīpuna, and the histories that shape Matakana.
In line with Papatūānukutanga, the materiality of whenua is not neutral, but carries political, historical, and spiritual weight. The legal recognition of Mount Taranaki as a person provides a real-world manifestation of the concepts explored in this review. Papatūānukutanga is not just a theoretical counterpoint to Western ecological thought, it is now a living political reality that is actively reshaping governance, law, and environmental ethics. These legal shifts show that Māori conceptions of land as kin are not just cultural perspectives but viable political and legal frameworks.
This has profound implications for Māori sovereignty. If whenua can hold legal standing, then so too can Māori claims to self-determination that extend beyond Western property laws. Rather than land being treated as a resource to be extracted from, these legal changes acknowledge that whenua has agency in its own right.
By centering Papatūānukutanga, my work seeks to engage rather than extract, to participate in an ongoing relationship rather than impose meaning. This is not just a conceptual shift but a necessary step toward decolonisation and one that challenges who and what is considered political, sovereign, and worthy of recognition.
NOTES
1. Emily Rākete, October 2016, “In Human: Parasites, Posthumanism, and Papatūānuku.’ Artspace, https://artspace-aotearoa.nz/reading-room/in-human-parasites-posthumanism-and-papatuanuku
2. Geoff Park, Theatre Country, Essays on landscape and whenua (Te Herenga Waka University Print, 2006),242
3. Hana Burgess and Te Kahuratai Painting, Onamata, anamata: A whakapapa perspective of Māori futurisms, in Whose Futures?, ed. Anna-Maria Murtola and Shannon Walsh (Auckland, New Zealand: Economic and Social Research Aotearoa, 2020), 211.
4. Mere Roberts, “Ways of Seeing: Whakapapa,” Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, 97,no.10(1), (2013) https:/ /doi.org/10.11157/sites-vol10iss1id236
5. Roberts,“Ways of Seeing: Whakapapa, 97.
6. Jacint Raru, “First laws: tikanga Māori in / and the law.” Māori Law Review, September, 2018,
https://maorilawreview.co.nz/2018/09/first-laws-tikanga-maori-in-and-the-law/
7. Kahu Kutia, “Whenua is a Portal,” Bulletin, May 31, 2023. Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū.
https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/bulletin/212/whenua-is-a-portal
8. Kutia, “Whenua is a Portal.”