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maurermfa · 3 years

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Lit Review: Second Pass

In ‘Our Sea of Islands’, writer and anthropologist, Epeli Hau’ofa argues that Oceania has been shaped by two primary forces. The decision making of politicians, bureaucrats, statutory body officials, diplomats, the military, financial and business representatives, with donor and international lending organisations, advised by academic and consultancy experts, in the name of national governments and regional and international diplomacy. And the reactions of ordinary people, peasants, proletarians, who live their lives and make decisions independently of those in dominant positions of power.Hau'ofa questions the notion that island nations are ‘much too small, too poorly endowed with resources, and too isolated from the centres of economic growth to ever move beyond their condition of dependence. Defining this as a narrow, deterministic perspective, designed to perpetuate the subjugation of peoples, lands & seas by the manipulators of the global economy. Arguing that these perspectives have been shaped by the prevailing term ‘Pacific Islands’, connoting small areas of land surfaces sitting atop submerged reefs or seamounts. As opposed to ‘Oceania’, “the world of Oceania is not small; it is huge and growing every day.”

For Greg Dvorak, ‘specificity matters’. in his essay ‘S/pacific Islands: Some Reflections on Identity and Art in Contemporary Oceania’, Dvorak speaks of the empires & wars that have shaped the collective understanding of Oceania, considering ‘Pacific’ a result of the ‘embedded and entangled imperial forces that named and mapped this ocean, and that still need to be confronted’. Proposing “an understanding of Oceania as a verb and not a noun, as dynamic rather than static, an open ended conversation, sentence, question, and to recentre Oceania, to demand its centrality in the Middle of Now and Here as opposed to ‘the middle of nowhere’”. Situating his own story within the essay as a means to encourage others with non-Pacific heritage to acknowledge their ‘indebtedness to Oceania and the violent histories of colonial exploitation.’ The use of coral to manufacture concrete, metaphor for the violence of continued colonisation ‘we are deeply deeply entangled with each other, but the concrete our nations pour can make some of us the inheritors of great privilege and others the inheritors of dispossession.’

In Aotearoa, Te Tiriti o Waitangi is the primary touch point for relations between Maori and ‘The Crown’. However, Margaret Mutu (Ngāti Kahu, Te Rarawa and Ngāti Whātua nations), in her text, ‘To honour the treaty, we must first settle colonisation’ (Moana Jackson 2015): the long road from colonial devastation to balance, peace and harmony’, clearly articulates a perspective that reframes the dominant narrative of colonisation in Aotearoa. Citing from the United Nations Economic and Social Council in regards to the Doctrine of Discovery as a “myth that purports to give White people the right to dispossess and commit genocide against peoples who were not White and not Christian”. This myth shaping the attitudes of lawless colonisers in their desire to seek fortunes in lands that weren’t theirs, eventually supported by a colluding crown. Mutu continues, framing the argument around ‘remedying colonial devastation, the treaty claims extinguishment policy, claimant experiences of direct negotiations, the greatest settlement myths and finding a solution through constitutional transformation.’

As a means to better understand the complexities of Pākehā identity, Pākehā Now!, curated by Anna-Marie White, at The Suter Te Aratoi o Whakatū in 2007, takes an ethnological approach to Pākehā art. In the accompanying catalogue essay, Te Pākehā: The People of New Zealand, White satirically illustrates the complexities, contradictions and development of an identity born as a result of colonisation. Speaking to the speed at which Pākehā culture developed and how for the most part, the story of Pākehā in New Zealand reads as a “kind of self portrait.” In the same catalogue, Damien Skinner contends that, ‘identifying (as) Pākehā is part of a serious political responsibility to engage with historical and contemporary colonialism.’

Imagining Decolonisation, is a collection of essays, edited by Bianca Elkington and Jennie Smeaton, both Ngāti Toa Rangatira. An essay from the book, ‘Pākehā and Doing the Work of Decolonisation’ by Amanda Thomas (Pākehā), opens by stating that colonisation has created an unequal and unjust society, through Pākehā ideas of how things should be. Arguing that it is now Pākehā’s responsibility to acknowledge these outdated ideas, “take cues from Māori leadership and do the work of decolonisation.” Thomas describes behaviours and ideas that might be challenged through decolonisation, in order to build a better society, stating that “because of the complexity of colonisation and its effects, decolonisation is complex, highly political work. What decolonisation looks like for Pākehā and how we engage in it depends a lot on our relationships. One of the ideas we want to emphasise in this book is that Pākehā and other tauiwi should take our cue from Māori in the work of decolonisation - that means Māori set the agenda and are leaders in discussions about decolonisation.”

Thomas encourages Pākehā to acknowledge and sit with the discomfort that can come from listening and trusting Māori experiences of society. “For those many Pākehā who see our future in Aotearoa and not back in the countries our ancestors came from, the only way to legitimise our place here is to do the work that flows from being tāngata tiriti, people who are committed to the treaty relationship. This work involves thinking about how we came to be here, questioning relationships of power and control, and engaging in decolonisation.” In order to do this work “non indigenous people will have to give up power and privilege in material ways...a broader giving up of privilege might mean non Maori using roles within workplaces, community groups or at school to advocate for a shifting of power away from Pākehā and Pākehā norms. Often when Māori suggest change, they are overtly or subtly dismissed as angry brown people (particularly if they are women) in ways that white people are not. To challenge this kind of dismissal, and deflect some of the anger that can come when Pākehā-centrism is challenged, Pākehā can be powerful allies and workers in these battles, and use our energy and social capital to get things changed.” In the final essay of Imaging Decolonisation, Where to next? Decolonisation and the stories in the Land, Moana Jackson (Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongomaiwahine, Ngāti Porou) speaks of the ‘vast story archive’ colonisers have amassed since Europeans began disposing Indigenous peoples of their land. Stating that “if a story does acknowledge any mistreatment or contemporary disadvantage of Indigenous peoples, it usually speaks of the legacy of colonisation rather than its ongoing presence.” In Aotearoa, “the potential exists to develop different and unique decolonisation discourse because there are already stories which express the power of a different truth...many of them were first told and learned in the long centuries when Māori became iwi and hapū, and long before those who were called the rekekē or ‘different ones’ arrived on these shores. They are stories from non colonising times. The values and hopes they contain for this land can provide the basis for a non-colonising future.”

“In the nearly four hunderd years that European states had been disposing other Indigenous peoples, the only relationships they knew were ones in which they would rule over peoples they decided were racially inferior. The only meaning they gave to the land was as property which they should own.” “As they set about ensuring their supremacy through war and all the other brutality of dispossession, the colonisers wrote new stories that deliberately misremembered and obscured the injustice of what they were doing. History became a kind of rebranding in which colonisation was not seen as a violent home invasion but a grand if sometimes flawed adventure that was somehow ‘better’ here than anywhere else because of the proclaimed honour of the Crown in treaty-making. “ “Unfortunately, in colonisations current neoliberal form the stories are being co-opted and redefined once again. These co-opted versions are used to further Crown interests - often as a clip-on perspective to its narratives of cultural respect and responsiveness. Too often these stories are removed from their historical and political beginnings and become a cultural garnish or a concert performance, rather than an expression of the independent power and integrity within which they were meant to exist.” “Restoration (like colonisation) is also a process, not an event, and it will require a change of mind and heart as much as a change of structure.” “At one level the practical steps involved in this envisioned ethic are necessarily political and constitutional because decolonisation cannot occur within the systems and institutions which colonisation has established. The restoration of place in a non-colonising future can only be assured with the recognition and effective exercise of iwi and hapū self determination - not as a structural subset of colonising government structures, but as the basis of constitutionally independent polities.” “Because whakapapa traverses time between the past, present and future, the building of new relationships and the telling of new stories begins with the identification and ‘un-telling’ of colonisations past and present lies. Stories for and about transformation rely on honesty about the misremembered stories and the foresight to see where different stories might lead. That is the ethic of restoration. It offers the chance, or the challenge, to clutch truth and justice for ‘future flowerings’. It is concerned with the balance of relationships rather than a will to limit what they might be. And in giving back to Māori the right of self determination, it offers everyone a place to stand.”

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maurermfa · 3 years

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A start

In ‘Our Sea of Islands’, Epeli Hau’ofa argues that Oceania has been shaped by two primary forces. The decision making of politicians, bureaucrats, statutory body officials, diplomats, the military, financial and business representatives, with donor and international lending organisations, advised by academic and consultancy experts, in the name of national governments and regional and international diplomacy. And the reactions of ordinary people, peasants, proletarians, who live their lives and make decisions independently of those in dominant positions of power.

Hau'ofa questions the notion that island nations are ‘much too small, too poorly endowed with resources, and too isolated from the centres of economic growth to ever move beyond their condition of dependence. Defining this as a narrow, deterministic perspective, designed to perpetuate the subjugation of peoples, lands & seas by the manipulators of the global economy.’ Arguing “the world of Oceania is not small; it is huge and growing every day.”

For Greg Dvorak, ‘specificity matters’. in his essay ‘S/pacific Islands: Some Reflections on Identity and Art in Contemporary Oceania’, Dvorak speaks of the empires & wars that have shaped the collective understanding of Oceania, also comparing the positions from which ‘Oceania’ and ‘The Pacific’ derive. Proposing “an understanding of Oceania as a verb and not a noun, as dynamic rather than static, an open ended conversation, sentence, question, and to recentre Oceania, to demand its centrality in the Middle of Now and Here as opposed to ‘the middle of nowhere’”. Situating his own story within the essay as a means to encourage others with non-Pacific heritage to acknowledge their ‘indebtedness to Oceania and the violent histories of colonial exploitation.’ The use of coral to manufacture concrete, metaphor for the violence of continued colonisation ‘we are deeply deeply entangled with each other, but the concrete our nations pour can make some of us the inheritors of great privilege and others the inheritors of dispossession.’

In Aotearoa, Te Tiriti o Waitangi is the primary touch point for relations between Maori and ‘The Crown’. However, Margaret Mutu (Ngāti Kahu, Te Rarawa and Ngāti Whātua nations), in her text, ‘To honour the treaty, we must first settle colonisation’ (Moana Jackson 2015): the long road from colonial devastation to balance, peace and harmony, clearly articulates a perspective that reframes the dominant narrative of colonisation in Aotearoa. Citing from the United Nations Economic and Social Council in regards to the Doctrine of Discovery as a “myth that purports to give White people the right to dispossess and commit genocide against peoples who were not White and not Christian”. This myth shaping the attitudes of lawless colonisers in their desire to seek fortunes in lands that weren’t theirs, eventually supported by a colluding crown. TBC

As a means to better understand the complexities of Pākehā identity, Pākehā Now!, curated by Anna-Marie White, at The Suter Te Aratoi o Whakatū in 2007, takes an ethnological approach to Pākehā art. In the accompanying catalogue White satirically illustrates the complexities, contradictions and development of an identity born as a result of colonisation. In the same catalogue, Damien Skinner contends that, ‘identifying (as) Pākehā is part of a serious political responsibility to engage with historical and contemporary colonialism.

0 notes