A fine risk: Ethics in Kaupapa Maori politics

Abstract

Kaupapa Māori theory is broadly underpinned by a politics that has strategically promoted forms of cultural essentialism and oppositional political stances/power analyses, which have been useful to the revitalisation of culture and the assertion of rights and recognition. Although they serve Māori struggles, these positions often become less self-consciously strategic, and more often lead to accepted political orthodoxy. At the same time, Kaupapa Māori has asserted the importance of theory developed from indigenous–Māori ways of thinking and acting. In this article I contribute to such a project by reflecting on Māori cultural ethics and what they might offer to theorising social and political relations beyond the oppositional colonised–coloniser binary. With particular reference to the work of Emmanuel Levinas, I argue that Māori orientations suggest an imperative to relationship— not opposition, and to responsibility for others—not simply the assertion of rights claims. A politics informed by Māori cultural ethics glimpses a different, certainly riskier, but ultimately more radical and productive politics.

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