ABSTRACT
Levinas’s ethics throws light on the pathway of relations between indigenous peoples and those who came later to Aotearoa from Britain.1 With the benefi t of Levinasian methodology, the possibility of moving ahead in cooperation with indigenous aspirations lies before us. Levinas’s proposals for ethical responsibility are an alternative to mastery and relationships of domination and assimilation. Levinas offers the liberal individual and corresponding social organization a way to counter assimilation with respect, respond with hospitality rather than hostility, apply freedom to justice, and create relational epistemologies.2
