Imagining honourable kawanatanga: Insights from Waitangi Tribunal reports
About this research
Intern
Ruby Gane, University of Otago (2024), Victoria University of Wellington (2025)
Supervisor
Dr Clive Aspin, Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington
Overview
The research focused on completing initial data collection and analysis, working with Waitangi Tribunal reports to determine how the Tribunal conceptualised honourable kāwanatanga. This involved conducting a search of Tribunal literature, identifying relevant information, compiling it into a database, performing a thematic analysis, and using these findings to author a literature review that introduced the first phase of the project.
This project served as an introduction to the ongoing study Honourable Kāwanatanga: A Prerequisite for Constitutional Transformation. The overall study was designed to answer the following key questions:
1. What is honourable kāwanatanga?
2. How can third sector (and other) organisations strengthen and deepen their engagement with Te Tiriti?