Landscaping as decolonial practice? Hannah Hopewell, ‘Landscape collective entanglements and the landscapes-to-come in Aotearoa New Zealand’, in Anushka Athique, Duncan Goodwin, Ed Wall (eds), Collective Landscape Futures, Routledge, 2026 | settler colonial studies blog

Landscaping as decolonial practice? Hannah Hopewell, ‘Landscape collective entanglements and the landscapes-to-come in Aotearoa New Zealand’, in Anushka Athique, Duncan Goodwin, Ed Wall (eds), Collective Landscape Futures, Routledge, 2026

14Dec25

Abstract: This chapter critically speculates on landscape collectives in Aotearoa New Zealand in relation to Māori sovereignty in the context of setter-colonialism. It explores how landscape design, when informed by Māori relations and worldview can shift the whiteness of settler-colonial socio-spatial epistemologies that govern landscape architectural practice. Drawing on material occasions, the chapter discusses how landscape design intersects with hyperlocal Māori ways of being and knowing through drawing and mapping practices to effect renewed inscriptions upon colonised lands. The inquiry demonstrates how landscape architects can navigate the complex entanglement of Māori and Pākehā ontologies, asserting that landscape is a vehicle for renewed collective relationality. Ultimately the chapter envisions “landscapes-to-come” in Aotearoa NZ as becoming more Māori, rooted in the principles of whakapapa and reciprocity. However, at stake in such a future is the demand for non-indigenous landscape architects to divest of landscape imaginations aligned to the hegemonies of whiteness.

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