RECOGNITION OR ETHICS?
Avril Bell. “RECOGNITION OR ETHICS?” Cultural Studies, vol. 22, no 6,2008, pp. 850-869.
“White settler peoples inherit a legacy of colonial domination and Enlightenment belief in the possibilities of western universalism. This legacy makes it difficult for us to co-exist with the cultural difference of our indigenous neighbors.” 850
“Belief in the superioriaty of western ‘civilization’ underpinned the white settler colonization of the Pacific ‘New World’. Pacific peoples were relegated to the status of primitive and racial inferiority, while the West was extolled as the caretaker of universal Truth in the guise of Enlightenment philosophy and science.” 850
“Thus the very survival of indigenous cultures depends on their survival as a people ‘at home’. Indigenous peoples assert their cultural difference as a necessity of survival and ‘recovery’ from the depredations of colonization (Smith 1999, p.97).” 851
“For indigenous peoples, cultural survival and political self-determination are intertwined imperatives. To survive as ‘a people’ is to be able to pursue a way of life, to be able to live according to your cultural values and orientations.” 851
“Very briefly _ Aotearoa New Zealand is a small country, with a population of approximately four million people. Lacking the territorial expanse of Australia, Canada and the US has meant that Maori and Pakeha (the Maori word by which the settler people are known) live in relatively close proximity to each other. No reservations were ever established on which Maori remained apart and exercised some degree of sovereignty, however limited. Instead, from relatively early on in the colonial period, official policy was one of assimilation of Maori into the Anglo-Celtic Pakeha culture. The outcome of this has been a high degree of intermarriage and cross-cultural contact; having Maori family, friends, neighbors, and/or workmates is commonplace for Pakeha New Zealanders. In addition, Maori make up a relatively high proportion of thepopulation (approximately 15 percent), with Pakeha making up around 80 percent.” 851
“Despite their prominence, Maori suffer high degrees of socio-economic disadvantage and Maori culture has typically been esteemed only for its symbolic value in indigenizing and ‘branding’ settler nationalism.” 851
“In Aotearoa New Zealand then, as elsewhere, colonialism has demanded the simultaneous affirmation and disavowal of indigenous culture.”851
“According to this rhetoric, New Zealand is a bicultural nation with ‘two founding peoples’, Maori and Pakeha, two cultures of equal worth and stature. The reality lags behind the rhetoric however and, more recently, a Pakeha backlash against ‘special rights’ for Maori has gained political traction.” 852
“If indigenous difference is necessary for indigenous survival, how should I, and other Pakeha, interact with Maori in ways that support that project rather than repeat the colonial practices of reducing indigenous difference to primitivist and racist frames of thought?” 852
“It makes sense to me that the ‘recovery’ of Maori involves a significant shift on the part of Pakeha, that we must ‘make space’ in some way for Maori culture and politics to flourish, to be more ‘central’ in our shared society.” 852
