Asians and the New Multiculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand
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| ISBN-13: | 9780947522315 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Otago University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/24/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 316 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Asians and the New Multiculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand
By Gautam Ghosh, Jacqueline Leckie
Otago University Press
Copyright © 2017 Gautam Ghosh & Jacqueline LeckieAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-947522-31-5
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Multi-Multiculturalisms in the New New Zealand
GAUTAM GHOSH
The Tiger has no need of Tigritude. In other words, Tigritude appears necessary only at the point where two uncertain beasts mirror themselves in each other's exiled eyes. – Frantz Fanon
In the twenty-first century multiculturalism is a key lens through which some persons and polities envision themselves and each other. Aotearoa New Zealand is now more culturally diverse than ever. Yet in both popular and academic circles multiculturalism has received comparatively less attention here than in other countries.
This book is based on a symposium entitled 'Interrogating Multi-culturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: An Asian Studies Perspective', convened by the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. The aims of the symposium were first, to stimulate discussion about multiculturalism, and second, to do so with particular attention to the histories and circumstances of 'Asians' – that all-too-generic label for what is a diverse group in Kiwi society – given the roles Asians have played in the new immigration patterns since the late 1980s.
Debating multiculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand is exigent precisely because here, as elsewhere, it is not a singular phenomenon, as the title of this chapter, and the chapters to follow, underscore. There are many ways terms such as multicultural and multiculturalism are debated, defined and deployed. Likewise here as elsewhere multiculturalism is a fraught and vexing issue. There are arenas of debate in multiculturalism where people see eye-to-eye, but many where they do not. The aim of this volume is to clarify how and where these confluences and contentions are visible in Aotearoa. Insofar as the tensions among the volume's chapters point to tensions in multiculturalism, each can shed light on the other.
Section One of this chapter offers my general observations on the initial aims of the symposium and the book and some broad reflections on the chapters. In Section Two I provide more detailed interpretations of the chapters and highlight myriad kinds of multiculturalism as these manifest themselves in, through and about Asians in Aotearoa, and in the scholars' different modes of analysing such phenomena. My aim throughout is to interpret the chapters and consider how they indicate avenues for further reflection and research. Finally, in Section Three, I point to some leitmotifs in the volume, closing with some particular reflections on the relation between multiculturalism and the nation, on the one hand, and the role of vision itself in framing multiculturalism on the other.
Section One: Diversity and its discontents
Discourses of multiculturalism have emerged in the last decades as a way of speaking about, more often than not, cultural and ethnic differences within a nation-state. One reason there are multiple multiculturalisms in the world today is because multiculturalism's expressions will vary depending on, among other factors, the nation-state that putatively contains – some would say generates – these differences. Relations between nation-states and cultural and ethnic diversity have surfaced repeatedly as a point of discussion and contention since the close of the Cold War at the end of the 1980s, around the same time that new immigration policies were implemented in Aotearoa.
If different multiculturalisms vary depending on the character of the nation and, especially, the nationalism to which they are related, what is the character of New Zealand? Is the country, as some of our authors hold, a European (in other words Western) nation? Is this Europe resurgent or in decline? Is Aotearoa an Asian country, as declared by former Prime Minister Jim Bolger in 1993? And, if so, is it part of what some have called 'the Asian Century'? Perhaps the nation is at once, and uniquely, both Oceanic and OECD. How 'character' is defined and discerned will change with the commitments – political, ethical, economic, aesthetic and so on – of those doing the characterising.
Insofar as the country has seen itself as European it must be noted that key European leaders have been highly critical of multiculturalism in the recent past. Multicultural projects have been rebuked by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, by Nicholas Sarkozy, ex-President of France and, perhaps most significantly for a Commonwealth member country like Aotearoa New Zealand, by David Cameron, Prime Minister of Britain. In a 2011 speech he stated, 'We have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream ... We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values.' Cameron went on to link multiculturalism to terrorism. The backlash against multiculturalism in the UK is also evinced in the 2014 'Trojan Horse' controversy, in which it was claimed that in the English city of Birmingham, which has a substantial Muslim population, there was a conspiracy by Islamic extremists to take over schools, oust non-Muslim staff and implement an extremist curriculum for the children. A key member of Cameron's cabinet eventually apologised for comments that seemed to support the conspiracy theory. Although Aotearoa New Zealand has not witnessed controversies of this scale and (dis)repute, multiculturalism is not without its contentions, as the chapters here make abundantly clear.
The chapters also show that different groups in New Zealand have different understandings of multiculturalism. Whether multiculturalism is an 'ism' – like, say, nationalism or capitalism – or an institutional arrangement, a form of subjectivity, a demographic description, a threat or an opportunity, will differ depending on how particular polities and their segments articulate their investments and interests. It is also important to consider that communities overlap: communities of commerce can also be, in significant and specific ways, communities of religion, of urban proximity, of electoral inclination. From my socio-cultural anthropological perspective, attending to these contexts and contingencies is crucial in order to avoid decontextualisation and reification.
The Dunedin symposium sought to address multiculturalism from an Asian Studies perspective; the papers submitted focused on forms of multiculturalism within New Zealand. It also proposed to 'interrogate' multiculturalism. 'Interrogation' proliferated in the titles of academic conferences and literature in the 1980s and 1990s and is now perhaps a term that has undergone 'conceptual inflation'. Still, the idea of interrogation is also an index of something specific and important: the notion, for me, is set in contradistinction to the positivist notion of testing, as in generating hypotheses and testing them – a model of inquiry valorised most in the natural sciences. The idea of testing is linked with propositional logic, whereas that of interrogating is affiliated with the logic of question and answer – a form of dialectics, if dialectics is broadly construed to include, at the least, dialogics.
The idiom of interrogation as a mode of inquiry suggests a different sort of relationship between the knower and what is known and, indeed, what it means to know. It suggests relations between subjects, or agents, and foregrounds the dialectical and dialogical relations among them. Interrogation also suggests that the dynamics of power in generating knowledge must also be considered, and vigilantly so, as the forms of this power are protean and, though the deleterious dimensions of power can be mitigated, they cannot be eliminated altogether; the latter would be a utopian ideal. The knower is in the privileged position of interrogating, of presenting and deciding on questions to pose to the witness (or suspect?) and, thereby, to elicit certain sorts of answers. This is also to concede, in a sense, that a different interrogation (or cross-examination) could produce different answers and different accounts, even if the same facts are at hand and the same questions are posed. The notion of interrogation is thus in tension with one that takes the world as composed of objects and objective facts that, ultimately, through unilateral analysis, become instances of general principles, as the falling apple instantiates gravity. Interrogation is a process, with a significant hermeneutic component, that emerges as uncertain subjects mirror themselves in each others' exiled understandings and agendas.
The reason I interrogate the notion of interrogation is because it raises questions that are not unrelated to the culture-specific – especially national – forms of multiculturalism this volume aims at understanding. In Aotearoa New Zealand the backdrop for recent multicultural-related debates has been, in the main, the relationships among nationalism, biculturalism and the new immigration from Asia in the last quarter century. The number of Asian communities has trebled since the late 1980s, representing the fastest growing demographic in Aotearoa. These are comprised mainly of Chinese and Indian immigrants, albeit not solely from China or India (such as Chinese from Malaysia, Indians from Fiji). If current trends continue, in the next two decades those who identify or are identified as Asian will become the largest minority group, superseding Maori, the tangata whenua. Part One of this book focuses on the pivotal relationship between biculturalism and multiculturalism, a relationship that is certainly one of the unique features of Kiwi multiculturalism.
Section Two: The routes of Kiwi multiculturalism
Part One comprises two chapters that have as their central concern how to negotiate between biculturalism and multiculturalism – a theme that is found throughout the volume. Paul Spoonley's chapter, '"We made a space for you": Renegotiating national identity and citizenship in contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand', was one of two invited keynote addresses at the symposium. The other was by Hilary Chung, and is discussed later.
Spoonley's chapter provides an incisive overview of histories and relations within Aotearoa New Zealand, between Maori, P?keh?, people from other parts of the Pacific and Asians. He establishes that the nature of contemporary Asian migration, combined with changes in how the relationship between the New Zealand state and Maori – whether in the form of concessions to Maori or in (neo-liberal inspired) cuts to welfare policies – has altered the way the nation-state is constructed in New Zealand.
Spoonley gives attention to debates about nation, state and rights, drawing attention to moments particularly salient for this volume. For example, he notes that full New Zealand citizenship (not tied to being a British subject) was established comparatively recently, in 1977; and only in the 1980s was the Treaty of Waitangi truly elevated to the status of a founding national document that described relations between Maori and P?keh? as a partnership, suggesting that Maori, as tangata whenua, were entitled to special recognition from the state. In this way, Maori challenged the simple equation of nation with state long before what some have tendentiously called the 'Asian invasion', that is, the new migration mentioned above. Spoonley also addresses broad processes such as globalisation, de-territorialisation and international migration that have also contested the equation of nation with state. He notes, as do others in the volume, that migration has long been central to New Zealand's nation-building project.
In-migration of both tangata Pasifika (from various islands in the Pacific) and, more recently, Asians, has significantly altered the demographic profile of the nation. This new demographic reality has contributed to questioning whether and how biculturalism could – or for some, should – accommodate multiculturalism. Noting that immigration has generated moral panics within 'host' societies, Spoonley invokes Stephen Vertovec's neologism 'super-diversity' to argue that the idea of the New Zealand state representing the interests and activities of a relatively homogenous nation is all the more unsustainable. Given Maori and P?keh? reactions to Asian migration, Spoonley asks how a new notion of national citizenship is to be generated. Like other authors in the volume, he draws the distinction between those who are 'New Zealand born' and those who are not – an issue, I believe, that points to an important part of the nationalist imaginary.
Like Spoonley, Camille Nakhid and Heather Devere's chapter, 'Negotiating multiculturalism and the Treaty of Waitangi: An immigration policy to enable social unity', provides a useful historical perspective. They are concerned with bringing multiculturalism and the Treaty of Waitangi into colloquy, with the specific hope of making immigration a complement to unity. They examine actions by the New Zealand government, pointing to migration policies, the Waitangi Tribunal and, in particular, the government's aim to make European culture paramount through discriminatory immigration policies, and suggest that 'Immigration policy has [not incorporated] the contributions of new arrivals in building social cohesion.' Dominant parties, including New Zealand government regimes, have promulgated policies in ways that exhibit deliberate attempts to stir contention between less-powerful minority groups.
Nakhid and Devere investigate, specifically, whether the Treaty of Waitangi can serve as the basis for cohesion between the new arrivals and longer-standing communities of Maori, P?keh? and Pasifika. They describe the Treaty as 'the country's first official immigration agreement' and suggest that since the arrival of non-indigenous people on the shores of New Zealand, the country has been 'multicultural' – here using the term as a demographic description, if not as an attitude or policy or even a debate: multiculturalism as an 'ism' is certainly a more recent development.
Nakhid and Devere analyse concerns that the new immigrants have generated among many, including Maori groups apprehensive that a burgeoning Asian population would eclipse their standing in the country. The promulgation of policy changes allowing new immigration was seen by some as evidence of this: it was held that the Treaty guaranteed the right of Maori to participate in policy formation, and some felt there was inadequate consultation over this migration policy. Not only was the population changing in ways that could potentially dilute the position of Maori, but Maori standing in relation to the Treaty was being undermined as well. At the same time Asian communities, including those foreign-born, have expressed concerns about being marginalised in debates about biculturalism and the Treaty. The authors conclude that 'The lack of a planned, considered and consultative multicultural approach can lead to the isolation of ethnic communities ...'
Ultimately, Nakhid and Devere categorise the Treaty as the country's 'founding document'. They write, drawing on Durie, that its preamble speaks to 'the arrival of many settlers and the need for peace and good order ... founded not on legalism but on a philosophy of good faith'. In spite of the distancing from 'legalism', the two authors do speak of the Treaty in legal and juridical terms insofar as they speak of 'good order' and the Treaty as a 'contract' – though this does not, in itself, counter an interpretation of the Treaty as expressing a philosophy of good faith. Indeed, in Aotearoa New Zealand diverse groups share key experiences, from being subject to discrimination to the importance placed on family and kinship, which in my view, are not themselves inherently or entirely about contractual relations. The authors state that the Treaty's democratic principles of promoting 'self-determination, empowerment and cultural pluralism' can bring diverse people together and promote the 'social cohesiveness of [the] nation'. Let the Treaty inform multiculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand, and set an example for other nations, particularly those with indigenous populations, to follow.
The two chapters in Part Two examine what might be called the performance of Asian multiculturalism. Hilary Chung's 'Native Alienz' demonstrates that the study of Asian Theatre in Aotearoa New Zealand offers unique insights into Kiwi culture, and into contemporary debates about multiculturalism in international academia. The focus of her chapter is a 2009 Auckland theatre performance, the first production to be funded by the Oryza Foundation, established to support Asia-related performances. Entitled Asian Tales: Native Alienz, stories from the lips of Asia, it consists of seven short plays that, in Chung's analyses, raise questions about national identity and its links with race, multiculturalism and biculturalism, among other issues.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Asians and the New Multiculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand by Gautam Ghosh, Jacqueline Leckie. Copyright © 2017 Gautam Ghosh & Jacqueline Leckie. Excerpted by permission of Otago University Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Front Cover,Title Page,
Copyright,
1. Introduction: Multi-multiculturalisms in the new New Zealand Gautam Ghosh,
PART I: Biculturalism and Multiculturalism,
2. 'I Made a Space For You': Renegotiating national identity and citizenship in contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand Paul Spoonley,
3. Negotiating Multiculturalism and the Treaty of Waitangi Camille Nakhid and Heather Devere,
PART II: The Performance of Asian Multiculturalism,
4. Native Alienz Hilary Chung,
5. Under the Kiwi Gaze: Public Asian festivals and multicultural Aotearoa New Zealand Henry Johnson,
PART III: Multiculturalism and Religion,
6. Whither Cultural Acceptance? Muslims and multiculturalism in New Zealand Erich Kolig,
7. The New Asian Faces of Kiwi Christianity Andrew Butcher and George Wieland,
8. (Mis)Reporting Islam: New Zealand Muslim women viewing 'us' viewing 'them' Stephanie Dobson,
PART IV: Multicultural Economies,
9. Immigrant Economies in Action: Chinese ethnic precincts in Auckland Paul Spoonley, Carina Meares and Trudie Cain,
10. Valuing Multiculturalism: Business engagement with the challenge of multiculturalism Tim Beal, Val Lindsay and Kala Retna,
11. Afterword: Multiculturalism, being Asian and belonging in Aotearoa New Zealand Jacqueline Leckie,
Contributors,
Index,