2026 Theses Master's

Mapping into Existence: Maori Cartographic Methodology for 𝘛𝘪𝘯𝘰 𝘙𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘢

Hutton, Jane

Indigenous communities have largely been required to use Western cartographic methodologies for their land claims and advocacy work where institutions remain embedded in colonial paradigms. This kind of anticolonial counter-mapping, however, does nothing to decolonize the systems that require them. States have relied on maps to exert power through taxation and conquest, based in an underlying value system that considers land as something to be owned and controlled, making invisible and inflicting violence upon Indigenous communities and their frameworks for valuing land in the process. Urban planning as a field has played a significant role in this dispossession.

This domination is not only spatial, but fundamentally onto/epistemological, adjudicating which knowledge and ways of knowing are deemed legitimate. This research aims to critique the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of map-making in the fields of cartography and urban planning, which are rooted in hegemonic Western frameworks and often go unchallenged. Thinking beyond a politics of biculturalism, recognition, and participation, incorporating a plurality of worldviews and knowledges into cartographic methodology presents an opportunity to realize meaningful Indigenous sovereignty.

Drawing on an understanding of Indigenous planning as a site of Indigenous future-building, we can look to decolonial mapping as a practice of Indigenous world-making by and for Indigenous communities. More than merely representing space, maps can create them. This project centers cartography around Māori decolonial mapping practices and projects as articulated by Māori practitioners and scholars. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and conversations with experts, I argue that Maori cartographic methodologies embedded in te ao Māori reflect a relational production of space that more fully articulates 𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑜 𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑎.