Te ao hurihuri : iwi identification in the census

Abstract

As the flagship of official statistics, the national population census is an important forum for the recognition of indigenous peoples in their homelands and territories (United Nations, 2008). While most governments worldwide count and classify their populations by ethnicity, New Zealand is rare in enabling multiple expressions of indigenous identity in the census. Since 1991, it has been possible to identify as Māori in three ways: by descent, ethnicity and iwi (tribal) affiliation (see Figure 1). The Māori descent population is the largest— in 2013, just under 669,000 individuals ticked the Māori descent box. The number identifying as Māori by ethnicity - intended as a measure of cultural belonging - was substantially lower at just under 600,000. Most of the remaining 69,000 Māori descendants identified solely as NZ European. In 2013 nearly 83 per cent of Māori descendants (n=535,941) reported belonging to at least one iwi. Of those that did not report an iwi affiliation, 40 per cent did not identify as Māori by ethnicity either.