Rethinking Identity in 21 st Century New Zealand Art in Context, October 18, 2007

Critical Theory Social Science is not simply descriptive It is aimed at Emancipation and Amelioration

Two culture in New Zealand Apparently in conflict However, we are an intermixed group – Māori and Non-Māori Socially Intermarriage

Can we truly say Them and Us? Or are we making false distinctions by talking about Them and Us in this way?

Colonization/Post-colonialism Post colonial theory Third Space Rethinking Identity and culture in New Zealand Response – changing the discourse

Colonization A time period An attitude – and consequent actions

Time period 1815 – European powers control 35% of the world’s surfaced 1914 – they control 85% of the world’s surface

This situation exists until the end of the second World War This is the colonizing period

Post WW2 India – 1947 Kenya The creation of the Middle Eastern countries Fiji Singapore

Post colonialism traces it’s beginning from the post WW2 period How to operate in a world freed of the influence of the colonizers

New Zealand A near-unique situation as the colonizers are still here and never likely to leave

Can they still be described as colonizers? I believe they can

Leading members of the dominating culture act like they have the right to dominate Leading figures in New Zealand still do not accept Māori culture on its own terms and expect to be able to operate in Māori situations on the terms of the dominant culture

New Liberalism Such as the Resource management Act Have reduced Māori to the status of a lobby group with the right to speak But whose views can still be discounted, as long as they have exercised their rights to speak.

So, New Zealand can only be described as post-colonial in terms of the time period In terms of the attitudes, and consequent actions, New Zealand is largely still a colonized country

I want to suggest that a colonizer is a person, or group, which acts according to a colonizing narrative Therefore, to change effect change, we have to change the discourse and we do that by changing the narratives which inform that discourse

Third Space Appears to offer a solution It looks to people to mediate between the two cultures – in this case Māori and Pākehā

A C B Narrative ?

No Narrative No set of “actions to be expected” People attempting to occupy the Third Space are forced into one or other major identity Are you Maori?

The Third Space is a continual field of dynamic social processes

The Third Space, therefore, remains a field in which identities conflict with each other, in which new identities arise, merge, and on and on.

The Third Space is a field of contestation and negotiation And Social Change

Identity How we behave towards each other

Identity is claimed And assigned

The claim is based on a narrative And a set of “Actions to be expected”

The assignee might not share the same narrative as the assigned The claimant might not share the same narrative as the audience

Without a shared narrative there is no consensus around a set of “actions to be expected” for any given identity

This disparity leads to the contestation, negotiation, dispute and conflict

Meeting procedure People who can not follow meeting procedure ie, do not know the set of “actions to be expected” Are regarded as “dangerously outspoken”

The totalizing effects of the dominant myth narratives

Said Orientalism Traces the creation of two identites Orientalist – a person who studies Orientals

Orientals People who live in the Orient A disputed Identity – not accepted by the people to whom it has been assigned

The set of “actions to be expected” of “orientals” justifies the colonization because “orientals” need “British Government” the myth-narrative/ action link

New Zealand’s narratives Pākehā

Moriori Māori Captain Cook The Treaty of Waitangi

The set of “actions to be expected” of Māori justifies the colonization because Māori need “British Government”

Letter to the editor Maori the conquerors? So the Moriori are an existing race that predates Maori, and now they have a marae. That raises some interesting questions. Should they sue Maori in current courts for eating them? Does this mean that all of the claims Maori have made as tangata whenua are fraudulent claims? Being tauiwi, I do not understand. If Maori defeated these people and chased them to the Chathams, doesn’t this mean that although Mari predate the European, they can no longer claim to be people of the land, but rather, are conquerors of another race? Cliff Wall (Waikato Times, 26/01/2005 p6)

European Settlement Hard-working settlers cleared the land and established “New Zealand” Gallipoli “The price of Nationhood” Oh, By the way, we are proud Maori where there too

Modern New Zealand Mainstream New Zealand

National Party Leader Don Brash Māori are not Mainstream New Zealanders Helen Clarke’s supporters are not Mainstream New Zealanders

This narrative is exclusive It creates an “Us” and a “Them”

Māori Narratives

Māori narratives are Inclusive

Contestation over narratives

Revision of New Zealand’s historic narrative James Belich Anne Salmond

The Third Space is not a concept confined to post-colonial discourse. It is a space of social contestation, of negotiation, dispute And ultimately it is a space of cntinuous social

Therefore, it is a useful tool to analyse and discuss current cross-cultural interactions However, it does not offer the longer term solutions as the Third Space will only remain a field of dispute

Different answer for New Zealand?

Rethinking Identity and culture in New Zealand

We will become one culture The culture of the British Isle, where most of our ancestors came from - Anglo-Saxons

Picts, Jutes, Celts Romans Saxons Normans Angles

Now we talk about Anglo-Saxons

There is a high rate of intermarriage and interaction in New Zealand between Māori and Pākehā

Can we start talking about one culture now? How can we do that without going down the colonizer/assimilationist path?

There is no “pure culture” Said

Spectrum Māori Pākehā

Distinction between class as analysis and class as reality Bourdieu

If you can not show an objective division between classes then the classes do not exist in reality If there is a spectrum, then there is no objective distinction between ethnic cultures in New Zealand

Apply the same concept to ethnicity and culture If there is a spectrum, then there is no objective distinction between ethnic cultures in New Zealand

The problem is at the level of ethnicity we conceive of culture as a unity – one whole A false conception

There is no pure culture They at least over-lap When does over-lap create a new culture?

“Culture” is a recognizable “set of actions” This conception links identity with culture Links sub-cultures to overall culture

Examples from the Art World

Effects

Changes the discourse