The issue is moot: Decolonizing art/artifact

This article seeks to step back from the long-standing debate between art and artifact—aesthetics and science-- understood as terms that reference central concerns of the quintessentially modern Western disciplines of art history and anthropology. In their landmark edited volume The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology, George Marcus and Fred Myers explored the growing convergences exhibited by the concerns and methods of practitioners of the two disciplines, both in the academy and the museum. By training our attention on contemporary artworlds—understood as systems-- they illuminated the exchanges of aesthetic and conceptual ideas and forms that have brought Western and non-Western arts into shared discursive and real spaces. Yet in the quarter century since the book’s publication there has been a noticeable retreat from attempts by the proponents of visual studies and an expanded visual anthropology to actualize disciplinary convergences. The boundaries that separate art and anthropology have not been dissolved. Art historians and anthropologists continue to ask different questions and to support different regimes of value. From the author’s vantage point in a settler society currently directing considerable energies to institutional projects of decolonization the old debates have rapidly been receding as a new ‘third term’ – Indigenous Studies-- intrudes itself on the well trodden terrain. Not (yet) definable as a discipline but, rather, maintaining itself as an orientation, Indigenous Studies nevertheless renders the earlier disciplinary debates moot. Place, rather than time-based, collective rather than individual, holistic rather than either disciplinary or interdisciplinary, Indigenous Studies formulations exert decolonizing pressures on institutions that are rapidly mounting. Using Anishinaabeg: Art and Power, a show in 2017 at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), as a case study, this article shows how an exhibition moved representation away from the art/artifact dichotomy as well as from contested strategies of ‘inclusion’ and pro forma recognitions of ‘Indigenous ontology’ toward a genuine paradigm shift.

Teaching and learning New Zealand's difficult history of colonisation in secondary school contexts

<p>In recent years, awareness of New Zealand’s history of colonial injustice has grown in national consciousness. This awareness has led to much questioning of history education, particularly New Zealand’s high autonomy curriculum and its capacity to ensure that all young people encounter these ‘difficult’ aspects of the past. Yet little is known about the experiences of secondary school teachers and students during lessons on New Zealand’s history of colonisation. This study aimed to explore how teachers and students engaged with the history of colonisation, including how a sample of effective teachers and their students confronted the challenges and complexities of these pedagogical encounters. The importance of understanding this became even more significant when in 2019, the government surprised many by announcing that New Zealand history will become a compulsory feature of the curriculum at all levels of school from 2022. This thesis contributes to the new challenge of implementing compulsory curriculum content by developing a deeper understanding of the complexities currently experienced by teachers and students during lessons on colonisation. History education that focuses on historical forms of violence and its representation in curriculum is commonly referred to as the study of ‘difficult history’ (Epstein & Peck, 2018). In New Zealand, the early European colonists acquired land from the Indigenous Māori people resulting in inter-generational forms of suffering, trauma and oppression. In such a ‘settler society’ the history of one’s own nation and its instances of colonial injustice present challenges because the descendants of the early colonists remain, owning the majority of land and controlling to a large extent political systems and institutions, including schools. This thesis extends the research on difficult history by focusing on the challenges of teaching and learning the history of colonisation in New Zealand, particularly as it relates to the power dynamics of a settler society. It plays close attention to the pedagogical complexities of place and emotion and is situated within a broad framework of critical theory which seeks to explicitly acknowledge the significance of Indigenous systems of knowledge. Using a mixed method approach, this study presents findings drawn from a survey of teachers (n=298) and students (n=1889) and a multiple-site case study using qualitative approaches at four schools. In addition to classrooom based research, the study also investigated students’ experiences during field trips to places of colonial violence. Data gathering methods included interviews, semi-structured focus groups, classroom and field trip observations and a student-led photography task. Analysis of the data showed that history and social studies teachers overwhelmingly expressed critical views about the nature of colonisation and recognised that, for example, colonisation reverberates in the present and that its consequences were destructive, primarily for Māori. Teachers also comprehensively endorsed inquiry-led and discussion-based pedagogical approaches that were attentive to the conventions of the discipline of history. Some dominant conceptions, however, revealed barriers that prevented teachers’ collective ability to engage more deeply with this history, especially Māori perspectives. Students also expressed critical views about colonisation, but many still understood this process as a discrete ‘event’ found only in the past, reducing their ability to consider the implications of the past for today. Furthermore, while the majority of students were receptive to learning the history of colonisation, a significant proportion were not. The ethnographic component of the study revealed a number of complexities that hindered deeper engagement with the past. This included dealing with discomfort and resistance to histories of colonisation and the challenges teachers faced in forming relationships with iwi and hapū. The ethnographic component also showed that school field trips to sites of colonial violence held potential to operate as place-based ‘counter narratives’ that could transform students’ prior conceptions and deepen their engagement with difficult histories of place. The study concludes that two key ‘patterns of engagement’ shaped teachers’ and students’ encounters with New Zealand’s history of colonisation. In the first, many teachers struggled to engage pedagogically with Māori perspectives and approaches to the past, which made the curriculum goal of acknowledging and validating Indigenous systems of knowledge less likely. In the second, students’ emotional discomfort functioned as a complex and ever-present dynamic that potentially deepened but at times reduced their engagement with difficult histories of colonisation. Collectively these findings have implications for classroom practice and policy reform that take on a renewed urgency with New Zealand’s move toward compulsory teaching of New Zealand history.</p>

Teaching and learning New Zealand's difficult history of colonisation in secondary school contexts

<p>In recent years, awareness of New Zealand’s history of colonial injustice has grown in national consciousness. This awareness has led to much questioning of history education, particularly New Zealand’s high autonomy curriculum and its capacity to ensure that all young people encounter these ‘difficult’ aspects of the past. Yet little is known about the experiences of secondary school teachers and students during lessons on New Zealand’s history of colonisation. This study aimed to explore how teachers and students engaged with the history of colonisation, including how a sample of effective teachers and their students confronted the challenges and complexities of these pedagogical encounters. The importance of understanding this became even more significant when in 2019, the government surprised many by announcing that New Zealand history will become a compulsory feature of the curriculum at all levels of school from 2022. This thesis contributes to the new challenge of implementing compulsory curriculum content by developing a deeper understanding of the complexities currently experienced by teachers and students during lessons on colonisation. History education that focuses on historical forms of violence and its representation in curriculum is commonly referred to as the study of ‘difficult history’ (Epstein & Peck, 2018). In New Zealand, the early European colonists acquired land from the Indigenous Māori people resulting in inter-generational forms of suffering, trauma and oppression. In such a ‘settler society’ the history of one’s own nation and its instances of colonial injustice present challenges because the descendants of the early colonists remain, owning the majority of land and controlling to a large extent political systems and institutions, including schools. This thesis extends the research on difficult history by focusing on the challenges of teaching and learning the history of colonisation in New Zealand, particularly as it relates to the power dynamics of a settler society. It plays close attention to the pedagogical complexities of place and emotion and is situated within a broad framework of critical theory which seeks to explicitly acknowledge the significance of Indigenous systems of knowledge. Using a mixed method approach, this study presents findings drawn from a survey of teachers (n=298) and students (n=1889) and a multiple-site case study using qualitative approaches at four schools. In addition to classrooom based research, the study also investigated students’ experiences during field trips to places of colonial violence. Data gathering methods included interviews, semi-structured focus groups, classroom and field trip observations and a student-led photography task. Analysis of the data showed that history and social studies teachers overwhelmingly expressed critical views about the nature of colonisation and recognised that, for example, colonisation reverberates in the present and that its consequences were destructive, primarily for Māori. Teachers also comprehensively endorsed inquiry-led and discussion-based pedagogical approaches that were attentive to the conventions of the discipline of history. Some dominant conceptions, however, revealed barriers that prevented teachers’ collective ability to engage more deeply with this history, especially Māori perspectives. Students also expressed critical views about colonisation, but many still understood this process as a discrete ‘event’ found only in the past, reducing their ability to consider the implications of the past for today. Furthermore, while the majority of students were receptive to learning the history of colonisation, a significant proportion were not. The ethnographic component of the study revealed a number of complexities that hindered deeper engagement with the past. This included dealing with discomfort and resistance to histories of colonisation and the challenges teachers faced in forming relationships with iwi and hapū. The ethnographic component also showed that school field trips to sites of colonial violence held potential to operate as place-based ‘counter narratives’ that could transform students’ prior conceptions and deepen their engagement with difficult histories of place. The study concludes that two key ‘patterns of engagement’ shaped teachers’ and students’ encounters with New Zealand’s history of colonisation. In the first, many teachers struggled to engage pedagogically with Māori perspectives and approaches to the past, which made the curriculum goal of acknowledging and validating Indigenous systems of knowledge less likely. In the second, students’ emotional discomfort functioned as a complex and ever-present dynamic that potentially deepened but at times reduced their engagement with difficult histories of colonisation. Collectively these findings have implications for classroom practice and policy reform that take on a renewed urgency with New Zealand’s move toward compulsory teaching of New Zealand history.</p>

Unsettling the Colony: Gender, fear and settler colonialism during the evacuation of 'refugee' settler women from Land Wars conflicts at Taranaki (1860-1861) and Poverty Bay (1865, 1868)

<p>Anxiety and fear were central to the condition of settler colonialism in 1860s New Zealand. The Land Wars of the 1860s in New Zealand provoked potent anxiety about the enemy, about loved ones’ lives and about survival. The anxiety could transform into full-blown fear and panic with the onset of violence, or even the prospect or threat of violence. This thesis examines and compares evacuations of ‘refugee’ settler women and children from the sites of Land Wars conflicts in Taranaki (1860-61), and at Waerenga-a-hika (1865) and Matawhero (1868) in Poverty Bay. It explores the character and response to danger of what might be described as ‘settler anxiety’. Settlers of the 1860s used the specific term ‘refugee’ to describe the displaced settler women and children. Māori also faced displacement during the wars, though their situation is not within the scope of this thesis. The story of the Land Wars thus far has focused mainly on the narrative of the military conflict and examines events primarily as a male-centric, racial conflict. However, the time has come to examine experiences off the battlefield – of non-combatants. Women and children in particular are far more central to the history of the wars than is currently acknowledged. The first part of the thesis explores how the Land Wars ‘refugees’ coped with separation from homes and family. The second part examines how settler society, both on a formal governmental basis and on a more informal community level, reacted to the presence of ‘refugees’ emotively and with practical assistance. The research examines the language settlers used and the points they emphasised in their writing or speeches to reveal the frameworks of settler colonialism. Personal diaries, letters and memoirs are used to understand the settlers’ situations. To understand the broader reaction of settler society the thesis draws on newspapers, provincial council correspondence and records, and general government debate and legislation. This thesis argues that the existence of women and children settler ‘refugees’ during the Land Wars represented the settler colonial system in turmoil, providing evidence that the wars involved a conflict off the battlefield as well as on it. Colonists dreamed of creating a safe and secure colony where settlers could acquire land and make a livelihood to support a family. Consequently, attacks on family went to the heart of settler colonialism. The ‘refugees’ symbolised the ‘unsettling’ of settler colonialism, both literally by their locational displacement and figuratively by igniting fear about the stability of the settler colony. In response to the ‘refugee’ crisis settlers vehemently asserted their attachment to ‘home’, to prove their right to live in the colony, and promoted their solidarity with the ‘refugees’ and against enemy Māori, who they saw as threatening the settler dream. The evacuation of Land Wars ‘refugees’ is also considered for its similarities and differences to other ‘refugee’ situations internationally during the colonial era.</p>

Unsettling the Colony: Gender, fear and settler colonialism during the evacuation of 'refugee' settler women from Land Wars conflicts at Taranaki (1860-1861) and Poverty Bay (1865, 1868)

<p>Anxiety and fear were central to the condition of settler colonialism in 1860s New Zealand. The Land Wars of the 1860s in New Zealand provoked potent anxiety about the enemy, about loved ones’ lives and about survival. The anxiety could transform into full-blown fear and panic with the onset of violence, or even the prospect or threat of violence. This thesis examines and compares evacuations of ‘refugee’ settler women and children from the sites of Land Wars conflicts in Taranaki (1860-61), and at Waerenga-a-hika (1865) and Matawhero (1868) in Poverty Bay. It explores the character and response to danger of what might be described as ‘settler anxiety’. Settlers of the 1860s used the specific term ‘refugee’ to describe the displaced settler women and children. Māori also faced displacement during the wars, though their situation is not within the scope of this thesis. The story of the Land Wars thus far has focused mainly on the narrative of the military conflict and examines events primarily as a male-centric, racial conflict. However, the time has come to examine experiences off the battlefield – of non-combatants. Women and children in particular are far more central to the history of the wars than is currently acknowledged. The first part of the thesis explores how the Land Wars ‘refugees’ coped with separation from homes and family. The second part examines how settler society, both on a formal governmental basis and on a more informal community level, reacted to the presence of ‘refugees’ emotively and with practical assistance. The research examines the language settlers used and the points they emphasised in their writing or speeches to reveal the frameworks of settler colonialism. Personal diaries, letters and memoirs are used to understand the settlers’ situations. To understand the broader reaction of settler society the thesis draws on newspapers, provincial council correspondence and records, and general government debate and legislation. This thesis argues that the existence of women and children settler ‘refugees’ during the Land Wars represented the settler colonial system in turmoil, providing evidence that the wars involved a conflict off the battlefield as well as on it. Colonists dreamed of creating a safe and secure colony where settlers could acquire land and make a livelihood to support a family. Consequently, attacks on family went to the heart of settler colonialism. The ‘refugees’ symbolised the ‘unsettling’ of settler colonialism, both literally by their locational displacement and figuratively by igniting fear about the stability of the settler colony. In response to the ‘refugee’ crisis settlers vehemently asserted their attachment to ‘home’, to prove their right to live in the colony, and promoted their solidarity with the ‘refugees’ and against enemy Māori, who they saw as threatening the settler dream. The evacuation of Land Wars ‘refugees’ is also considered for its similarities and differences to other ‘refugee’ situations internationally during the colonial era.</p>

(In)Essential Bordering: Canada, COVID, and Mobility

The global spread of Covid-19 not only disrupted transborder movement. In many (if not most) states, stasis and closure became the default norm at and within borders. This, in turn, generated exceptions organised around an idea of ‘essential’ entry. The category of ‘essential’ was produced, revised, and represented through the interaction of pandemic-driven exigencies and nationally-specific articulations of the legal, political, and economic priorities and constraints in play. To understand how the admission into Canada of certain people was accepted as legally, economically, and/or politically essential, one must take account of Canada’s character as a settler society and its economic integration with the United States. Other relevant considerations are the growing dependence on migrant workers to subsidise the cost of food production for Canadian agribusiness, and on international students to subsidize the cost of higher education for nationals.

Land, land banks and land back: Accounting, social reproduction and Indigenous resurgence

This paper situates Indigenous social reproduction as a duality; as both a site of primitive accumulation and as a critical, resurgent, land-based practice. Drawing on three distinct cases from British Columbia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand and Bua, Fiji, we illustrate how accounting techniques can be a key mechanism with which Indigenous modes of life are brought to the market and are often foundational to the establishment of markets. We argue that accounting practices operate at the vanguard of primitive accumulation by extracting once invaluable outsides (e.g. Indigenous land and bodies) and rendering these either valuable or valueless for the social reproduction of settler society. The commodification of Indigenous social reproduction sustains the conditions that enable capitalism to flourish through primitive accumulation. However, we privilege Indigenous agency, resistance and resurgence in our analysis to illustrate that these techniques of commodification through accounting are not inevitable. They are resisted or wielded towards Indigenous alternatives at every point.

'The trees do not belong to Chief Maranke but to the Native Reserves Trust': The politics of timber resource exploitation in African reserves, colonial Zimbabwe, 1924-1948

Contextualised within a settler state characterised by racial discrimination and unequal access to natural resources, this article examines the ideological, environmental and economic considerations surrounding the formation of the Native Reserves Trust (NRT) and the role it played in the exploitation of timber resources in the African reserves of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Cognisant of the fact that the colonial state set aside marginal and less productive reserves for the Africans, the paper uses the NRT as a lens to view the process by which the settler society penetrated African reserves and exploited timber resources that were needed for the white-owned enterprises, while at the same time, Africans were barred from exploiting the same resources in European domains. The study further discusses the significance of timber in the African reserves, analyses the role of the NRT in regulating timber exploitation processes and the relations between the state, timber concessionaire companies and the African communities. Lastly, it assesses the extent to which timber exploitation contributed to environmental destruction, and how this prompted a policy shift, leading to the implementation of state-initiated afforestation programmes in these reserves and how these re-shaped state-African relations. On the whole, we note that the exploitation of timber resources in African areas replicated the larger colonial policy that favoured whites at the expense of Africans.

Reframing Suicide

What can narratives of suicide tell us about diasporic and Indigenous relationships to the white settler state? This article engages relational critique to examine trans/femme/bisexual South Asian Canadian filmmaker Vivek Shraya's short film I want to kill myself (2017) and queer Cree/Métis filmmaker Adam Garnet Jones's feature film Fire Song (2015). Both films challenge the spectacularity of suicide, effectively situating suicide on a continuum of “slow death.” However, the films also stage distinct relationships between suicide, community, and the state that emerge from diasporic and Native positionalities within a white settler society. Whereas Shraya's diasporic struggle with suicide is alleviated by forging community within settler spaces, Fire Song counters pathologizing depictions of reserve communities by emphasizing resurgent Indigenous practices and their refusal of settler logics.

Settler Military Politics: On the Inclusion and Recognition of Indigenous People in the Military

After decades of refusal, neglect, and tacit admittance, the service of Indigenous people in the national armed forces of settler colonial states such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States is finally gaining acknowledgment. Indigenous people are now integrated in the regular forces and represented in national war commemoration. This article maintains that while inclusion and recognition of Indigenous military service is a positive transformation in the direction of post-colonial reconciliation, it still operates within the logics of settler colonialism intended to eradicate Indigenous stories of connection to land and assimilate Indigenous people in settler society. Using the case study of Indigenous militarization in Australia, this article argues that, under conditions of settler colonialism, the inclusion and recognition of Indigenous people in national militaries advances the settler colonial project intended to dispossess Indigenous people from their land and assimilate them in the new settler society. It highlights that historically, military organization has supported settler colonialism, and positions the present inclusion and recognition of Indigenous people in the military as a continuation of this history.