scholarly journals Stirring up Silence

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lily George
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Meaningful Relationship ◽  
History Of

In 1999, Linda Tuhiwai Smith wrote that ‘The word ... ‘research’ is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary. When mentioned in many indigenous contexts, it stirs up silence, it conjures up bad memories, it raises a smile that is knowing and distrustful.’ (1). Despite the efforts of many, anthropology in Aotearoa/New Zealand has a history of silence, possibly based on the memories of practitioners who, from the 1980s, lived through times of deep mistrust of anthropologists by Māori. As a student, then practitioner, of anthropology, I received many challenges to my status as an anthropologist and an indigenous academic from both indigenous and non-indigenous academics. Perhaps in order for anthropology to continue to have meaning for Māori and other indigenous peoples in Aotearoa, we need to thoroughly stir up that silence to see what lies beneath in order to fully engage in a truly meaningful relationship.

Indigenous Peoples

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Te Paa-Daniel
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Anglican Church ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Treaty Of Waitangi ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Constitutional Revision

In 1992 the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia, which owed its origin ultimately to the work of Samuel Marsden and other missionaries, undertook a globally unprecedented project to redeem its inglorious colonial past, especially with respect to its treatment of indigenous Maori Anglicans. In this chapter Te Paa Daniel, an indigenous Anglican laywoman, explores the history of her Provincial Church in the Antipodes, outlining the facts of history, including the relationship with the Treaty of Waitangi, the period under Selwyn’s leadership, as experienced and understood from the perspective of Maori Anglicans. The chapter thus brings into view the events that informed and influenced the radical and globally unprecedented Constitutional Revision of 1992 which saw the creation of the partnership between different cultural jurisdictions (tikanga).

Decolonising Ethics: Considerations of Power, Politics and Privilege in Aotearoa/New Zealand

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amohia Boulton
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
History Of ◽  
Maori Health ◽  
Health And Well Being

Indigenous peoples across the world have a shared experience of colonisation; a process that has resulted in war, disease and the decimation of their lands, homes and peoples. In New Zealand, the effects of colonisation are still evident with Māori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) experiencing poorer outcomes compared with non-Māori citizens across a range of social, health and well-being indicators. This paper is a case study of work being done in New Zealand, which may have resonance with work in South Africa, and other countries with a history of colonisation. It begins with a brief history of the impacts of colonisation on Māori before considering the concept of decolonisation. The author outlines the work her organisation does as an independent, tribally owned, Māori health research centre to advance a decolonisation agenda. Reflecting on their emancipatory and democratising ambitions as researchers provides the opening for a discussion about indigenous ethics. The paper presents a number of Māori ethical principles that guide their work, arguing that were such principles applied in the development and implementation of social policy and legislation, the effect would be a fairer, more equitable policy that better meets the needs of Māori as citizens. Recent legislation enacted to improve New Zealand’s care and protection system for children is discussed to illustrate the need for greater consideration of Māori values when developing legislation that directly impacts Māori. The paper concludes with a challenge to policymakers, practitioners, academics, and researchers alike to actively contribute to an agenda of liberation, emancipation and decolonisation for indigenous peoples.

Racism and silencing in the media in Aotearoa New Zealand

2021 ◽  
pp. 117718012110154
Author(s):  
Liana MacDonald ◽  
Adreanne Ormond
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Racial Discourse ◽  
European Descent ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Zealanders

Racism in the Aotearoa New Zealand media is the subject of scholarly debate that examines how Māori (Indigenous Peoples of New Zealand) are broadcast in a negative and demeaning light. Literature demonstrates evolving understandings of how the industry places Pākehā (New Zealanders primarily of European descent) interests at the heart of broadcasting. We offer new insights by arguing that the media industry propagates a racial discourse of silencing that sustains widespread ignorance of the ways that Pākehā sensibilities mediate society. We draw attention to a silencing discourse through one televised story in 2018. On-screen interactions reproduce and safeguard a harmonious narrative of settler–Indigenous relations that support ignorance and denial of the structuring force of colonisation, and the Television Code of Broadcasting Practice upholds colour-blind perceptions of discrimination and injustice through liberal rhetoric. These processes ensure that the media industry is complicit in racism and the ongoing oppression of Indigenous peoples.

Ka mura ka muri: understandings of organ donation and transplantation in Aotearoa New Zealand

2021 ◽  
pp. medhum-2020-012038
Author(s):  
Rhonda Shaw ◽  
Robert Webb
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Organ Donation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Values And Beliefs ◽  
History Of ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Interview Studies

In this article, we refer to the separation of solid organs from the body as bio-objects. We suggest that the transfer of these bio-objects is connected to emotions and affects that carry a range of different social and cultural meanings specific to the context of Aotearoa New Zealand. The discussion draws on research findings from a series of qualitative indepth interview studies conducted from 2008 to 2013 with Māori (the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand) and Pākehā (European settler New Zealanders) concerning their views on organ donation and transplantation. Our findings show both differences and similarities between Māori and Pākehā understandings of transplantation. Nevertheless, while many Māori draw on traditional principles, values and beliefs to reflect on their experiences in relation to embodiment, gift-giving, identity and well-being, Pākehā tend to subscribe to more Western understandings of identity in terms of health and well-being, in line with international literature on the topic. Rather than reflecting individualistic notions of the body and transplantation as the endpoint of healthcare as do Pākehā, Māori views are linked to wider conceptions of family, ancestry and belonging, demonstrating how different rationalities and ontologies affect practices and understandings surrounding organ transfer technology. In the article, we focus predominantly on Māori perspectives of organ transfer, contextualising the accounts and experiences of our research participants against the backdrop of a long history of settler colonialism and health inequalities in Aotearoa New Zealand.

scholarly journals Another elderly lady to be knocked down: Heritage discourse and the protest to save the Missions to Seamen building, 1986

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alexander Gordon
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
City Council ◽  
Historical Case Study ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Considerable Difficulty ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
History Of ◽  
Heritage Discourse

<p>Through a specific historical case study, Another Elderly Lady to be Knocked Down applies discourse theory and the Authorised Heritage Discourse (AHD) to the context of urban built heritage in Aotearoa New Zealand. Previously, only limited work had been done in this area. By examining an underexplored event this dissertation fills two gaps in present literature: the history of the event itself and identification of the heritage discourses in the country at the time. Examination of these discourses in context also allows conclusions about the use of the AHD in similar studies to be critically examined.  In 1986 the Missions to Seamen building in Wellington, New Zealand, was threatened with demolition by its government owners. In a remarkable display of popular sentiment, individuals, organisations, the Wellington City Council (WCC) and the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (NZHPT) worked together to oppose this unpopular decision. This protest was a seminal event in the history of heritage in New Zealand.  This study relies upon documentary sources, especially the archival records of the Historic Places Trust and the State Services Commission, who owned the building, to provide the history of this watershed moment in New Zealand’s preservation movement. The prevalent attitudes of different groups in Wellington are examined through the letters of protest they wrote at the time. When analysed in context, these discourses reveal the ways in which heritage was articulated and constructed.  The course of this dissertation has revealed the difficulty of identifying an AHD in this context. The level of collaboration between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ heritage perspectives, and the extent to which they shaped each other’s language, creates considerable difficulty in distinguishing between discreet discourses. To better explore the ways that heritage meaning is constructed and articulated, heritage must be recognised as a complex dynamic process.</p>

scholarly journals EXPLORING FRAMEWORKS FOR A HISTORY OF EARTH BUILDING IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND

2020 ◽  
Vol XLIV-M-1-2020 ◽  
pp. 969-976
Author(s):  
M. Hall
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Standard Form ◽  
First Century ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
Structural Hierarchy ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
History Of ◽  
Detailed Record ◽  
Complete History

Abstract. Aotearoa New Zealand has a unique earth building heritage. For centuries, Māori used earth for floors and as a binder for fibrous walling materials. When settlers arrived in the nineteenth century, they brought earth building techniques with them, and in the early days of colonisation, earth buildings were commonplace. Many still survive, but as processed timber became readily available, building in earth declined; by the middle of the twentieth century it had almost ceased. Following renewed interest after World War Two, earth building continued into the twenty-first century, albeit as a non-standard form of construction. Databases compiled by Heritage New Zealand, Miles Allen, and the author, supplemented by accounts from a variety of sources, provide a relatively detailed record of earth buildings from all over Aotearoa but no cohesive history has yet been written. This paper considers possible approaches to writing such a history. Methodologies employed in local and international architectural histories are analysed, and a number of structural hierarchies are identified: for instance, Ronald Rael organises his material firstly by technique and then chronology in Earth Architecture, while Ted Howard uses location and then chronology for his Australasian history, Mud and Man. Information from New Zealand sources is then applied to these frameworks to arrive at an appropriate structural hierarchy for a complete history of earth building in Aotearoa.

Terror in Christchurch: Here comes the ‘Peace Train’

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-157
Author(s):  
Lindsay Neill ◽  
Nigel Hemmington ◽  
Andrew Emery
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
The United States ◽  
Geographic Isolation ◽  
Safe Haven ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
Road Map ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
History Of

On 15 March 2019, a white supremacist gunman shot dead 50 Muslim worshippers at two mosques in Christchurch, Aotearoa, New Zealand. His actions changed forever the safe haven known as ‘God’s Own’. New Zealanders were shocked that such an event had happened here. Many Kiwis believed the nation to be safe, given its geographic isolation from the terrorist targets of Europe and the United States of America. However, the atrocity has exposed an unhealthy underbelly that has long permeated New Zealand’s socio-culture. Racism and discrimination have forefronted ensuing conversations. This article explores the nation’s history of discrimination preceding the terrorist attack. In doing so, we expose something subtly denied: that New Zealand is not the egalitarian land of milk and honey that many Kiwis believed it to be. We suggest that the terrorist attack not only highlighted the nation’s discrimination but also provided its liminal moment. Part of that liminality was Cat/Yusuf Steven’s performance, in Christchurch, of ‘Peace Train’. We compound our exploration of Aotearoa New Zealand’s history of discrimination by asking how the lyrics of ‘Peace Train’ provide a way to view our past and provide an opportunity to perceive a way forward for the nation, given the tragedy of terrorism. We suggest that ‘Peace Train’ is a metaphorical illumination of the nation’s liminality, and that it provided a road map of unity that helped to guide many Kiwis in understanding and coming to terms with not only what had happened but also a future view of how Kiwis might see themselves.

Great-grandfather, please teach me my language!

Multilingua ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania M. Ka’ai
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Language Loss ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Personal Story ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

AbstractInspired by Joshua Fishman’s lifetime dedication to the revitalisation of minority languages, especially Yiddish, this paper presents my personal story of the loss of the Māori language in my family in New Zealand/Aotearoa and our attempts to reverse this decline over several generations. The paper includes a description of several policy reforms and events in Aotearoa/New Zealand’s history and the impact of colonisation on the Māori language, which, as seen in other colonised peoples around the world, has contributed to the decline of this indigenous language. The paper also presents the mobilisation of Māori families and communities, including my own family, to establish their own strategies and initiatives to arrest further language decline and to reverse language loss in Māori families in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This article, combining story and history, should be read as a historiography of the Māori language, based on the author’s acknowledgement that other indigenous minority communities, globally, and their languages also have experienced the effects of colonisation and language loss. This article, much like a helix model, weaves together a narrative and history of Māori language loss, pain, resilience, and hope and seeks to establish that no language, because it contains the DNA of our cultural identity, should be allowed to die. A table of key landmarks of the history of the Māori language also is included.

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