Kaupapa Māori and Multispecies Justice: a reciprocal critique

Abstract

Kaupapa Māori (theory and research which centres Māori (the Indigenous people of New Zealand)) and Multispecies Justice operate as sites of critical resistance and generative scholarship. In this article, I introduce the process of reciprocal critique, and I demonstrate that considering these two fields in relation to each other enables us to imagine ways in which they might be further developed. A Multispecies Justice-motivated critique of Kaupapa Māori urges Kaupapa Māori theorists and researchers to move beyond the anthropocentrism which pervades it, so that we can effectively address a broader range of crises. A Kaupapa Māori-motivated critique of Multispecies Justice admonishes Multispecies Justice theorists and researchers to attend more closely to power disparities, the risks inherent in relational research, and the mysterious. This process, reciprocal critique, could also be used in other contexts—for example, in enabling diverse Indigenous research methodologies to learn from, and enhance, each other.

Introduction

Kaupapa Māori (theory and research which centres Māori (the Indigenous people of New Zealand)) and Multispecies Justice operate as sites of critical resistance and generative scholarship. Kaupapa Māori began as a theoretical space for Māori, opened up by Graham Hingangaroa Smith (1997). It was elaborated into one of the most prominent and clearly articulated Indigenous research methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2021) and other scholars, who continue to develop it. Multispecies approaches to justice, Multispecies Justice, are currently being articulated in an attempt to move beyond the limiting notions of the human which pervade academic theory and research, and to explore relationships among the more-than-human (Celermajer et al., 2020). It benefits both fields to ask, What can Kaupapa Māori and Multispecies Justice learn from, and contribute to, each other? I address this question as a scholar from Kāi Tahu (a Māori tribe, South Island and Stewart Island, New Zealand) who is critically engaging with Multispecies Justice.

Kaupapa Māori

Kaupapa Māori can be characterised as theory and research by, for, and with Māori (L. T. Smith, 2015). It is important to note, however, that not all theory and research undertaken by Māori is considered Kaupapa Māori, and that the phrase kaupapa Māori (Māori approach) is itself used in a wide variety of ways. In this article, I use the term Kaupapa Māori to refer to initiatives which explicitly whakapapa (elaborate on) the foundational scholarly work of Graham Hingangaroa Smith (1997) and Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2021).

Kaupapa Māori theory arose with the Māori education movement, which gained momentum in the 1980s. Following the first kohanga reo (Māori-run Māori-medium early childhood centres), kura kaupapa Māori (Māori-medium primary schools), were established. The term Kaupapa Māori was initially used to describe the philosophy underpinning these schools (G. H. Smith et al., 2012), and Kaupapa Māori theory was central to the development of those initiatives. Kaupapa Māori theory was first articulated by Māori educationalists, most notably Graham Hingangaroa Smith (1997), who drew on mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) and the work of critical theorists such as Antonio Gramsci (1971), Paulo Freire (1972), and Jürgen Habermas (1984, 1987). The influence of critical theory on Kaupapa Māori has been significant: ideas of critique, resistance, struggle, and emancipation are integral to it (L. T. Smith, 2021).

Kaupapa Māori theory explicitly, and deliberately, centres Māori perspectives. It also engages a process of praxis. As Graham Hingangaroa Smith (2017) explains, “theory is both made and remade within a dynamic process of organic enactment and critical reflection” (p. 79). Significantly, it aims to generate positive outcomes for Māori communities and individuals.

Kaupapa Māori theory has been elaborated as an approach to research by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2021) and other scholars (Bishop, 2008; Hoskins, 2012, 2017; Mika, 2017; Moewaka-Barnes, 2015; Pihama, 2015; Royal, 2012). In her book Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2021) explains that, historically, research has had negative consequences for Māori:

Research is implicated in the production of Western knowledge, in the nature of academic work, in the production of theories that have dehumanized Māori and in practices that have continued to privilege Western ways of knowing, while denying the validity for Māori of Māori knowledge, language and culture. (p. 239)

As such, it has impinged on the agency of Māori communities. In response to this, Māori—like other Indigenous peoples—have had to retrieve space, to convince ourselves of the value of research to us, to persuade powerful research communities of the need for more Māori involvement, and to develop approaches to research that are appropriate for us.

Kaupapa Māori is especially concerned with benefits:

Kaupapa Māori approaches to research are based on the assumption that research that involves Māori people, as individuals or as communities, should set out to make a positive difference for the researched. This does not need to be an immediate or direct benefit . . . . Obvious as this may be, it must be remembered that, historically, Indigenous peoples have not seen the positive benefits of research. (L. T. Smith, 2021, pp. 247–248)

An important debate within Kaupapa Māori concerns who can—and cannot—undertake Kaupapa Māori research, and under what circumstances it is permissible to do so. Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2021) points out that many thinkers have argued that “being Māori, identifying as Māori and as a Māori researcher” is critical (p. 243). Nonetheless, several influential Kaupapa Māori projects involve collaborations between Māori and non-Māori (Hoskins & Jones, 2012, 2017), and non-Māori researchers have theorised the relationship between Kaupapa Māori and non-Māori people and cultures (Jones, 2012; Suaalii-Sauni, 2017). Those who believe there is a role for non-Māori typically argue that Kaupapa Māori projects should be led by Māori (Malpas et al., 2017; Wild et al., 2021), and that non-Māori researchers must exercise a high level of critical reflexivity to ensure their involvement does not undermine its aims (Hoskins & Jones, 2012; G. H. Smith et al., 2012).

Since Kaupapa Māori was first articulated as an approach to research, it has primarily informed research in education, health, and law. There are, as Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2021) explains, important reasons for this:

Kaupapa Māori is concerned with sites and terrains. Each of these is a site of struggle . . . . We are not at present interested in nuclear physics but we are becoming interested in genetic science. There are sound reasons why we are interested in education, employment, health and history. Each of these domains situates us in crisis. They are more real and more pressing. (p. 247)

However, in recent years, it has been extended further, into areas as diverse as sustainable development (Ruwhiu et al., 2022), business (Puriri & McIntosh, 2019), and even computer science (Rolleston et al., 2021). It has achieved widespread endorsement among Māori, and much of the research that is currently undertaken by Māori explicitly adopts a Kaupapa Māori frame.

Kaupapa Māori is often described as a methodology; however, I believe it is also accurate to refer to Kaupapa Māori methodologies, in the plural. Some researchers have developed innovative Kaupapa Māori approaches, which they present as methodologies. For example, Merata Kawharu, Paul Tapsell, and Paratene Tane (2024) articulate what they call “whakapapa [genealogy] methodology” (p. 65), describing it as an iteration of Kaupapa Māori research. They explain, “[Kaupapa Māori research] provides us a generalised canvass [as written in original work] by which our researchers engage customary Māori values in Māori kin community research contexts through the indigenous [as written in original work] lens of whakapapa” (Kawharu et al., 2024, p. 66). Relatedly, social work educator Marjorie Lipsham (2020) has developed Mātauranga-ā-Whānau, which she describes as “a distinctively Māori [methodological] approach which centres knowledge and practices that are embedded within whānau [extended families]”, and which “is founded upon Kaupapa Māori theory and Mātauranga Māori” (p. 17). She notes that there are “multiple ways of expressing Māori theories and methodologies”, explaining that her approach centres whānau knowledge and practices, and the ways in which these are transmitted across generations (Lipsham, 2020, p. 17). Kaupapa Māori can, then, be understood both as a methodology and as methodology-generating—and this understanding reflects its usefulness to us as Māori. By referring to Kaupapa Māori methodology and methodologies, we can build on what unites us, and respond to the diversity within Māori communities, such as that experienced by whānau, hapū (sub-tribes), and iwi (tribes).

It is worth noting that, among the world’s Indigenous research methodologies, Kaupapa Māori is perceived as being relatively broad in scope (Moreton-Robinson, 2013). I believe that this is one of its strengths, and it suggests—as I will argue later—that there is potential for it to address an even broader range of crises than it currently does.

Multispecies Justice

Multispecies Justice emerged as a distinct academic field even more recently than Kaupapa Māori did—and like Kaupapa Māori, it has a wide variety of antecedents (Celermajer et al., 2021; Winter, 2023).

The term Multispecies Justice arose as scholars, working within and across a range of disciplines, grappled with increasingly urgent ecological crises. Donna Haraway (2008) is credited with coining the term in her book When Species Meet. However, it was Ursula K. Heise (2015) who first articulated an approach to thinking about justice under the term Multispecies Justice. Working within the fields of comparative literature and cultural studies, Heise (2015) gave a keynote address at the Green Citizenship Symposium, in which she suggested that Multispecies Justice could frame environmentalist thinking. The following year, she published Imagining Extinction: The Cultural Meanings of Endangered Species (Heise, 2016). With reference to anthropological work on multispecies ethnography (Kirksey, 2014; Kirksey & Helmreich, 2010), environmental philosophy, ecofeminism, and the writing of Deborah Bird Rose (2011), Heise (2016) combined multispecies theory and environmental justice to address what she termed Multispecies Justice. Around the same time, Jamie Lorimer (2015) published Wildlife in the Anthropocene: Conservation after Nature, articulating the need for a cosmopolitical approach to ecology and advocating for “a multispecies model of justice” (p. 193). This, together with Haraway’s (2016) book Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, contributed to a great deal of activity.

Among the most influential recent work on Multispecies Justice is that led by Danielle Celermajer (Celermajer et al., 2020, 2021, 2023) at the Sydney Environment Institute. With a particular focus on political theories of justice, Celermajer and her colleagues attempt to articulate and extend its theoretical commitments and imagine what the institutionalisation of Multispecies Justice might entail. Their work has offered direction for, and given impetus to, this rapidly expanding field (Celermajer et al., 2020, 2021, 2023).

Multispecies Justice challenges widespread assumptions about justice by critically interrogating anthropocentrism. As Celermajer et al. (2021) explain, it “seeks to understand the types of relationships humans ought to cultivate with more-than-human beings so as to produce just outcomes” (p. 120). In doing so, Multispecies Justice theorists ask critical questions about the ontological status of humans relative to other beings (Celermajer et al., 2021; Thaler, 2021), and re-examine our relationships with them. As well as encouraging us to reimagine our relationships—not only with and between other animals, plants, fungi, and so on, but also with ecological environments—it calls on us to attend to diverse perspectives. For example, many scholars believe we should attempt to imagine the lifeworlds of non-human animals (Celermajer et al., 2020, 2021). At the same time, some seek to re-centre marginalised Indigenous understandings (Celermajer et al., 2021; Tschakert et al., 2021; Winter, 2022, 2023). As well as responding to urgent environmental challenges—as Celermajer et al. (2020, 2021) did in the wake of the Australian bushfires in the summer of 2019 to 2020—Multispecies Justice strives to enhance our apprehension of them. For example, Petra Tschakert et al. (2021) explain that Multispecies Justice broadens our understanding of both the causes and harms of the climate crisis.

An intriguing theme within Multispecies Justice scholarship—and one which I shall return to later in this article—is wonder. In recent years, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer (2022) has explicitly extended Martha C. Nussbaum’s (2006, 2017) Capabilities Approach and the notion of biocentric wonder in terms of Multispecies Justice, or, as he prefers, “multi-species justice” (Bendik-Keymer, 2022, p. 321). While this is a noteworthy development, we do not need to endorse Bendik-Keymer’s (2022) approach—or Nussbaum’s (2017), for that matter—to affirm the importance of wonder. And there is cause to be critical: Bendik-Keymer’s (2022) understanding of justice is premised on the highly dubious assumption that non-humans do not, and cannot, wonder.

I believe we need to return to wonder, and that wonder can and should underpin multispecies inquiry. Wonder is integral to understanding, especially in contexts where understanding requires imagination. However, wonder is not valuable only, or even primarily, because it enables us to see “how something makes sense” (Bendik-Keymer, 2022, p. 323); rather, wonder allows us to engage with the more-than-human as it really is, and on its own terms at least as much as on ours. Importantly, wonder can lead us to value things we may not previously have cared for or about. In her article, The Truth of the Barnacles: Rachel Carson and the Moral Significance of Wonder, Kathleen Dean Moore (2005) explores the ways in which wonder bridges the “physical world” and the “moral world” (p. 267). She contends that wonder has an ethical dimension, shaping our engagement with the epistemological worlds in which we find ourselves—worlds which have, for too long, been construed as at odds, or in competition, with each other.

Significantly, Multispecies Justice also suggests new directions for research. By inviting us to attend to relationships that have been ignored or neglected, it uncovers fresh sites for research; and by exposing the inherent limits in traditional modes of inquiry, it encourages researchers to innovate new ways of doing research that enhance our relationships.

Affinities between Kaupapa Māori and Multispecies Justice

There are a number of strong affinities between Kaupapa Māori and Multispecies Justice. Just as Kaupapa Māori radically reimagines research practice, so Multispecies Justice challenges researchers’ assumptions about our relationships with, and obligations to, the more-than-human world, urging us to devise fresh approaches to inquiry. Moreover, both fields place a strong emphasis on praxis. As I noted above, Graham Hingangaroa Smith (2017) affirms the importance of “critical praxis” to Kaupapa Māori (p. 79). Similarly, Subhankar Banerjee (2018) construes Multispecies Justice in terms of praxis, noting that it has a practical focus on “[bringing] concerns and conservation of biotic life and habitats into alignment with environmental justice and Indigenous rights” (para. 13).

Furthermore, both fields—although this is done much more consistently within Kaupapa Māori—elevate de- and anti-colonial theory, pointing to the intertwined injustices inherent in colonisation and emphasising the importance of Indigenous worldviews to recovering and generating knowledge about our world and addressing the crises that confront us.

Leonie Pihama (2015) describes the relationship between Kaupapa Māori and decolonisation:

Indigenous peoples’ theoretical voices have rarely been heard, let alone engaged in with the same status as those of the West . . . . Kaupapa Māori theory, it is argued, provides us with the potential to continue a tradition of thinking about, explaining and understanding our world that is not the domain of colonising forces, but has been part of Indigenous peoples’ worlds since creation. It is evolving from a base of being Māori, from whānau, hapū, iwi and from collective Māori movements. (p. 14)

Relatedly, Tschakert et al. (2021) explain that attending to Indigenous worldviews is integral to the development of Multispecies Justice:

Developing diverse ways of knowing entails learning to attend, respond, and articulate, possibly in more-than-verbal ways. In this regard, we have much to learn and gain from Indigenous frameworks, practices, and protocols of [Multispecies Justice], and ways of co-becoming with, predicated as they are on genealogies of deep relationality. (p. 6)

Multispecies Justice theorists who recognise the importance of engaging with Indigenous perspectives often draw on such work as Robin Wall Kimmerer’s (2013) writing on relationality and Zoe Todd’s (2016) theorising about decolonial scholarship.

In her article, Unearthing the Time/Space/Matter of Multispecies Justice, Christine Winter (2023), a theorist from Ngāti Kahungunu (a Māori tribe, Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa, North Island, New Zealand), writes that Multispecies Justice has precedents in Indigenous worldviews:

There is nothing “new” about the field of [Multispecies Justice] . . . . It is a field of philosophy that has engaged the minds of Indigenous peoples (and possibly all peoples) for millennia. It is a field of philosophy that is well theorized, and operationalized. Indigenous peoples have thought and continue to think deeply about these matters; have developed complex understandings of the interweave of human and nonhuman; have protocols, procedures and practices to ensure the resulting ideas of justice are enacted; and provide ongoing evidence of their efficacy. (p. 43)

It is worth noting that, just as Winter rejects the notion that Multispecies Justice is new, some Kaupapa Māori theorists contend that Kaupapa Māori itself is not new (Pihama, 2015; G. H. Smith, 1997).

Māori ideas and perspectives already occupy a prominent place in Multispecies Justice. Although Multispecies Justice, as an academic field, emerged relatively recently, and despite much of this research having been conducted outside of Aotearoa (New Zealand), Māori examples have been woven into foundational Multispecies Justice texts as a direct result of the early and influential involvement of Māori researchers in this work—most notably, Winter and Makere Stewart-Harawira, a theorist from Waitaha (a Māori tribe, South Island, New Zealand), who were among the co-authors of two particularly important articles, Multispecies Justice: Theories, Challenges, and a Research Agenda for Environmental Politics (Celermajer et al., 2021) and Multispecies Justice: Climate-just Futures with, for and Beyond Humans (Tschakert et al., 2021).

Reciprocal critique

Kaupapa Māori and Multispecies Justice can be brought closer together through reciprocal critique. I envision reciprocal critique as a process whereby two or more approaches are considered in relation to each other, with the aim of enhancing them all. Reciprocity is an important concept in te ao Māori (the Māori world), as it is in many Indigenous worldviews (Winter, 2023), and so it informs this process. Reciprocal critique is inherently sympathetic: it aims to strengthen the approaches under consideration. Significantly, this process should not be thought of as a one-off exercise; rather, by analysing diverse approaches together, it brings them into relationship, encouraging ongoing exchange.

Given the strong affinities between Kaupapa Māori and Multispecies Justice, it benefits both fields to ask what they can learn from, and contribute to, each other by way of reciprocal critique. Asking this question is generative, as it prompts us to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of each. This can assist us in considering how they might be developed, so that we can address their weaknesses and build on their strengths.

I anticipate that, should these two fields continue to flourish, many Māori scholars will find that their research projects can be positioned within both simultaneously. For this reason, inquiring into the ways in which they critique each other could benefit Māori researchers in the future. Moreover, I contend that any researcher working in either field could learn from both approaches—even if their research does not fit within both.

How does reciprocal critique proceed? The process itself depends on, and is responsive to, the particular approaches under consideration. In this instance, it is especially important to attend to relations of power. Whereas Kaupapa Māori constitutes an Indigenous intervention within a traditionally hostile academy, Multispecies Justice readily passes as a Western approach, and sometimes operates in accordance with colonial logics. It would, therefore, be problematic to suggest that all Multispecies Justice theorists have licence to critique Kaupapa Māori in any way they wish. Moreover, and as I noted above, questions of who can engage in Māori research, and under what circumstances, are central to Kaupapa Māori. For these reasons, a reciprocal critique of Kaupapa Māori and Multispecies Justice privileges the perspectives of Indigenous researchers working within each field, and importantly, it calls on Indigenous theorists to lead the ongoing exchange that I hope will arise out of it.

In the following sections, I consider first Kaupapa Māori, then Multispecies Justice, through this process of reciprocal critique, bringing the two fields into relationship.

Critiquing Kaupapa Māori

As I noted above, Multispecies Justice centres the more-than-human world (Celermajer et al., 2021). In doing so it deliberately critiques anthropocentrism, an orientation which propagates human exceptionalism—the problematic view that humans are distinct from, and superior to, the rest of the natural world. A critique of anthropocentrism can and should be brought to bear on Kaupapa Māori, not least because our relationships with the world beyond the human are central to mātauranga Māori, which is meant to inform that approach (Royal, 2012). So far, Kaupapa Māori has largely ignored non-humans; more surprisingly, given the emphasis that we as Māori typically place on tiakitanga (care for the natural world), it has also failed to attend, in a sustained way, to environmental issues. Where it has considered the more-than-human world, it has done so primarily for the benefit of humans.

This is not to say that there is no Māori-led research into environmental issues. There is, in fact, an abundance of such research (Johnson et al., 2023; Parsons, 2023; Ruckstuhl et al., 2023; Ruru, 2018; Watene, 2016). However, it is unclear whether, and to what extent, such research can be accurately characterised as Kaupapa Māori, given that the majority of it is not framed as Kaupapa Māori, and most of it does not cite the field’s foundational theorists. It might be argued that this research qualifies as Kaupapa Māori because it adheres to the values and principles underpinning Kaupapa Māori theory—although this can be difficult to determine when its methodology is not explicitly discussed in terms of Kaupapa Māori. Alternatively, it could be suggested that Māori have already secured the space that Graham Hingangaroa Smith (1997) opened up within the academy, and so there is no longer any need to position our research within it. However, while it is true that all Māori research benefits from the space opened up by Kaupapa Māori theorists, that space is inherently vulnerable—existing as it does within the Western academy, which has an ongoing history of hostility towards Indigenous knowledges—and so, it needs to be continuously reaffirmed and defended.

I understand as Kaupapa Māori those initiatives which explicitly whakapapa (elaborate on) the foundational work of Graham Hingangaroa Smith (1997) and Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2021). I contend that we, as Māori researchers, should continue to reiterate this genealogy and cultivate the space that those theorists created, and that Multispecies Justice could support us to do so in ways that engage much more closely with mātauranga Māori. Māori research into the more-than-human world has the potential to be more critical, more robust, and indeed more Māori if it explicitly positions itself in relation to Kaupapa Māori, because Kaupapa Māori theory requires researchers to clearly justify their research in relation to Māori values and practices. There are benefits to doing this even if we stop short of aligning ourselves with, or describing our research as, Kaupapa Māori—strategies which may, themselves, sometimes be necessary to facilitate important critiques of it.

Why has Kaupapa Māori largely ignored the more-than-human world? As I noted above, Kaupapa Māori is primarily concerned with areas of crisis for Māori. Due to the severe social inequities experienced by Māori, this has led Kaupapa Māori researchers to prioritise areas such as education, health, and law. I suspect that this anthropocentric way of conceptualising crisis has discouraged Kaupapa Māori research into ecological crises such as climate change, environmental degradation, and accelerating biodiversity loss, each of which arguably constitutes as serious a crisis as any other for us as Māori—as well as for others, human and non-human. Another reason for silence on these issues may be a concern that focusing on the more-than-human world would undermine the perceived seriousness of Kaupapa Māori, which could limit its impact as an intervention. It might be argued that it is for other theories and theorists working within different fields—like Multispecies Justice—to address such issues, or that Kaupapa Māori, as a theoretical framework, is in too early a stage of its development, and therefore too fragile, to be extended much further beyond the areas of crisis it first focused on.

However, I would resist such reasoning. First, in response to the suggestion that it is for other theories and theorists working within different fields to address these issues, it should be acknowledged that the critique of Western research underpinning Kaupapa Māori refutes this suggestion. The argument that Western research is colonising and extractive is as much an argument against leaving it to address important issues as it is an argument for Māori to get involved ourselves. Furthermore, the ecological crises which Multispecies Justice aims to address—which it conceptualises as interconnected, and intertwined with other crises—are already impacting Māori, and are likely to affect us particularly severely, as Indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to the effects of ecological degradation (Grix & Watene, 2022; Schramm et al., 2020). In ignoring these issues, Kaupapa Māori researchers are foregoing opportunities to address problems that will seriously impact us as Māori.

As for the suggestion that Kaupapa Māori is too vulnerable to be extended any further, my response is that Kaupapa Māori is continuously being extended, and its responsiveness is one of its great strengths. As I noted above, Kaupapa Māori has already been extended beyond the “domains” of crisis it initially focused on (L. T. Smith, 2021, p. 247). That there is scope for extending it further, beyond the human, becomes even clearer when we consider that this has already been attempted. In their essay, Non-Human Others and Kaupapa Māori Research, Te Kawehau Hoskins and Alison Jones (2017) consider the mark, or signature, Hongi Hika, a prominent Māori chief, added to a land deed prior to the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) in early colonial New Zealand. In doing so, they explain that,

Māori constantly evoke relational ontologies and recognise that the non-human world has agency. That is, Māori take for granted that the material things of the world—whether a forest, a lake, or a building—can “speak” to human beings; we are always already in relation with certain material objects. And yet, Kaupapa Māori researchers and methodologies are relatively silent on the place of the material world and human-non-human relations in the framing of research. (Hoskins & Jones, 2017, p. 49)

This fascinating piece explores metaphysical questions using a Kaupapa Māori frame—but it is equally as fascinating, when read through a Multispecies Justice lens, for what it omits as much as for what it reveals. The author’s analysis of Hika’s mark attempts to centre the more-than-human, and the fact that it does not quite succeed in doing so further exposes the anthropocentrism which pervades Kaupapa Māori research. Non-humans and ecological environments appear at various points in this essay; but when they are mentioned, they are subsumed beneath the human. Hoskins and Jones (2017) write,

hundreds of thousands of elements came together in this mark: churning assemblages of dead trees and birds and plants (the paper, quill, and ink), cotton sails, sea waves, wet wood, fantasies of power, warm bodies, rough ropes, landscapes, religious theories, sweat, pointing hands, axes stacked together, a sly container of gunpowder not mentioned on the deed, bird song . . . entangled together to congeal in this text created within swirling, ongoing, and incommensurable, indigenous [as written in original work] and imperialist meaning systems. (p. 60)

Although this passage, like the essay itself, prompts us to consider how encompassing the term non-human can be, it does so by privileging the human. That this is the case in an essay which is explicitly concerned with non-human others suggests an unwillingness, if not an inability, on the part of Kaupapa Māori to really look beyond the human.

Will Kaupapa Māori extend further beyond the human, just as it is predicted to become more open to the involvement of non-Māori (G. H. Smith et al., 2012)? I believe it must. Our reluctance to attend to the more-than-human world is constraining us, preventing us from critically engaging with crises that threaten us all. However, if Māori theorists wish to develop Kaupapa Māori in this way, we will have to interrogate the anthropocentrism that pervades Māori worldviews. This will take courage.

I expect my assertion that anthropocentrism pervades Māori worldviews to encounter resistance, as it is an uncomfortable one, and it challenges popular beliefs. It is sometimes said that te ao Māori, by virtue of its Indigeneity, eschews anthropocentrism and attendant notions of human exceptionalism and supremacy, but this is—emphatically—not the case. Consider the popular whakataukī (proverbial saying of unknown authorship), for which Barlow (1991) offers a translation:

Hūtia te rito o te harakeke,

Kei hea rā te kōmako e?

Ka kī mai koe, he aha te mea nui,

Ka kī atu au –

He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

. . .

Pluck the centre shoot of the flax

And where will the bell-bird be?

You will say, What is the thing of most importance?

And I will reply,

It is people, it is people, it is people. (pp. 80–81)

Although it incorporates a more-than-human frame, situating us within te taiao (the natural world), it ends by affirming human supremacy. Consider, moreover, the ways in which hapū and iwi have actively embraced extractive industries, such as intensive dairying and commercial fishing, which not only cause unnecessary harm to non-human animals, but are also ecologically destructive. Finally, and as I demonstrate in this article, consider the extent to which many Kaupapa Māori researchers have allowed themselves to ignore the more-than-human world, despite the fact that relationships with the world beyond the human are central to mātauranga Māori, and despite the fact that we, too, are vulnerable to its crises.

An intriguing question, and one which warrants further exploration, is: In what ways does the anthropocentrism that pervades Māori worldviews differ from that inherent in Western epistemologies? I suspect that anthropocentrism operates differently in Māori and Western worldviews, and that Māori epistemologies, to a greater extent than Western epistemologies, carry within them the philosophical tools necessary to transcend the anthropocentrism of both. Kyle Powys Whyte (2016), writing of his own people, characterises Potawatomi (an Indigenous people, Great Lakes and Great Plains, Canada and USA) society as “multispecies” (p. 89). A similar claim might be made about Māori communities, given the ways in which our own approaches to being and knowing relate us to the more-than-human world. However, this does not mean Kaupapa Māori should only positively engage with Māori ideas, as some theorists might argue. Leonie Pihama (2015), for example, has written that, “in order to understand, explain and respond to issues for Māori, there must be a theoretical foundation that has been built from Papatūānuku [Earth mother], not from the building blocks of imported theories” (p. 11). I believe we can affirm the value of mātauranga Māori while also having the humility to learn with—and be productively challenged by—other traditions. It is worth remembering that Māori theorists generated, and continue to develop, Kaupapa Māori by engaging with both Māori and non-Māori theories, including critical theory (G. H. Smith et al., 2012), which has contributed to its strength as a Māori approach. Incidentally, an exploration of the anthropocentrism in Māori thinking, and how we might transcend it, could constitute a strong Kaupapa Māori-Multispecies Justice project.

Critiquing Multispecies Justice

Just as Multispecies Justice reveals some of the constraints on Kaupapa Māori as it is currently being elaborated, so Kaupapa Māori challenges Multispecies Justice.

First, Kaupapa Māori admonishes Multispecies Justice to become much more sensitive to power. As we have seen, Kaupapa Māori interrogates power disparities between the researcher and the researched. Research has, historically, seen Indigenous peoples and cultures studied by others, often to our detriment. When we consider the relationships between humans, non-humans, and the environments we inhabit, the power disparities are—arguably—even greater. Human encroachment into the lives of non-humans, and our devastating impact on ecological systems, has long been harmful, and it is quickly becoming catastrophic. Multispecies Justice recognises, and is drawing attention to, these harms; however, it has not yet sufficiently interrogated the power imbalances within our research relationships. I believe that this can be explained, to a large extent, by the foundational influence of anthropology—an anthropocentric discipline—on multispecies inquiry generally. That anthropology is the discipline many Indigenous thinkers associate with the colonising impacts of research (L. T. Smith, 2021) suggests that problematic power dynamics of hierarchy and control might be silently transposing themselves.

Encouragingly, questions of power are now being addressed within the developing practice of multispecies ethnography (Hamilton & Taylor, 2017; Ogden et al., 2013; Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., 2016). For example, Kathryn Gillespie (2022) discusses power disparities between researchers and the subjects of research in her article For Multispecies Autoethnography, writing:

Research involving other species is already wrought with ethical issues because of the profound power imbalances that often subject other species to bodily and reproductive control, instrumentalization, violence, infantilization, and relational severings by humans . . . . How to study the lives, labors, relationships, subjectivities, and deaths of other species, then, poses serious challenges both ethically and methodologically. (pp. 2098–2099)

To mitigate these imbalances, Gillespie (2022) advocates autoethnography: “methodology that combines ethnography with autobiography,” facilitating critical reflection on the part of researchers (p. 2099). She argues that by politicising intimate relationships between humans and non-humans, multispecies autoethnography “can highlight aspects of human-animal relations that may be obscured in research that does not attend fully to the researcher’s situatedness in a web of multispecies relations” (Gillespie, 2022, p. 2100).

Given that Multispecies Justice, as a field, is explicitly concerned with political questions, it is troubling that the issue of power imbalances, especially as they relate to researchers and the subjects of research, are not consistently being foregrounded. There is a very real risk that Multispecies Justice will reinscribe hierarchical logics and perpetuate exploitative practices unless these power imbalances are accounted for and processes developed to mitigate them. This applies not only to research practices, but also to the decision to study the more-than-human world in the first place. Just as non-Indigenous researchers and institutions have engaged in extractive practices through which they have benefitted without contributing anything of value to the Indigenous peoples they have researched (L. T. Smith, 2021), so research on non-humans and the environments we inhabit is liable to exploit the more-than-human world, with the primary beneficiaries being the researchers who, and institutions which, initiate and engage in research. This danger will only increase as Multispecies Justice as a field establishes itself, and as research into Multispecies Justice attracts more funding. Addressing it will involve continuously re-centring, in critically reflexive ways, a key question which underpins Kaupapa Māori research, and one which, as Eben Kirksey and Sophie Chao (2022) point out in their introduction to a recent collection of writing, can also motivate Multispecies Justice: “Who benefits?” (p. 1). The answer cannot only be the researchers, any more than it can be primarily humans. Unfortunately, primarily humans seems to be the implicit answer given to this question by some of that recent collection’s contributors (Chao et al., 2022).

Second, and relatedly, Multispecies Justice would benefit from being more sensitive to the risks inherent in relational research. In her essay, A Provocation for Kaupapa Māori, Te Kawehau Hoskins (2017) discusses the possibilities and risks inherent in relational research. She challenges the binary identity politics underpinning Kaupapa Māori—Māori–Pākehā (New Zealand European), colonised–coloniser, et cetera—which, she explains, developed “because it has been strategically useful” (p. 97). She argues that our relational reality has, in fact, been much more complex, and she challenges the view which holds that Māori are only ever victims, a position which discounts our agency and constrains Kaupapa Māori approaches. Such a critique allows for a more accurate accounting of the possibilities and risks inherent in research—a theme Hoskins (2012) explores in another article, where she argues that “ethical openness” will result in generative thinking (p. 95).

Multispecies Justice exhibits such openness. More than many other approaches, it emphasises agency and entanglement (Celermajer et al., 2021). However, the extent to which it has appropriately accounted for the risks inherent in relational research is questionable. A provocation for Multispecies Justice, then, might be to carefully consider what is at risk in research beyond the human. It may be tempting to believe we have little to lose, given the converging ecological catastrophes that threaten us—but is that the case for all of us in this we, or only those who are instigating research? In centring the world beyond the human, Multispecies Justice brings it more fully into the domain of human inquiry. However, in doing so, it not only opens up possibilities for greater understanding; it also risks entrenching acquired misapprehensions and introducing novel misunderstandings. To be sensitive to the implications of research is to appreciate that not all of its implications can be anticipated. The misunderstandings that will likely arise as we grapple with multispecies entanglement may influence new technologies and institutions which—although they cannot possibly be anticipated from this vantage point—could end up further damaging the relationships we wish to positively transform. If there is a way to guard against this, it surely begins with acknowledging the possibility that it could happen, and it will involve working to ensure that the agency of all of those with whom we are in relationship is respected.

Finally, Kaupapa Māori has been re-learning how to hold space for the mysterious—not only the unexplained, but the unexplainable—and Multispecies Justice might become better at this, too. In his essay The Uncertain Kaupapa of Kaupapa Māori, Carl Te Hira Mika (2017) critiques notions of certainty which prevail in Western research and have also infiltrated some Kaupapa Māori approaches, and he presents a Māori philosophical argument for uncertainty. He writes,

The sustained gaze of certainty is born of colonisation by Western academic or rational desires, and Kaupapa Māori threatens to act as an emissary of these desires when it encourages the Kaupapa Māori researcher to approach an object or idea as if it is complete and knowable, or at least as if it does not need to be encountered as mysterious. (Mika, 2017, p. 119)

Theorists of multispecies relations are already challenging the imperative to know, and the ways in which notions of certainty are implicated in mastery (McLauchlan, 2019; Neimanis, 2023). In her article Stygofaunal Worlds: Subterranean Estrangement and Otherwise Knowing for Multispecies Justice, Astrida Neimanis (2023) discusses stygofauna, who are “tiny animals, largely invertebrates, that live in subterranean waters” (p. 21):

Taking a cue from these critters—many of whom have evolved without eyes to make their way differently in the darkness of their watery subterranean homes—I trouble the assumption that knowledge, care, and justice must be predicated on a kind of knowing that insists we literally bring other worlds to light. To look, after all, is associated with a privileged ocularcentrism where to see is to know, and to know is to make care and justice possible. (p. 20)

She advocates that we “keep some things strange,” as “a kind of ethico-epistemology for multispecies justice”—an approach which is compatible with scientific research (Neimanis, 2023, p. 35).

As I noted above, Multispecies Justice recognises the moral importance of wonder. I believe it would also benefit from a more sensitive treatment of mystery, to which the notion of wonder relates. Even when it does not physically intrude into non-human lives and ecosystems, Multispecies Justice engages in speculation, imagining the more-than-human world in fresh ways (Celermajer et al., 2023). Mika (2017) writes, “It is our task as (Māori) academics to tentatively think about the nature of a thing and its interconnection with all others—this is perhaps more our task than proclaiming about a thing” (p. 121). Multispecies Justice theorists, too, would do well to acknowledge the tentative nature of our imaginings, and resist pronouncing on phenomena about which we have limited knowledge. Power disparities often operate in ways that prevent us from acknowledging challenges to our assumptions, even when they may be negatively impacting others. The urgency with which Multispecies Justice scholars are enquiring into the more-than-human world—which reflects the urgency of the challenges we face—exacerbates this danger. We must proceed with care. Mika (2017) entertains “the notion that, at some point in our own indigenous [as written in original work] history, we privileged what was not immediately accessible to our senses, often taken to be a spiritual presence in Māori thought” (p. 125). Multispecies Justice might learn from this approach, respecting the mysterious in those who are, and that which is, unknown—and, perhaps, ultimately unknowable—to us. This could also help to clarify what is knowable.

Conclusion

Through a process of reciprocal critique, Kaupapa Māori and Multispecies Justice reveal each other’s strengths and weaknesses and suggest ways in which both could be further developed. However, this relationship does not end here; there is much that the two approaches can continue to learn from each other. In future work, researchers might also extend the process of reciprocal critique to other fields, benefitting a broader range of approaches and facilitating work across—and even beyond—disciplines. One particularly promising potential for this process is that it could bring diverse Indigenous research methodologies into relationship, so that they can learn from, and enhance, each other; this might be achieved through collaborations between scholars from within those respective Indigenous communities. There are, however, limits to reciprocal critique: given its focus on mutually strengthening the approaches it engages, it is unsuited to critiquing disciplines and practices that instead deserve to be forcefully rejected—and there are plenty of those!