The Discovery of Islands and the Stories of Settlement (original) (raw)
Related papers
THE MAORI AND THE CROWN An Indigenous People's Struggle For Self- Determination
While it has generally come to be accepted that most Western settlement and colonization of non-European countries should more properly be seen as invasion, 'fatal impact' accounts have been largely discounted in light of overwhelming evidence of the tenacity and adaptability of societies and cultures. This book traces the course of the courageous determination of the Maori of Aotearoa (New Zealand) to maintain their heritage and autonomous identity during two centuries of intense and sustained 'impact' since the beginnings of European settlement. To a reviewer forced to read many academic books in obscure and turgid prose, Alves's writing style is refreshingly readable, clear and jargon-free. Her account is well-researched but treads lightly on the pages, stating its position undogmatically yet persuasively. After briefly presenting current views on Maori migrations and pre-contact life, it moves through early contacts, missionization and British annexation. It explains how the Maori translation of the Treaty of Waitangi differed from its English original, encouraging a very different reading of it by the two sides. Thus the 'agreement,' which Britain brandished to validate its annexation of the whole country, was not merely contracted with a relatively few North Island chiefs, it was fundamentally counterfeit.
2004
Settler colonisation produced particular colonial subjects: indigene and settler. The specificity of the relationship between these subjects lies in the act of settlement; an act of colonial violence by which the settler physically and symbolically displaces the indigene, but never totally. While indigenes may be physically displaced from their territories, they continue to occupy a marginal location within the settler nation-state. Symbolically, as settlers set out to distinguish themselves from the metropolitan 'motherlands', indigenous cultures become a rich, 'native' source of cultural authenticity to ground settler nationalisms. The result is a complex of conflictual and ambivalent relations between settler and indigene.
Challenging the Standard Story of indigenous rights in Aotearoa/New Zealand
Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 2005
Three public submissions are discursively analysed to understand how history, identity and equality are used to legitimise positions on indigenous rights claims over the foreshore and seabed in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The first submission illustrates the Standard Story of ethnic relations, whereby the ethnic majority is unmarked, colonisation is construed as unrelated to the present, and a tolerant, unified nation is constructed to exclude ‘divisive’ indigenous rights. In contrast, the second submission legitimises the claims by flagging the position of the ethnic majority, construing colonisation as an ongoing process that continues to favour Pakeha (white) New Zealanders over Maori. The third submission works up the similarity between indigenous rights and general property rights, negotiating the relationship between equal treatment and self-determination to legitimise the claims. We argue that discursive research on discrimination should approach texts as contributions to a dialectics of racism and anti-racism. This is useful for gaining a better understanding of oppressive discourses, and developing arguments that actively challenge discrimination. The Treaty of Waitangi provides Pakeha New Zealanders with discursive resources for constructing the subject position of a ‘partnership’ with Maori that legitimises the positions of both groups within a shared national identity. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Aboriginal History, 2011
Toi tu te marae o Tane Toi tu te marae o Tangaroa Toi tu te iwi Aotearoa/New Zealand in Context The geographical context is a long, narrow and mountainous land, broadside on to the westerly variables, the coldest and most distant part of Polynesia; discovered and settled a thousand years ago by the ancestors of Maori people, discovered again and, over the last 153 years, colonised by the ancestors of pakeha people (Figure 1). The culture and political context is two peoples, unevenly and ambiguously linked by a treaty signed in 1840, struggling to work out new resource and decision making relationships in the 1980s and 1990s. Tipene O'Regan, historian, negotiator, Chairman of the Ngai Tahu Maori Trust Board and presenter of the television series Manawhenua, draws deeply on traditional and academic knowledge to unroll the experience of the Polynesian encounter with this new and distant landJ The ancestors arrived from a world of tropical seas and small islands where Tangaroa, the Atua of the oceans and the fishes, was bountiful. They carried with them very intentional cargoes of people, plants and animals; artefacts; technologies in the mind; spiritual wisdom in the legends, the prayers and the genealogies. The ancestors landed adjacent to bays, river mouths, lagoons and estuaries; they explored, named and came to grips with the new environment by unrolling their legends on the new landscape, by exposing their plant and animal materials to the cold and the seasons and by adapting their technologies to new opportunities. The world of Tangaroa provided more familiar bounty; by contrast the world of forests, birds and insects-the extended family of the Atua Taneprovided new bounties and new problems of seasonal food supply. The environmental lessons were gradually learnt and the new world interwoven with tribal and subtribal identity. Long before the arrival of Tasman and Cook, the Maori iwi and hapu, tribes and subtribes, were established as those who nurtured and were nurtured by the land. They were tangata whenua, people of the land; they were the peoples who exercised kaitiakitanga or guardianship over its resources and its stories. These islands were also the last and most distant outliers of European exploration and settlement. Abel Tasman arrived from Batavia in the Netherlands East Indies in 1632 and placed New Zealand on the global map (Figure 2).
2004
vii through the final years of working on our doctorates. Our walks, phone calls and 'project management' meetings helped keep us both going and on-task, and her energy and enjoyment of life always made the difficult times easier. Finally, I thank Jeff Rowe who, over the time I have been writing this thesis, has given me quiet and wise support, has been at hand with sustenance-literally and, equally importantly, in the form of entertaining and relaxing diversions-and has always given me the space I needed in which to read, think and write. I wish to dedicate this thesis to my parents, Arthur and Shirley Bell, and to my daughter, Sharni Erceg. I grew up in a house where I was taught to enjoy questioning and thinking and to value social justice. Without that background, this thesis would never have been written. Nor would it have been written without Sharni. Her childhood was shaped around my need for an intellectual life and career and my debt to her for her tolerance and loving support is immense. Sharni is the inspiration for this thesis. viii
Dilemmas of settler belonging: roots, routes and redemption in New Zealand national identity claims1
The Sociological Review, 2009
This paper explores the identity markers and rules used in the process of national identity construction by young adult New Zealanders, drawing on empirical data from qualitative interviews with members of the majority culture of ‘Pakeha’ or ‘European’ New Zealanders. While these young New Zealanders draw on the markers of ‘birth’, ‘blood’ and ‘belonging’ identified in other studies, their claims to identity and belonging are troubled by the settler origins of their ancestors. The dilemmas these origins create for these young New Zealanders are identified along with the strategies they deploy as they seek to resolve them. The existence of these dilemmas suggests that a distinct identity rule is at work for this group that has not previously been identified in earlier studies. Thus, this analysis provides further evidence for the deployment of a common set of markers and rules as well as highlighting some of the ways in which these differ in different national contexts.
This practice-research based article explores the relationship between mana motuhake (indigenous sovereignty) and white patriarchal sovereignty in Aotearoa New Zealand, focusing on Ngāti Tūwharetoa as a case study. It seeks to find the relevance of Aboriginal academic Aileen Moreton-Robinson's white possessive doctrine to the Aotearoa New Zealand context. In particular, it highlights the racist nature of the law and planning systems and their inadequacies to provide for hapū and iwi (indigenous nation/s). It provides a key theoretical analysis regarding the nature of white patriarchal sovereignty in Aotearoa and the need of the state to appear virtuous, to continue the legacy that started with the Treaty of Waitangi to maintain this whenua (land) as a white possessive. Lastly, the piece questions the position of Britishness within Aotearoa New Zealand and asks key philosophical questions for all about the need to find common understandings or māramatanga about our collective future as a society.