The evolution and power of Critical Tiriti Analysis
Critical Tiriti Analysis (CTA) was initially based on evidence Tim McCreanor (Pākehā senior social scientist) and I (Pākehā activist scholar) drafted for the Waitangi Tribunal WAI 2575 health kaupapa claim about the breaches of Te Tiriti within the Primary Health Strategy circa 2001. The paper got rejected several times, before we pivoted and invited Dominic O’Sullivan (Indigenous political theorist) to join us and we gave the paper a spruce up and it was reimagined into a methodology paper. CTA became a method to test whether a document, whether it be - policy, project plan, curriculum etc - was well or poorly aligned to Te Tiriti o Waitangi - the authorative Māori text. The paper was eventually published in Ethnicities and has had 12K views and/or downloads which speaks to the interest in the health sector and beyond for a simple tool to audit Tiriti compliance.
CTA is an critical review framework structured across five distinct phases: i) orientation, which examines a document's context, language, worldview, and explicit framing in relation to Te Tiriti; ii) close reading, which assesses the policy against the five elements of Te Tiriti (the Preamble, kāwanatanga, tino rangatiratanga, ōritetanga, and wairuatanga); iii) determination, which collectively grades compliance across each element on a five-point scale ranging from does harm, to excellent; iv) strengthening practice, which formulates constructive, evidence-based recommendations to align the policy with Tiriti obligations; and iv) the whakaaro Māori, which guarantees that Māori leadership and communities have the definitive say on the overall analysis and final word.
CTA Determination scale:
In response to repeated requests from practitioners, in 2023 we developed a prospective CTA which we again published in Ethnicities. This time Tim, Dom and I collaborated with Jacquie Kidd, and we focused on formulating questions to help guide future practice. The prospective paper has over 20K views and downloads which people’s curiosity and commitment to Te Tiriti. We have been challenged to produce an exemplar of a brilliant example of a Tiriti aligned document but have yet to locate one.
Thousands of practitioners, managers and scholars have attended CTA regular and advanced training since 2020. Six years in we know CTA is being used in human resource practice to shape position descriptions, for interview questions, to inform recruitment strategies and professional development plans. CTA is being used in Crown agencies, tertiary education institutions, private for-profit businesses, the health and social service sector, and by community groups, hapū and scholars. Some agencies use it for strategic planning, to inform investment strategies; some have embedded it in business cases and reporting processes. CTA is being used to monitor the Crown and in reviewing policy, procedures, strategies, guidelines, curriculum, project and evaluation plans. CTA is being used to inform advocacy efforts and structure submissions. It is being used as a decision-making tool to prioritise research proposals and to guide organisational change initiatives. Like a virus it has spread and will no doubt continue to spread.
To support the implementation of CTA in 2022 we formed a CTA community of practice that continues to meet from time to time as we have capacity around our other mahi. The CTA community of practice provides us with an opportunity to collective reflect and learn from each other about all things CTA. These sessions are recorded and available to be viewed on the Community Research CTA repository. We are trying to upload examples of different applications of CTA by practitioners and scholars.
As the authors of CTA, we have tried to hold it lightly. We encourage practitioners and scholars to adapt it to tweak the indicators, to make it their own but always acknowledge the source. It was created to monitor the government but can be used for other purposes. Retrospective CTA is a desk-top review and is focussed on the actual text in the document rather than people’s intentions or judgements on their character. Māori are central to any CTA and simply can’t be done without Māori leadership. CTA is as robust as the collective critical thinking people bring to the table. AI is no substitution for Māori involvement. CTA relies on Māori intelligence and Māori lived experience, supplement by input from tangata Tiriti.
Tim, Dom and I recently did a question and answer at the CTA community of practice. Email CriticalTiritiAnalysis@gmail.com to join the CTA mailing list.
Check out the video here from our October webinar.
In the webinar we told some stories, listening to some stories, shared resources, and our various perspectives on how CTA is landing in the world.
Check out the HC & A website for forthcoming training on regular and advanced CTA.
The tide goes out and the tide goes in. Te Tiriti o Waitangi is te kawenata tapu – a sacred covenant to guide us on our decolonial journey towards Matike Mai inspired constitutional transformation.
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