Sector lensIwi & rūnangaOverlay

Iwi, rūnanga & Māori governance

This overlay applies the Village Governance Course to iwi, rūnanga, post-settlement governance entities (PSGEs), and Māori organisations. It does not replace the core course — it sits over the top of it. You complete the eight core modules and the capstone, and use this page to surface where the questions land differently for entities that hold collective authority over taonga-bearing and culturally significant records.

The anchor for this sector is Module 2 — what indigenous data sovereignty adds. Where most sectors can treat Module 2 as one consideration among several, for iwi and rūnanga it frames the whole. Read the rest of the course through it.

This overlay is descriptive. It maps risks and points to where the course already does the work — it does not prescribe tikanga, set kawa, or tell any entity how its own authority should be exercised. Those are matters for the people who hold them.

The eight modules and the capstone

Work the core course in order. This overlay assumes you have done so.

Course map

Where the risk shows up

For iwi, rūnanga and Māori organisations, the governance record is not only an evidentiary asset — it can carry taonga, whakapapa, and relationships that long outlive any single board. The risk surface is correspondingly distinct.

Taonga-bearing & culturally sensitive records: deliberation notes, submissions, oral-history transcripts and registers may hold material that is taonga or that carries cultural sensitivity. The properties of the tool determine whether that material can be held, shared, and withheld appropriately.

Collective rather than individual authority: authority over the record sits with the collective — hapū, iwi, the entity — not with whichever individual happened to author or export a file. Tools built around individual accounts and individual export rights cut against this.

Whakapapa & relational provenance: the value of a record often lies in its relationships — who it connects, through whom it came, on whose authority it is held. Provenance is relational, not just a timestamp and an author field.

Te Tiriti obligations: governance records may bear directly on Tiriti-based relationships, claims, redress and partnership. Their integrity and authority can carry weight well beyond the entity itself.

Cross-jurisdiction processing: community data processed on infrastructure outside Aotearoa New Zealand passes under foreign jurisdiction. For data the collective holds in trust, that is a transfer of effective control, not merely a hosting choice.

AI reuse of culturally significant material: machine systems that ingest, summarise, or train on culturally significant records can reuse that material in ways the collective never authorised and cannot later recall.

Mapping to the five risk categories

Authorship & attribution — does the record show whose authority it was created and held under, at the level of the collective, not just an individual login?
Integrity & alteration — can the entity prove a taonga-bearing record is complete and unaltered, years later, under challenge?
Access & boundary control — can sensitive material be withheld and shared on the collective's terms, with the boundary history itself verifiable?
Jurisdiction & control — where does control actually sit, and does it remain within reach of the people whose data it is?
Reuse & downstream processing — including AI ingestion and training — what can happen to the record once it leaves the entity's hands?

Mapping to Module 2

Collective rights — authority over the record belongs to the collective; the tool must be able to express that, not flatten it to per-user permissions.
Authority-to-control — the entity, not a vendor and not an individual, decides what is held, shared, withheld, and exported.
Relational provenance — provenance carries the relationships and lines of authority a record came through, not only a who-and-when.

Consensus decision-making

Not every decision is made by counting votes. Where an entity reaches decisions through consensus — kāhui-style deliberation rather than a tally — the platform supports a consensus decision frame alongside conventional voting. Positions can be recorded as whakaaro in members' own words rather than reduced to for/against, and engagement can be expressed through consensus-appropriate acts rather than only a ballot.

Descriptive, not prescriptive: this is offered as an available frame, not a recommendation about how any iwi or rūnanga should reach its decisions. How consensus is sought, and whose voices carry it, are matters of tikanga and kawa for the people who hold them. The platform records the process they choose; it does not define it.

What to emphasise

Read with extra weight

Module 2 — indigenous data sovereignty — collective rights, stewardship and kaitiakitanga over the record, and relational provenance. This is the lens for everything else here.
Module 4 — records that carry their own provenance and policy — records that hold their own provenance and the policy governing them travel with their context intact, which matters most when material is taonga-bearing or culturally sensitive.
Capstone — frame your capstone around community accountability: accountability to the people and the collective whose data the entity holds in trust, across generations, not only to a regulator or auditor.

External reading

GIDA — CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance — Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics.
Te Kāhui Raraunga — Māori data sovereignty in an Aotearoa context.

Discussion topics

Which of our records carry taonga, whakapapa, or cultural sensitivity — and which tools currently hold them on whose terms?
Where does authority over our governance record actually sit today: with the collective, with individuals, or with a vendor?
How would we demonstrate, years later, that a culturally significant record is complete, unaltered, and held under the right authority?
What is our stewardship obligation to the people whose data we hold in trust, and how would a future board show it was honoured?

← All modules Start with Module 2 →