Pre-conditions for making (desired) markets in the spirit of Ki Uta Ki Tai – Mountains to the Sea

Summary

Aotearoa New Zealand (hereafter Aotearoa NZ) is a frontier in international efforts to develop place-centred and collectively energised transitionings in economic-environment relations. The contention is that new holistic overviews of existing and potentially different associations of social, political, economic and cultural and ecological processes are being forged through the impetus of Ki Uta Ki Tai/Mountain to Sea perspectives. The chapter uses enactive geography insights to argue that this unprecedented situation is traceable to a number of influences: engagements involving Māori and hence Mātauranga Māori, science and social science knowledge, moves away from the separation of sea, coast and land in disciplinary, administrative and legal frameworks, and new kinds of relational agency grounded in particular places. The chapter documents a thought experiment involving two significant exemplars of re-commoning: (1) Wakatū Incorporation, an organisational ensemble who descend from the original Māori landowners of Te Tau Ihu - Nelson, Tasman and Golden Bay Regions and headquartered on tribal lands in the Nelson area; and (2) the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, a regulatory agency responsible for nurturing economy and ecology through the legal apparatus of the Resource Management Act 1991. The chapter puts these developmental trajectories of enterprise and institution into tension, by asking ‘If every enterprise in Aotearoa NZ was like Wakatū, what does this mean for Regional Councils?’ and ‘If every Regional Council was like Hawke’s Bay, what new relationships with enterprise could be forged and how might enterprise look?’

[Pay wall]