scholarly journals Communicating a Culture of Peace in Aotearoa New Zealand: The vision of Peace through Unity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Meredith Paterson

<p>Narrative politics reframes how we cultivate knowledge in the academy, foregrounding the voices of research subjects and their relationships with researchers to re-embed scholars in the social world. Narrative affects the reader’s emotional capacities and fosters empathic understanding, encouraging a more human engagement with figures that have been made threatening, as Elizabeth Dauphinée explores in The Politics of Exile and Richard Jackson in Confessions of a Terrorist. Narrative politics is concerned with the question of how academics respond to the violence of war and whether the analytical tools of the social sciences are an adequate response to the human horror of war.  The narratives of peace people are particularly compelling in the way they challenge the assertions of the dominant culture of wider society and the discipline of IR. Aotearoa New Zealand has a rich history of grassroots peace movements and activities that have influenced wider society. However, their stories are not well recorded in the dominant narrative of state institutions or academia. Peace Activist Elsie Locke published Peace People, a broad historical survey of peace activism from pre-European Maori to 1975. Maire Leadbeater brings the account up to 2013 in Peace, Power and Politics. All accounts emphasise that ordinary people were at the heart of activities, organisations and movements for peace.   One of these ‘ordinary’ people left out of Locke and Leadbeater’s accounts is Gita Brooke, co-founder of the Whanganui-based charitable trust, Peace through Unity [PTU]. As a self-identified ‘peace person,’ Brooke has written much about their work and been involved in peace activities in Aotearoa NZ since the 1980s. Narrative politics provides a lens in IR to explore the story of Gita Brooke as co-founder of PTU. I show the contribution PTU has made and continues to make to a culture of peace in Aotearoa New Zealand and as a worldwide network, explored through the themes of education for global citizenship, transformation through thought-work, and responsibility for local action. It examines how PTU’s vision of a culture of peace has been communicated through the organisation’s newsletter, Many to Many, through its involvement with the United Nations as an accredited NGO, and through its local activities. Using archival sources, data from interviews and a content analysis of the newsletter, and complemented by the lens of and insights from the discourse of narrative politics, this study suggests that PTU provides a space for critical self-reflection in the pursuit of peace that challenges the thought/action binary of institutionalised NGOs. The deterritorialised publication, Many to Many, connects peace people through a networked area of mutual agreement that is inclusive, educative and transformative.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Meredith Paterson

<p>Narrative politics reframes how we cultivate knowledge in the academy, foregrounding the voices of research subjects and their relationships with researchers to re-embed scholars in the social world. Narrative affects the reader’s emotional capacities and fosters empathic understanding, encouraging a more human engagement with figures that have been made threatening, as Elizabeth Dauphinée explores in The Politics of Exile and Richard Jackson in Confessions of a Terrorist. Narrative politics is concerned with the question of how academics respond to the violence of war and whether the analytical tools of the social sciences are an adequate response to the human horror of war.  The narratives of peace people are particularly compelling in the way they challenge the assertions of the dominant culture of wider society and the discipline of IR. Aotearoa New Zealand has a rich history of grassroots peace movements and activities that have influenced wider society. However, their stories are not well recorded in the dominant narrative of state institutions or academia. Peace Activist Elsie Locke published Peace People, a broad historical survey of peace activism from pre-European Maori to 1975. Maire Leadbeater brings the account up to 2013 in Peace, Power and Politics. All accounts emphasise that ordinary people were at the heart of activities, organisations and movements for peace.   One of these ‘ordinary’ people left out of Locke and Leadbeater’s accounts is Gita Brooke, co-founder of the Whanganui-based charitable trust, Peace through Unity [PTU]. As a self-identified ‘peace person,’ Brooke has written much about their work and been involved in peace activities in Aotearoa NZ since the 1980s. Narrative politics provides a lens in IR to explore the story of Gita Brooke as co-founder of PTU. I show the contribution PTU has made and continues to make to a culture of peace in Aotearoa New Zealand and as a worldwide network, explored through the themes of education for global citizenship, transformation through thought-work, and responsibility for local action. It examines how PTU’s vision of a culture of peace has been communicated through the organisation’s newsletter, Many to Many, through its involvement with the United Nations as an accredited NGO, and through its local activities. Using archival sources, data from interviews and a content analysis of the newsletter, and complemented by the lens of and insights from the discourse of narrative politics, this study suggests that PTU provides a space for critical self-reflection in the pursuit of peace that challenges the thought/action binary of institutionalised NGOs. The deterritorialised publication, Many to Many, connects peace people through a networked area of mutual agreement that is inclusive, educative and transformative.</p>


2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-164
Author(s):  
Tess Moeke-Maxwell

In the bicultural context of Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori (people of the land) and Tauiwi (the other tribe, i.e. Pākehā and other non-indigenous New Zealanders), continue to be represented in binary opposition to each other. This has real consequences for the way in which health practitioners think about and respond to Māori. Reflecting on ideas explored in my PhD thesis, I suggest that Māori identity is much more complex than popular representations of Māori subjectivity allow. In this article I offer an alternative narrative on the social construction of Māori identity by contesting the idea of a singular, quintessential subjectivity by uncovering the other face/s subjugated beneath biculturalism’s preferred subjects. Waitara Mai i te horopaki iwirua o Aotearoa, arā te Māori (tangata whenua) me Tauiwi (iwi kē, arā Pākehā me ētahi atu iwi ehara nō Niu Tīreni), e mau tonu ana te here mauwehe rāua ki a rāua anō. Ko te mutunga mai o tēnei ko te momo whakaarohanga, momo titiro hoki a ngā kaimahi hauora ki te Māori. Kia hoki ake ki ngā ariā i whakaarahia ake i roto i taku tuhinga kairangi. E whakapae ana au he uaua ake te tuakiri Māori ki ngā horopaki tauirahia mai ai e te marautanga Māori. I konei ka whakatauhia he kōrero kē whakapā atu ki te waihangatanga o te tuakiri Māori, tuatahi; ko te whakahē i te ariā takitahi, marautanga pūmau mā te hurahanga ake i tērā āhua e pēhia nei ki raro iho i te whainga marau iwiruatanga. Tuarua, mai i tēnei o taku tuhinga rangahau e titiro nei ki ngā wawata ahurei a te Māori noho nei i raro i te māuiuitanga whakapoto koiora, ka tohu au ki te rerekētanga i waenga, i roto hoki o ngā Māori homai kōrero, ā, ka whakahāngaia te titiro ki te momo whakatau āwhina a te hauora ā-motu i te hunga whai oranga.


2020 ◽  
pp. 16-36
Author(s):  
Shahul Hameed ◽  
Anthony Raman

The Social workers need to call on a broad range of sources of bodies of knowledge and respond to the complexity and its chaotic nature of situations arising in social work profession. There appears to be dire need to consider the use of (a) the theoretical knowledge into practice by being more caring and supportive with the aim of (b) disentangling the various elements of a complex system and enhancing the resilience both of the people involved and the social and organizational systems that they are inter-twined with people lives. The current acknowledgement of the bi-cultural framework by the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers (ANZASW) is no doubt a positive move towards infusing indigenous practice frame work into dealing with the chaotic nature and complexity of the social work profession in New Zealand but still remains to be seen in actual social work practice .The purpose of this chapter is to attempt to explore the potential of infusing Indigenous bodies of knowledge into practice against the background of the complexity nature of the social work profession in a developed world like New Zealand.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-60
Author(s):  
Janette Kelly-Ware

Teaching is a highly complex and political endeavour, and as teachers, we need to be courageous as we support children to make sense of the increasingly complex and diverse societies that we live in. My doctoral research highlighted a number of issues related to teachers and curriculum. Te Whāriki, the Aotearoa New Zealand early childhood curriculum is the framework for critical socially relevant curriculum, and this letter speaks to teachers whose daily work involves recognising and responding to children’s ‘working theories’ about the social world. I argue that as teachers we need to be reflective and reflexive, and think critically about curriculum planning to go beyond children’s surface interests and focus on deeper issues like fairness, justice, anti-racism and our shared humanity – issues of concern to society as a whole. As teachers, we also need to involve families in the conversations that they are part of, and privy to, so together we can create a fairer, more just society for all who call Aotearoa New Zealand home.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Keddell ◽  
Deb Stanfield ◽  
Ian Hyslop

Welcome to this special issue of Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work. The theme for this edition is Child protection, the family and the state: critical responses in neoliberal times.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Morley ◽  
Phillip Ablett

INTRODUCTION: Wealth and income inequality is increasing in most societies, including Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, with detrimental social impacts. However, despite professional marginality, the renewal of radical social work critiques with their emphasis on structural issues highlight, the need for alternative practice responses.METHOD: We employed a critical and synthetic review of the literature to examine major trends in wealth and income inequality (both globally, and in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand) and the social work responses to increasing economic inequality.CONCLUSIONS: Resurgent wealth and income inequality has reached new crisis points in both countries but individualising analyses and programmes render most social work responses complicit with neoliberal governance. These responses do little to reduce inequality. Alternatives promoting economic equality can be found in radical social work approaches.IMPLICATIONS: At a minimum, effective radical responses to economic inequality must advocate critical social analyses in social work education and practice, including fostering practitioners' capacity for critical reflection, policy practice and political activism.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 15-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonya Hunt

INTRODUCTION: The meaning and purpose of social work has always been debated within the social work profession. The profession dreams of contributing towards a better, fairer, civil society locally and internationally. This article explores the professionalisation of social work in Aotearoa New Zealand. This exploration has been undertaken as background for an ongoing research project.METHOD: A critical consideration of the different theoretical and historical dimensions and interests at work that impacted on the journey of professionalisation of social work in this country has been undertaken based on a review of literature. Part one of the article outlines a definition of social work, and different concepts and approaches to professionalisation. Part two of the article contextualises the different approaches to professionalisation within Aotearoa New Zealand, from early forms of welfare pre-colonisation up until the early 1990s.CONCLUSION: The literature and trends discussed serve to both document the history of professionalisation of social work in Aotearoa New Zealand and as background to an ongoing critical research project which aims to uncover interests at work and interrogate the legitimacy of those interests, while enabling the voices of key actors from the time to surface, be explored, and be recorded.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hagyun Kim

Aotearoa New Zealand is a country where cultural differences are widespread and longstanding. The Treaty of Waitangi laid the foundation for an inclusive society where citizens’ full participation is granted. Nevertheless, a number of Asians seem to have limited access to the benefits of an inclusive society, with great concerns over social isolation and marginalisation. This requires social workers attend to Asians’ life challenges, justified by key principles of human rights and social justice; yet a paucity of training exists in social work education, limiting their ability to work with this population. More training is necessary in the social work curriculum through which social workers enhance cultural competence, with relevant knowledge and skills, in relation to working with Asians in Aotearoa New Zealand.


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonya Hunt

INTRODUCTION: In this second of two articles on the history of professionalisation of social work in Aotearoa New Zealand, consideration is given to the more recent coalescing of forces from the 1990s to the initial implementation of the Social Workers Registration Act (2003), which led to our country’s example of a social work regulation project.APPROACH: This critical consideration of social work regulation in Aotearoa New Zealand situates it within the international social work professionalisation context alongside the national context. Consideration is given to the place of leadership and buy-in from the profession, political sponsorship, cultural considerations, and another ministerial review. Overlaying this, an examination of concepts of public trust, respect, and confidence in professions such as social work, are linked to crises of trust in professions in general, and placed within the current neoliberal, market-driven environment in which this project is anchored.CONCLUSION: The literature serves to document the history of social work regulation in Aotearoa New Zealand and as background for an ongoing research project which aims to uncover interests at work and interrogate the legitimacy of those interests, while enabling the voices of key actors from the time to surface, be explored, and be recorded.


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