In this era of recognition and reconciliation in settler societies indigenous peoples are laying ... more In this era of recognition and reconciliation in settler societies indigenous peoples are laying claims to tribunals, courts and governments and reclaiming extensive territories and resource rights, in some cases even political sovereignty. But, paradoxically, alongside these practices of decolonization, settler societies continue the work of colonization in myriad everyday ways. This book explores this ongoing colonization in indigenous-settler identity politics in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. These four are part of the 'Post-British World' and share colonial orientations towards indigenous peoples traceable to their European origins. The book identifies a shared settler imaginary that continues to constrain indigenous possibilities while it fails to deliver the redemption and unified nationhood settler peoples crave. Against this colonizing imaginary this book argues for the need for a new relational imaginary that recognizes the autonomy of indigenous ways of being, living and knowing.
... immigrants' (Phillips, 199629. Phillips, J. 1996. Our history, our selves: the histo... more ... immigrants' (Phillips, 199629. Phillips, J. 1996. Our history, our selves: the historian and national identity. New Zealand Journal of History , 30(2): 107–123. [Web of Science ®], [CSA] View all references, p. 115). In addition, there ...
This project is about an active engagement with thread. Threading fragments of a colonial story t... more This project is about an active engagement with thread. Threading fragments of a colonial story together, through intra-action with the material world, we created an arpillera (Chilean tapestry) to speak with our ghosts. In New Zealand we are described as Pākehā, descendants of white European colonial ancestors. Involved in critical family history, our data comprised of old photographs, maps, letters, diaries, and landmarks that remain. We propose that arts-based methods provide the potential to speak with the ghost, to engage with archival data, and to embody the experience. Threaded through the essay are poetic responses, stories generated, and descriptions and images from the arpillera.
The critical study of one’s own family history is a relatively new field that sits at the interse... more The critical study of one’s own family history is a relatively new field that sits at the intersection of family genealogical research and scholarly research [...]
White fragility, a common response of white people to calls to engage in conversations about raci... more White fragility, a common response of white people to calls to engage in conversations about racism and address their complicity with it, has received considerable scholarly attention. Much less attention has been given to the antidote: white stamina. This paper explores the development of stamina in the journey of ‘recovery’ from racism of one white settler individual who has become a public figure in Aotearoa New Zealand, in part through his declaration that he is a ‘recovering racist’. Significantly, the racism at the heart of this person’s story was directed towards indigenous, Māori New Zealanders; racism and settler colonialism are intertwined in this case. Consequently, the paper also responds to Lawrence and Dua’s (2005) call to ‘decolonise antiracism’ by foregrounding the indigenous–settler relationship in the analysis of racism within a settler society. The paper teases out overlaps and differences between white racism and settler colonialism, and between white stamina and...
This special issue showcases research exploring the work of settler individuals and groups in sup... more This special issue showcases research exploring the work of settler individuals and groups in support of projects of decolonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Israel. The papers gathered here were developed from presentations at an international symposium held in Auckland, New Zealand and online in February 2021. As symposium organisers and editors of this collection, we speak and write as settler subjects ourselves, and this collection is situated within the field of Settler Colonial Studies (SCS). This editorial provides an opening framing of the field into which these papers speak, and a survey of some of the key themes within the wider literature. We aim firstly to locate this work within the wider field of scholarship and activism on decolonisation and decoloniality, delimiting the particular focus of decolonisation within settler-dominated contexts. We then discuss the critiques that have been mounted against SCS and some important defences of the field. We...
Avril Bell, Relating Indigenous and Settler Identities: Beyond Domination. Houndsmill, Basingstok... more Avril Bell, Relating Indigenous and Settler Identities: Beyond Domination. Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 272 pages. ISBN 9780230237421. $100 USD hardcover.This is the 14th book in the successful Identity Studies in the Social Sciences series that Palgrave Macmillan has published. Having read some of the earlier works in this series, I believe this book continues to meet the high academic standards that the series editors have established. The author sets out two major objectives: (1) to demonstrate how settler societies continue to operate under the colonial dynamics that were so popular a century ago and (2) to explore strategies that involve identities in relationships between settlers and Indigenous peoples. The author deals with the issues of temporality and agency intermixed in this foci as they impact on the conflictual relations between the two parties. The issue of authenticity for Indigenous people continues to be problematic for both themselves as well as settler society although each, at times, denies its existence. As Bell so clearly points out, modern settlers see Indigenous ways of being/thinking as remnants of the past although settlers can only conceive of them as traditional. As such, modem settlers believe the cultural expressions of Indigenous people can only be expressed as past symbols and nostalgic expressions of better days of the noble savage.The author limits herself to four diverse regions of the world: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. While there are differences among the four case studies, they also are part of what Bell calls the "post-British world" and thus share many similarities. And, as she so aptly points out, while all four of these countries recognize the cultural distinctiveness of their Indigenous societies, they are loath to accept and/or recognize their claims to political distinctiveness and their claims of Indigenous rights. As such, the author focuses on the politics of sovereignty and self-determination of Indigenous peoples as well as the resistance by those in power in each of the states.The book is about identity politics and it focuses on what identities are and how they are articulated to both Indigenous peoples and settler society. Using discourse analysis as her methodological tool, she explores the meaning of Indigenous and settler identity as well as the relationships between the two parties in their contestation over the "real" meaning of their identity. The book is divided into three parts: the settler imaginary, postcolonial resistances, and the relational imaginary. Part one (chapters 2 and 3) deals with Indigenous authenticity, settler nationalisms, hybrid identities and assimilation. Part two (chapters 4 and 5) looks at performative hybridity, strategic essentialism, Indigenous agency and differences. The last part of the book (chapters 6 and 7) focuses on the politics of recognition, ethical obligation and relationality.The issue of authenticity is the crux of chapter one. Here the author notes that in each of the case studies, primitivist ideas about authentic Aboriginal people allowed the settlers to indigenize the colonial people and colonialize the Indigenous people. This history set up irresolvable tensions that encapsulate both settlers and Indigenous people within unhappy identities. …
Critical family history illuminates societal relations of inequality through focusing on the expe... more Critical family history illuminates societal relations of inequality through focusing on the experiences and trajectories of particular families. Here, I focus on unequal relations between white settler colonizers and indigenous communities within Aotearoa, New Zealand. I use data gathered from family wills and archival research to sketch aspects of the economic privilege of branches of my own ancestral families in contrast to the economic dispossession and injustices faced by the Māori communities alongside whom they lived. The concept of historical privilege forms the analytic basis of this exploration, beginning with the founding historical windfalls experienced by the Bell and Graham families through their initial acquisition of Māori lands and the parallel historical trauma experienced by Māori at the loss of these lands. I then explore how these windfalls and traumas underpinned the divergent economic trajectories on both sides of this colonial relationship, touching on issues...
Settler colonialism involves processes of destruction and substitution aiming to replace indigeno... more Settler colonialism involves processes of destruction and substitution aiming to replace indigenous with European/western worlds. But indigenous worlds persist in numerous spaces, moments and interactions where distinct ontologies and ways of being-in-the-world prevail. In Aotearoa New Zealand these spaces of the Māori world persist most obviously on marae. Māori and western worlds also briefly come together in public contexts where Māori protocols are used to mark openings of various sorts, temporarily governing public space and sociability. In this paper, I explore a different case where, I argue, Māori and western worlds are entangled or knotted together in the carved pou in the atrium space of a new community building in Kaitaia.
ABSTRACT Raymond Williams argued that education was centrally concerned with establishing and tra... more ABSTRACT Raymond Williams argued that education was centrally concerned with establishing and transmitting a 'selective tradition'. He identified three discourses that shape these processes of selection. This paper argues for the existence of a fourth discourse - 'education for ...
Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, 2010
This paper follows from the findings of the 2006 review of research on women, gender and migratio... more This paper follows from the findings of the 2006 review of research on women, gender and migration published in International Migration Review. We begin by discussing three international trends in contemporary migration flows: diversification, bifurcation and feminisation; and examine their significance for New Zealand. We then review the research on gender and economic integration of migrants in developed countries in relation to three aspects: the characteristics of migrants; the strategies migrants use during settlement; and the contexts of reception in receiving communities. We identify insights and omissions in this scholarship relevant to New Zealand policy-oriented migration research. We argue that the gendered nature of migration cannot be ignored, and that while human capital approaches to economic integration are important, they are insufficient for understanding complex migrant outcomes. Rather, comprehensive, integrated and local research is required to understand migrant experience and outcomes and to assess the effectiveness of immigration policy settings.
Depuis 1988, des changements importants en termes de propriete, de legislation et de financement ... more Depuis 1988, des changements importants en termes de propriete, de legislation et de financement etatiques ont ete effectues dans l'industrie televisuelle neo-zelandaise, par l'Etat qui se veut neo-liberal et ouvert a l'economie de marche. Cet article retrace dans un premier temps l'etat des lieux et les changements survenus depuis 1988 dans le paysage audiovisuel. Sont ensuite presentes l'Etat neo-zelandais, les chaines de television et le bureau gouvernemental (New Zealand on Air) charge de la collecte et de la distribution des fonds, ainsi que les relations mises en place entre les trois elements dans le contexte d'economie de marche et l'etat actuel de la programmation locale. Le dernier point de cette etude s'arrete sur les actions contradictoires de l'Etat qui adopte une philosophie liberale d'un cote, mais conserve une politique restrictive de financement de l'autre
In this era of recognition and reconciliation in settler societies indigenous peoples are laying ... more In this era of recognition and reconciliation in settler societies indigenous peoples are laying claims to tribunals, courts and governments and reclaiming extensive territories and resource rights, in some cases even political sovereignty. But, paradoxically, alongside these practices of decolonization, settler societies continue the work of colonization in myriad everyday ways. This book explores this ongoing colonization in indigenous-settler identity politics in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. These four are part of the 'Post-British World' and share colonial orientations towards indigenous peoples traceable to their European origins. The book identifies a shared settler imaginary that continues to constrain indigenous possibilities while it fails to deliver the redemption and unified nationhood settler peoples crave. Against this colonizing imaginary this book argues for the need for a new relational imaginary that recognizes the autonomy of indigenous ways of being, living and knowing.
... immigrants' (Phillips, 199629. Phillips, J. 1996. Our history, our selves: the histo... more ... immigrants' (Phillips, 199629. Phillips, J. 1996. Our history, our selves: the historian and national identity. New Zealand Journal of History , 30(2): 107–123. [Web of Science ®], [CSA] View all references, p. 115). In addition, there ...
This project is about an active engagement with thread. Threading fragments of a colonial story t... more This project is about an active engagement with thread. Threading fragments of a colonial story together, through intra-action with the material world, we created an arpillera (Chilean tapestry) to speak with our ghosts. In New Zealand we are described as Pākehā, descendants of white European colonial ancestors. Involved in critical family history, our data comprised of old photographs, maps, letters, diaries, and landmarks that remain. We propose that arts-based methods provide the potential to speak with the ghost, to engage with archival data, and to embody the experience. Threaded through the essay are poetic responses, stories generated, and descriptions and images from the arpillera.
The critical study of one’s own family history is a relatively new field that sits at the interse... more The critical study of one’s own family history is a relatively new field that sits at the intersection of family genealogical research and scholarly research [...]
White fragility, a common response of white people to calls to engage in conversations about raci... more White fragility, a common response of white people to calls to engage in conversations about racism and address their complicity with it, has received considerable scholarly attention. Much less attention has been given to the antidote: white stamina. This paper explores the development of stamina in the journey of ‘recovery’ from racism of one white settler individual who has become a public figure in Aotearoa New Zealand, in part through his declaration that he is a ‘recovering racist’. Significantly, the racism at the heart of this person’s story was directed towards indigenous, Māori New Zealanders; racism and settler colonialism are intertwined in this case. Consequently, the paper also responds to Lawrence and Dua’s (2005) call to ‘decolonise antiracism’ by foregrounding the indigenous–settler relationship in the analysis of racism within a settler society. The paper teases out overlaps and differences between white racism and settler colonialism, and between white stamina and...
This special issue showcases research exploring the work of settler individuals and groups in sup... more This special issue showcases research exploring the work of settler individuals and groups in support of projects of decolonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Israel. The papers gathered here were developed from presentations at an international symposium held in Auckland, New Zealand and online in February 2021. As symposium organisers and editors of this collection, we speak and write as settler subjects ourselves, and this collection is situated within the field of Settler Colonial Studies (SCS). This editorial provides an opening framing of the field into which these papers speak, and a survey of some of the key themes within the wider literature. We aim firstly to locate this work within the wider field of scholarship and activism on decolonisation and decoloniality, delimiting the particular focus of decolonisation within settler-dominated contexts. We then discuss the critiques that have been mounted against SCS and some important defences of the field. We...
Avril Bell, Relating Indigenous and Settler Identities: Beyond Domination. Houndsmill, Basingstok... more Avril Bell, Relating Indigenous and Settler Identities: Beyond Domination. Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 272 pages. ISBN 9780230237421. $100 USD hardcover.This is the 14th book in the successful Identity Studies in the Social Sciences series that Palgrave Macmillan has published. Having read some of the earlier works in this series, I believe this book continues to meet the high academic standards that the series editors have established. The author sets out two major objectives: (1) to demonstrate how settler societies continue to operate under the colonial dynamics that were so popular a century ago and (2) to explore strategies that involve identities in relationships between settlers and Indigenous peoples. The author deals with the issues of temporality and agency intermixed in this foci as they impact on the conflictual relations between the two parties. The issue of authenticity for Indigenous people continues to be problematic for both themselves as well as settler society although each, at times, denies its existence. As Bell so clearly points out, modern settlers see Indigenous ways of being/thinking as remnants of the past although settlers can only conceive of them as traditional. As such, modem settlers believe the cultural expressions of Indigenous people can only be expressed as past symbols and nostalgic expressions of better days of the noble savage.The author limits herself to four diverse regions of the world: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. While there are differences among the four case studies, they also are part of what Bell calls the "post-British world" and thus share many similarities. And, as she so aptly points out, while all four of these countries recognize the cultural distinctiveness of their Indigenous societies, they are loath to accept and/or recognize their claims to political distinctiveness and their claims of Indigenous rights. As such, the author focuses on the politics of sovereignty and self-determination of Indigenous peoples as well as the resistance by those in power in each of the states.The book is about identity politics and it focuses on what identities are and how they are articulated to both Indigenous peoples and settler society. Using discourse analysis as her methodological tool, she explores the meaning of Indigenous and settler identity as well as the relationships between the two parties in their contestation over the "real" meaning of their identity. The book is divided into three parts: the settler imaginary, postcolonial resistances, and the relational imaginary. Part one (chapters 2 and 3) deals with Indigenous authenticity, settler nationalisms, hybrid identities and assimilation. Part two (chapters 4 and 5) looks at performative hybridity, strategic essentialism, Indigenous agency and differences. The last part of the book (chapters 6 and 7) focuses on the politics of recognition, ethical obligation and relationality.The issue of authenticity is the crux of chapter one. Here the author notes that in each of the case studies, primitivist ideas about authentic Aboriginal people allowed the settlers to indigenize the colonial people and colonialize the Indigenous people. This history set up irresolvable tensions that encapsulate both settlers and Indigenous people within unhappy identities. …
Critical family history illuminates societal relations of inequality through focusing on the expe... more Critical family history illuminates societal relations of inequality through focusing on the experiences and trajectories of particular families. Here, I focus on unequal relations between white settler colonizers and indigenous communities within Aotearoa, New Zealand. I use data gathered from family wills and archival research to sketch aspects of the economic privilege of branches of my own ancestral families in contrast to the economic dispossession and injustices faced by the Māori communities alongside whom they lived. The concept of historical privilege forms the analytic basis of this exploration, beginning with the founding historical windfalls experienced by the Bell and Graham families through their initial acquisition of Māori lands and the parallel historical trauma experienced by Māori at the loss of these lands. I then explore how these windfalls and traumas underpinned the divergent economic trajectories on both sides of this colonial relationship, touching on issues...
Settler colonialism involves processes of destruction and substitution aiming to replace indigeno... more Settler colonialism involves processes of destruction and substitution aiming to replace indigenous with European/western worlds. But indigenous worlds persist in numerous spaces, moments and interactions where distinct ontologies and ways of being-in-the-world prevail. In Aotearoa New Zealand these spaces of the Māori world persist most obviously on marae. Māori and western worlds also briefly come together in public contexts where Māori protocols are used to mark openings of various sorts, temporarily governing public space and sociability. In this paper, I explore a different case where, I argue, Māori and western worlds are entangled or knotted together in the carved pou in the atrium space of a new community building in Kaitaia.
ABSTRACT Raymond Williams argued that education was centrally concerned with establishing and tra... more ABSTRACT Raymond Williams argued that education was centrally concerned with establishing and transmitting a 'selective tradition'. He identified three discourses that shape these processes of selection. This paper argues for the existence of a fourth discourse - 'education for ...
Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, 2010
This paper follows from the findings of the 2006 review of research on women, gender and migratio... more This paper follows from the findings of the 2006 review of research on women, gender and migration published in International Migration Review. We begin by discussing three international trends in contemporary migration flows: diversification, bifurcation and feminisation; and examine their significance for New Zealand. We then review the research on gender and economic integration of migrants in developed countries in relation to three aspects: the characteristics of migrants; the strategies migrants use during settlement; and the contexts of reception in receiving communities. We identify insights and omissions in this scholarship relevant to New Zealand policy-oriented migration research. We argue that the gendered nature of migration cannot be ignored, and that while human capital approaches to economic integration are important, they are insufficient for understanding complex migrant outcomes. Rather, comprehensive, integrated and local research is required to understand migrant experience and outcomes and to assess the effectiveness of immigration policy settings.
Depuis 1988, des changements importants en termes de propriete, de legislation et de financement ... more Depuis 1988, des changements importants en termes de propriete, de legislation et de financement etatiques ont ete effectues dans l'industrie televisuelle neo-zelandaise, par l'Etat qui se veut neo-liberal et ouvert a l'economie de marche. Cet article retrace dans un premier temps l'etat des lieux et les changements survenus depuis 1988 dans le paysage audiovisuel. Sont ensuite presentes l'Etat neo-zelandais, les chaines de television et le bureau gouvernemental (New Zealand on Air) charge de la collecte et de la distribution des fonds, ainsi que les relations mises en place entre les trois elements dans le contexte d'economie de marche et l'etat actuel de la programmation locale. Le dernier point de cette etude s'arrete sur les actions contradictoires de l'Etat qui adopte une philosophie liberale d'un cote, mais conserve une politique restrictive de financement de l'autre
The Economic Integration of Immigrants Programme (IIP) is a multi-university five-year FRST-funde... more The Economic Integration of Immigrants Programme (IIP) is a multi-university five-year FRST-funded research programme with the key aim of contributing to progressive improvements in the utilisation of immigrant human capital, to the advantage of migrants specifically and
Settler colonisation produced particular colonial subjects: indigene and settler. The specificity... more 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.
With my co-PIs I am gathering stories of partnership and identity from non-Māori working closely ... more With my co-PIs I am gathering stories of partnership and identity from non-Māori working closely and constructively with Māori in galleries, libraries, archives and museums, to advance theoretical knowledge about Treaty partnerships.
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Books by Avril Bell
Papers by Avril Bell