Maori demography in Aotearoa New Zealand: Fifty Years on

Writing in the Journal of the Polynesian Society fifty years ago, budding demographer Ian Pool asked: “When is a Maori a ‘Maori’”? His assertion that cultural self-identification was the only credible way to define Māori collectively in official statistics was in stark contrast to the prevailing institutional practice of defining Māori by ‘degree of blood.’ In this article I use key insights from Ian’s paper to reflect on contemporary practices of demography, focusing specifically on the construction of Māori as a discrete population for demographic research, and the use of Māori ethnic identification as an independent variable. I conclude with some thoughts on how official statistics might be changed to better reflect the aspirations and needs of Māori in a post-settlement context

A socio-demographic profile of Māori living in Australia

This report provides a comprehensive demographic and socio-economic profile of the Māori population in Australia using data from the 2011 Australia Census of Population and Housing. The purpose is to provide an evidence base with which to inform future policy approaches with respect to Māori in Australia. It focuses on five key areas: Population size and composition; Identity and culture; Year of arrival and citizenship; Education and work; Lone parenting and unpaid childcare. Comparisons are undertaken with Māori in the 2006 Australia Census, as well as with two reference groups: the total Australia population and migrant non-Māori New Zealanders. Where appropriate, we also distinguish Māori migrants born in New Zealand and Māori born in Australia. This captures important differences within the Māori population in Australia that have been under-examined in previous studies

Te Ao Hurihuri population: Past, present & future

The NIDEA Te Ao Hurihuri series uses data from the New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings to examine key aspects of Maori population change

Introduction

This issue of Law Text Culture has its genesis in a research project on Mobile Peoples Under the Eye of the Law which was originally proposed by Associate Professor Cathy Coleborne at the University of Waikato. The project was supported with a grant for a one day symposium, held in December 2010, from the University of Waikato Contrestable Research Trust Fund, for which we are grateful. As guest editors we invited contributions of postcolonial analyses that investigated mobile peoples, in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, both historically and in the present. We were especially interested in the ways in which regulation and surveillance in all of its forms — legal, policy, administrative and so forth — produced and constructed mobile peoples, and how categories of gender and sexuality were shaped in relation to mobile peoples in and through these regimes

Mana motuhake ā-raraunga: datafication and social science research in Aotearoa

Social practices, interactions and relations are increasingly being turned into data, driven by technologies that enable new methods of data accumulation, digitisation, integration and manipulation (Taylor and Broeders 2015; Couldry and Yu 2018; Mann and Daly 2019). This ‘datafication’ is not only transforming social relations, it is also reshaping social science through the generation of datasets that open up new avenues for research and methodological development (van Dijck 2014) and generating debate about the relationships between data, digitalisation, ethics and human wellbeing (boyd and Crawford 2012; Mittelstadt and Floridi 2016; O’Neil 2016; Eubanks 2018)

Introduction, contents and contributors LTC15

This issue of Law Text Culture has its genesis in a research project on Mobile Peoples Under the Eye of the Law which was originally proposed by Associate Professor Cathy Coleborne at the University of Waikato. The project was supported with a grant for a one day symposium, held in December 2010, from the University of Waikato Contrestable Research Trust Fund, for which we are grateful. As guest editors we invited contributions of postcolonial analyses that investigated mobile peoples, in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, both historically and in the present. We were especially interested in the ways in which regulation and surveillance in all of its forms — legal, policy, administrative and so forth — produced and constructed mobile peoples, and how categories of gender and sexuality were shaped in relation to mobile peoples in and through these regimes

Iwi sex ratios in the New Zealand population census: Why are women so dominant?

Recent census-based studies of iwi (tribal) population growth have revealed a high degree of volatility that cannot be explained by demographic factors alone. Although focused on a small number of iwi, these studies have shown that changing patterns of identification are an important driver of iwi population growth, and that the propensity to identify with an iwi appears to be much stronger among Māori women than men. Thus, the vast majority of iwi in the census have far more females than males, and female domination has increased over time. This paper describes the key features of female-favoured iwi sex ratios in the census and explores possible explanations. Focusing on sex ratios for the ten largest iwi, we find that female domination is highest in the 25–44 age group, and that this pattern is consistent over time. Further analysis shows that Māori women aged 25–34 years are more likely than their male counterparts to know detailed aspects of their pepeha (tribal identity), to explore whakapapa (genealogy) and to speak te reo Māori. Our results underscore the importance of Māori women as cultural connectors within their whānau, as well as in a broader iwi context

Recognition and indigenizing official statistics: Reflections from Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia

In First World colonised nations such as Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, population statistics form the evidentiary base for how Indigenous peoples are known and `managed' through state policy approaches. Yet, population statistics are not a neutral counting. Decisions of what and how to count reflect particular assumptions about Indigenous identity, ways of life and wellbeing. More often than not, the requirements and priorities of government take precedence over the informational needs and priorities of Indigenous communities. Whereas National Statistics Offices (NSOs) once rendered Indigenous peoples invisible in official statistics through non-recognition, the more pressing problem in the 21st century is that of misrecognition. In seeking to move beyond statistical misrecognition, we propose a set of guiding principles for bringing government reporting frameworks and Indigenous concepts of identity and wellbeing into closer proximity. We argue that a principled approach to collecting, disseminating and analysing Indigenous data not only avoids misrecognising Indigenous peoples but enhances the functionality of official statistics for Indigenous peoples and NSOs alike

‘Inside Out’: The politics of enumerating the nation by ethnicity

Since the 1990s, state practices of counting and classifying populations by ethnicity have come under increased scrutiny within the social sciences (Arel 2002 ; Kertzer and Arel 2002 ; Nobles 2000 ; Perlmann and Waters 2002 ; Petersen 1997 ; Statistics Canada and U.S. Census Bureau 1993 ). A number of excellent case studies have provided critical insights into how and why ethnic enumeration is pursued in particular times and places. ¹ However, with some notable exceptions (Morning 2008 ; Rallu et al. 2006 ), little attention has been given to theorizing or empirically testing a global model of ethnic classifi cation and counting. Consequently, there is a limited understanding about the general conditions that impede or encourage state recognition of ethnicity in the national census and the forms that such recognition takes