Mana Tangata: Culture, Custom and Transgenic Research

Te Mata o te Tau
Academy for Māori Research and Scholarship
Massey University

Mason Durie

Conflict resulting from a collision of different bodies of knowledge is not new. The Italian scientist and astronomer Galileo Galilei was convicted of heresy and placed under house arrest because he insisted the Earth revolved around the Sun, not the other way around. As a scientist who refused to deny his observations and his theoretical calculations, he went headlong into conflict with the guardians of the great prevailing body of knowledge - religious faith. In 1633, when Galileo stood trial for heresy by the Holy Office of the Inquisition, science was the newcomer and Catholicism the dominant ideology. In the twenty-first century, however, the situation is reversed: the world of science has advanced so rapidly that scientific knowledge has gained greater credibility - at least in the Western world - than religious knowledge.

Māori concerns about genetic modification

Being comfortable with multiple approaches to knowledge is important in New Zealand today. Debate on genetic modification (GM) has highlighted public and academic division about the ethics of incorporating genetic material from one species into another. Scientists, although not unanimous on the matter, seem confident that the benefits of GM will outweigh the risks and will lead to advancements in health and the economy. Others, including many who distinguish between the laws of nature and the laws of science, think that the risks are too great and that GM should be outlawed or at least postponed. Students of indigenous knowledge (mātauranga Māori) have voiced opposition to GM - not only because of environmental risks but also because of risks to human dignity, the special place that people hold in the wider universe, and the relationships between people and other forms of life.

Submissions to the Royal Commission on Genetic Modification raised many issues, including concerns that were specific to Māori as well as more generic concerns (see Table 1). A number of submissions were also favourably inclined to GM, either for economic reasons or the prospect of new treatments for specific diseases.

Māori submissions both to the Royal Commission and to the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) have emphasised the importance of Māori world views to the GM debate. Of the 200 submissions relating to Māori received by the Royal Commission, 32% focused on the Treaty of Waitangi, maintaining that the Crown would be in breach of the Treaty if it allowed genetic modification activities and insisting on an active role for Māori in any decision-making forums. A further 24% focused on ownership and intellectual property rights over indigenous flora and fauna, while some 13% were opposed to any transfer of human genes to animals, or vice versa, mainly because it was 'unnatural'. The greatest number of submissions (64%) argued that genetic modification was unacceptable because it contradicted Māori custom and philosophy (tikanga). Similar themes were voiced at the regional and national consultation hui.

However, while there was overall distrust in genetic modification, at most hui a few respondents were adamant that Māori had the right to full access to medical advancements and new technologies, including those that resulted from genetic modification, and saw in that process potential health gains for Māori. They urged keeping an open mind.

Concepts most frequently raised include whakapapa (the natural evolutionary link between generations, and the method of identifying inheritance and the relationships between people and the entities in the environment), mauri (life itself, its nature), tapu (the sacred potentiality), hau (a life force), mana (power and authority), wairua (the spritual form), ira tangata (the totality of human life), and tikanga (ethics and values).

The transgenic sheep

Many of these concepts were discussed during hearings relating to an application to ERMA by PPL Therapeutics to field-test transgenic sheep in the Waikato region for the purpose of producing a biopharmaceutical (human alpha-1-antitrypsin, hAAT) that could be used in the treatment of cystic fibrosis. Māori opposition to the proposal stemmed mainly from a concern that mixing genetic material between species (sheep and humans) was an interference with the whakapapa model - the basic structure of relationships between generations and between species, "which is central to both the practical and spiritual aspects of Māori life." [N Gibbs. GMOs and Māori Cultural and Ethical Issues. Ministry for the Environment, Wellington, 1998.]

One of the tribal groups involved in the consultation process, Ngāti Raukawa, considered that the concept of cross-species gene transfer represented an unacceptable breaking of a sacred belief and were further alarmed by the risk of transgenic material entering the human food chain. As a result, and taking other factors into account including inadequate consultation and a failure to convincingly demonstrate benefits, the Māori advisors (Ngā Kaihautu Tikanga Taiao) to ERMA recommended that the application be declined.

However, while not dismissing the Māori objections, ERMA considered that the risks to the relationship of Māori to their culture and traditions, and their taonga, were tempered by adequate controls to contain the sheep, thereby preventing affected meat or milk being consumed by humans. Moreover, the possibility of a biopharmaceutical which had the potential to mitigate disease and to accrue economic benefits more than outweighed cultural objections.

The transgenic cow

Although the transgenic sheep application had caused offence to many Māori, and to many other New Zealanders, an application regarding genetically modified cattle attracted even greater dissent. The aim was to produce milk that had enhanced nutritive value and might possibly be used as a drug for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

After considering the evidence, the research was approved, including research involving the insertion of human genes. But a minority report of dissent was prepared by Ngā Kaihautu, who urged the Authority to first engage in wider debate with Māori. In the event, Ngāti Wairere, unhappy with the decision, took the case to the High Court, but their appeal was dismissed.

Māori opposition to the transgenic cow covered similar grounds to those raised against the transgenic sheep. There was cultural offence resulting from a mixing of genes between species, "constituting an affront to the mauri inherent in whakapapa" as well as health risks related to physical and metaphysical imbalances where any species had been interfered with "in a manner not consistent with tikanga" [Ngā Kaihautu Tikanga Taiao. Report to the Environmental Risk Management Authority (GMF98009. Wellington, 1999.]. And the possibility of transgenic material entering the food chain could not be entirely ruled out.

Ngā Kaihautu were also concerned about the limited consultation process. While ERMA had consulted extensively with the tribe in the immediate vicinity of the experimental herd (Ngāti Wairere), the issues were germane to all Māori and warranted wider consultation:

... the use of the human genome in interspecies experimentation is an issue for all Māori, and until this issue is debated widely, a comprehensive view on its impacts on Māori values will never be achieved. [Ngā Kaihautu Tikanga Taiao, 1999.]

The High Court was required to consider whether the ERMA (majority) decision had contained errors of law relating to the interpretation of 'taonga' under the Treaty of Waitangi, and to the manner in which the Authority had exercised its discretion in reaching its decision to grant AgResearch's application. The Court did not agree with the appellants, but did find that the Authority's readiness to fractionate 'taonga' into physical (tangible) or spiritual (intangible) components was not consistent with the intended meaning in the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 (HSNO). The Court also found that, contrary to the appellants' claim, the Authority had 'taken into account' 'the relationship of Māori and their culture and traditions with their spiritual taonga', and that 'taking into account' was no more than an obligation to 'consider'.

Doubts about the capacity of the Authority to understand Māori cultural and spiritual risks had been raised in the minority report. According to Ngā Kaihautu:

Ngāti Wairere are entitled to see that the Authority has made a genuine attempt to inform itself of their concerns, and to assess the risks to them in making its decision. The Minority does not consider that these risks have been adequately understood or assessed. [Ngā Kaihautu Tikanga Taiao, 1999.]

However, although the Court considered that "The issue of whether the majority did understand Ngāti Wairere's spiritual beliefs verges on the imponderable," it nonetheless concluded that they (the majority) had applied their best endeavours, even though they had been unable "to assess or give weight to purely spiritual matters in the same way as they felt able to assess and give weight to purely physical matters". [Bleakley v Environmental Risk Management Authority. McGechan J & Goddard J, Reserved Decision of Goddard J, High Court of New Zealand, 2001.]

Weighing the evidence

Determining the weight to be given to world views that are not derived from science is indeed problematic in the GM debate, and interpreting Māori values and indigenous world views has emerged as a major challenge to science. Precise estimates - the hallmark of scientific excellence - require the development of measurements that not only reflect the nature of the experiment, but that can also be replicated by other researchers. In contrast, the measurements against which Māori spiritual and cultural values will be assessed tend to be confined to comments about consultation with Māori and a broad indication that Māori values have been 'taken into account.'

In practice, the assessment process adopted by ERMA is guided by HSNO and its methodology for decision-making. Ngā Kaihautu considered that, under this methodology, Māori views were not afforded adequate recognition. They claimed, for example, that the varying tribal perspectives were not sufficiently explored because consultation was typically narrow, whereas the issues were far-reaching and had implications for all Māori.

Greater evidence of the lack of a clear method to assess Māori world views comes from ERMA's own somewhat tortuous explanation of the concept of mauri. In GMD02028, involving a transgenic cow used for scientific research, ERMA embarked on a defence of its conclusion that any spiritual risk arising from the research would be low. Te Kotuku Whenua, a Māori tribal group who were consulted, had introduced the concepts of mauri and whakapapa to support their contention that the research was incompatible with Māori cultural and spiritual values, and in that sense was high-risk. In delivering its own interpretation of mauri, ERMA distinguished between the mauri of a gene and the mauri of an organism, arguing that since the gene could not be said to be the sum total of a human, the insertion of a human gene into a cow did not amount to violating the mauri of a human since the gene's mauri was not a human mauri. "It thus follows that the gene does not introduce the mauri of the human into the cow." [Environmental Risk Management Authority. Decision GMD02028. Wellington, 2002, pp. 33-34. ]

Quite apart from the observation that a gene can be said to possess a mauri that is separable from the mauri of the organism it serves, the ERMA analysis overlooks the fundamental starting point on which Māori world views are built - the relationships that confer coherence within the natural world. While scientific method often dissects the whole into smaller parts in order to find the truth, Māori philosophical methods work in the opposite direction: truth is a function of wider relationships and higher-order synergies. If it were to contemplate discussion on the mauri of a gene, a Māori analysis would have been more concerned with the relationship of the gene's mauri to the host organism, rather than its separateness.

ERMA did acknowledge some reservations about its own analysis, however, and in the same decision recognised that the "spiritual concerns are not amenable to an analysis of magnitude and likelihood ... as are biological and physical risks." But the Authority then concluded that any " spiritual risks are amenable to mitigation through ongoing dialogue and karakia" and were satisfied that between AgResearch and Ngāti Wairere dialogue would be possible. [Environmental Risk Management Authority. Decision GMD02028. Wellington, 2002, p. 36.]

A Māori methodology

Present debate about GM, scientific and indigenous world views depends to a large extent on the frameworks within which the analysis occurs. The strength of the methodology established by an Order in Council [Council Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Methodology) Order 1998, SR 1998/217.] appears to be its capacity to assess scientific risk rather than risk to cultural or spiritual beliefs. It is likely that amendments to the HSNO Act will give greater weight to Māori perspectives and values within the decision-making protocols, but it is unlikely that they will provide robust methods to assist ERMA with an analysis of Māori perspectives using tools that are appropriate to an indigenous body of knowledge. Nor, perhaps, is that the task of the Authority, concerned as it is with the mitigation of risk rather than the elaboration of Māori knowledge.

Māori anxieties about GM reflect the sudden advent of new technologies and the lack of ethical guidelines to address them. Mātauranga Māori has been challenged to provide a rationale for considering GM, though within a framework that is more comfortable with scientific philosophies and methods and based on the notion of risk management. At the same time, mātauranga Māori is not to be regarded as a body of knowledge that is fixed in time and applicable only to a distant past. It has a dynamic of its own and, like other knowledge systems, is in a perpetual state of evolution. In order to understand Māori cultural and spiritual values, one challenge is to shift the focus of the debate from a risk paradigm to a paradigm of potential.

In the paradigm of potential, the essential question is not so much whether Māori values will be compromised by research, but how Māori values and concepts can provide a basis for assessing the relevance and potential benefits of research. Using key Māori concepts, already identified in the GM debate, it is possible to construct a 'research potential framework' that considers how three groups of values (or concepts) can be used to identify useful outcomes from research so that modern research contributions can be assessed according to Māori world views.

The framework is based on three domains: the natural environment, the human condition, and procedural certainty. Māori values or concepts relevant to the domain of the natural environment include mauri (integrity), whanaungatanga (relationships) and kaitiakitanga (guardianship); while for the domain of the human condition the values include wairua (spirituality), tapu (safety), hau (vitality) and whakapapa (intergenerational transfers). The third domain, procedural certainty, includes tikanga (protocols).

Arising from each concept or value are a series of research outcomes that would be consistent with the particular concept or value. From the whanaungatanga concept, for example, a desirable outcome is that research will contribute to the integrity of ecological systems. From the concept of tikanga, a desirable outcome might be the development of a clear set of protocols, consistent with Māori values that would enable a new environment to be addressed.

Research indicators or targets can be developed, according to the type of research, to provide a set of measures for assessing research contributions. For example, research that contributes to human survival and safety might be measured by indicators that point to increased longevity or freedom from disease. Research contributing to human dignity, on the other hand, might best be measured by indicators that endorse world views or strengthen identity. Importantly, all domains should be considered, even if the relevance to a particular research project seems remote.

Conclusion

Galileo was caught in a whirlwind generated by two conflicting bodies of knowledge - science and religion. Māori feel they too have been caught between competing systems of order - science and indigeneity. Concern about GM, however, does not rule out its use but places a caveat around it by seeking assurances about benefits and the development of protocols - tikanga - that can provide a level of comfort and certainty.

Recent debates about GM in New Zealand have highlighted certain incompatibilities between mātauranga Māori and science, with different opinions about what constitutes safety, and different ways of proving a point. In order to understand any body of knowledge, the tools for analysis need to be congruent with the world views attaching to that knowledge base. The tools of scientific inquiry, for example, are not sufficiently incisive to analyse Māori spiritual beliefs, nor the other way around.

To that end, the risk management approach may not be the best way of reconciling Māori views with the views of science. Methodologies associated with risk management are themselves based on scientific analysis and do not allow for the celebration of positive implications from mātauranga Māori. A research potential framework has been suggested as an alternative way of considering the issues and assessing research. It draws on customary concepts, but considers the benefits from research rather than the risks. Where the benefits are high, risk might be better tolerated.

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