Possessing the Awa: Te Awa Tupua, legal personhood and the continuities of settler/invader colonialism

This article offers a critical Indigenous analysis of the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act Citation2017, celebrated as an innovative fusion of Māori cosmology and Western law through the legal personhood of the river. While positioned as a hallmark of bicultural partnership, the Act exemplifies bicultural containment – a state strategy that symbolically includes Māori worldviews while preserving the juridical supremacy of the settler state. Drawing on Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s theory of the white possessive, Unger and Henderson’s contextuality, and critiques of biculturalism as a ‘zombie’ concept, the paper shows how Te Awa Tupua functions as a ‘settler move to innocence’, reframing whakapapa, mana and kaitiakitanga within government regimes. Rather than advancing mana motuhake, the settlement embeds Māori relational ontologies into governance structures accountable to ″the Crown″. Legal personhood, while symbolically powerful, is constrained by co-governance mechanisms, racial capitalism and biopolitical control, ensuring sovereignty over ‘resources’ remains with the state. Situating Te Awa Tupua within the trajectory of Crown–Māori relations, the article argues that biculturalism has shifted from responding to Māori demands for justice to regulating them within narrow confines. Genuine decolonisation requires the return of land, water and decision-making authority grounded in tikanga and Indigenous governance, not symbolic recognition.