Becoming whanau: Maori and Pakeha working together on the Indigenous-led campaign, #ProtectIhumatao

This paper explores how the Indigenous-led, community-supported campaign #ProtectIhumatao became a site for decolonisation work that nourished productive bicultural relations. For six years, we worked together, alongside others, to stop a transnational corporation building houses on culturally significant, but contested, whenua (land) at Ihumatao, Auckland. Pania draws strength from her Indigenous Maori whakapapa (ancestral relations), and Frances from being a New Zealander of Irish descent. Committing ourselves to the campaign kaupapa (values, principles and plans), we embraced different roles: Pania as a kaitiaki or land protector and Frances as a hoa tu tata or close friend, standing by, ready to assist. Along the way, we became our own whanau (extended family); a kaupapa-based whanau (people mobilised for a shared purpose). Here, we share knowledge from our campaign experiences to explore what becoming whanau means to us in relation to Ihumatao. Thinking and writing at the interface of Maori and Pakeha ways of knowing, we interact with ideas from Maori philosophy and Indigenous-Settler relations. Through telling our stories, we illuminate relational qualities that made our different roles and evolving relationship possible, and glean insights to inform ongoing Indigenous-led, decolonising practices at Ihumatao, and elsewhere.