Whakapapa, Tikanga, and Māori Epistemic Resistance through News Media: The Battle for Environmental Justice at Ihumātao

Abstract

In Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori resistance to environmental harm is rooted in ancestral relationships with whenua, meaning that land is not classed as property but as a living ancestor. However, this relationship is equally shaped by ongoing colonial disruption, in which media play a vital part. In this article, we examine how mainstream and Māori news portrayed the Māori-led “Protect Ihumātao” environmental justice movement and thus shaped public understandings of it. Our thematic analysis of 59 news items revealed starkly divergent portrayals. Te Ao Māori News centred Māori voices, maintained a positive outlook, and depicted activists as taking collective responsibility in accordance with Indigenous culture and self-determination. The NZ Herald focused on conflict and power dynamics, maintained a negative tone, and portrayed activists as threatening public order. Our analysis of these contrasting depictions exposes the fundamental rift between Māori relational abundance worldviews and individualist economic logics of colonial-capitalist systems. Recognising journalism as an active site of power and cultural (re)production, we argue that the NZ Herald’s coverage of “Protect Ihumātao” enacted epistemic violence—repressing and distorting Māori ways of knowing and doing—while Te Ao Māori News exemplifies epistemic resistance. We conclude that by elevating Indigenous voices and affirming the right to Indigenous self-determination, Indigenous media challenge the erasures of mainstream coverage and, therefore, constitute a counter-narrative vital for environmental justice. Māori media allow Indigenous truths to be seen, heard, and remembered, and permit the public to focus on what unites humanity in the face of climate change.