Spaces of cross-cultural encounter

<p>The landscape of cultural relations in Aotearoa is complex and entangled. While academics and policy makers imagine Aotearoa as a multicultural society, there is a lack of understanding of how cultural diversity is lived every day in Aotearoa. There is an emerging literature on the geographies of encounter. This encourages us to address the historical predicament of how we are to live together in increasingly super diverse communities by considering the existing everyday negotiations of difference. This thesis contributes to that literature by undertaking a case study of Newtown, Wellington, in order to: 1) understand where Newtown residents and employees experience cross-cultural social interactions; and 2) what type of places help encourage positive cross-cultural interactions. Through this I explore how cross-cultural encounters and exchanges might be encouraged. Q-methodology was used to investigate locations of cross-cultural social interactions, I conducted and analysed 23 Q-sorts with Newtown, Wellington residents and local employees. I argue that places of cross-cultural encounter take many forms. The identification of these places is closely linked to participants’ characteristics, such as socioeconomic position, and age. The participants in this study represent diverse Newtown. They have diverse socialising practices and identify a wide range of positive places for cross-cultural interactions. In conjunction with this people understand and experience encounters with cultural diversity differently. I argue that an encounter across cultural difference is not limited to an explicit interaction but can also be through the sharing of space and engagement in similar activities. I also argue for the importance of space in cross-cultural encounters; certain spatial and material qualities of spaces appear to animate cross-cultural social interaction. This research argues that: engagement in cross-cultural interactions is often mediated by other identifiers, that everyday multiculturalism is demographically complex, and that the materiality and spatially of spaces is effectual in animating these interactions.</p>

Spaces of cross-cultural encounter

<p>The landscape of cultural relations in Aotearoa is complex and entangled. While academics and policy makers imagine Aotearoa as a multicultural society, there is a lack of understanding of how cultural diversity is lived every day in Aotearoa. There is an emerging literature on the geographies of encounter. This encourages us to address the historical predicament of how we are to live together in increasingly super diverse communities by considering the existing everyday negotiations of difference. This thesis contributes to that literature by undertaking a case study of Newtown, Wellington, in order to: 1) understand where Newtown residents and employees experience cross-cultural social interactions; and 2) what type of places help encourage positive cross-cultural interactions. Through this I explore how cross-cultural encounters and exchanges might be encouraged. Q-methodology was used to investigate locations of cross-cultural social interactions, I conducted and analysed 23 Q-sorts with Newtown, Wellington residents and local employees. I argue that places of cross-cultural encounter take many forms. The identification of these places is closely linked to participants’ characteristics, such as socioeconomic position, and age. The participants in this study represent diverse Newtown. They have diverse socialising practices and identify a wide range of positive places for cross-cultural interactions. In conjunction with this people understand and experience encounters with cultural diversity differently. I argue that an encounter across cultural difference is not limited to an explicit interaction but can also be through the sharing of space and engagement in similar activities. I also argue for the importance of space in cross-cultural encounters; certain spatial and material qualities of spaces appear to animate cross-cultural social interaction. This research argues that: engagement in cross-cultural interactions is often mediated by other identifiers, that everyday multiculturalism is demographically complex, and that the materiality and spatially of spaces is effectual in animating these interactions.</p>

George French Angas and the Creation of Colonial Knowledge in New Zealand

<p>In 1844, George French Angas, the English traveller, artist, natural historian and ethnographer spent four months travelling in New Zealand. He sought out and met many of the most influential Maori leaders of the time, sketching and recording his observations as he went. His stated intention was to provide a ‘more correct idea’ of New Zealand and the New Zealanders. In Australia and then Britain he held exhibitions of his work and in 1847 he published two works based on this time in New Zealand: a large volume of full-colour lithographs, The New Zealanders Illustrated and a travel narrative based on his journal, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand. These exhibitions and publications comprised the nineteenth century’s largest collection of works about Maori and Maori culture. This thesis is a study of the ‘more correct idea’ that Angas sought to provide: his creation of colonial knowledge about Maori. Angas is most commonly described in New Zealand as being an unremarkable artist but as providing a window onto New Zealand in the 1840s. This thesis opens the window wider by looking at Angas’s works as a record of a cultural encounter and the formation of a colonial identity. The works were shaped by numerous ideological and intellectual currents from Britain and the empire, including humanitarianism and the aesthetic of the picturesque. Ideas about gender and the body form a central part of the colonial knowledge created in Angas’s work. Particularly notable is what this thesis terms ‘sartorial colonisation’ – a process of colonisation through discourse and expectations around clothes. Angas also travelled and worked in a dynamic middle ground in New Zealand and Maori played a vital role in the creation of his works. Angas represented Maori in a sympathetic light in many ways. Ultimately however, he believed in the superiority of the British culture, to the detriment of creating colonial knowledge that placed Maori as equal partners in the recently signed Treaty of Waitangi. This thesis also examines the ways in which Angas’s body of work has been engaged with by the New Zealand public through to the present. As a study of the products of a British traveller who spent time in other parts of the empire as well as in New Zealand, this thesis contributes to histories of New Zealand, and British imperial and transcolonial history.</p>

George French Angas and the Creation of Colonial Knowledge in New Zealand

<p>In 1844, George French Angas, the English traveller, artist, natural historian and ethnographer spent four months travelling in New Zealand. He sought out and met many of the most influential Maori leaders of the time, sketching and recording his observations as he went. His stated intention was to provide a ‘more correct idea’ of New Zealand and the New Zealanders. In Australia and then Britain he held exhibitions of his work and in 1847 he published two works based on this time in New Zealand: a large volume of full-colour lithographs, The New Zealanders Illustrated and a travel narrative based on his journal, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand. These exhibitions and publications comprised the nineteenth century’s largest collection of works about Maori and Maori culture. This thesis is a study of the ‘more correct idea’ that Angas sought to provide: his creation of colonial knowledge about Maori. Angas is most commonly described in New Zealand as being an unremarkable artist but as providing a window onto New Zealand in the 1840s. This thesis opens the window wider by looking at Angas’s works as a record of a cultural encounter and the formation of a colonial identity. The works were shaped by numerous ideological and intellectual currents from Britain and the empire, including humanitarianism and the aesthetic of the picturesque. Ideas about gender and the body form a central part of the colonial knowledge created in Angas’s work. Particularly notable is what this thesis terms ‘sartorial colonisation’ – a process of colonisation through discourse and expectations around clothes. Angas also travelled and worked in a dynamic middle ground in New Zealand and Maori played a vital role in the creation of his works. Angas represented Maori in a sympathetic light in many ways. Ultimately however, he believed in the superiority of the British culture, to the detriment of creating colonial knowledge that placed Maori as equal partners in the recently signed Treaty of Waitangi. This thesis also examines the ways in which Angas’s body of work has been engaged with by the New Zealand public through to the present. As a study of the products of a British traveller who spent time in other parts of the empire as well as in New Zealand, this thesis contributes to histories of New Zealand, and British imperial and transcolonial history.</p>