CARE White Paper – Issue #10 Vol 2: Connecting across cultures: A framework for anti-racist strategies in Aotearoa New Zealand rooted in Te Tiriti

by Marise Lant and Mohan J. Dutta, Center for Culture – Centered Approach to Research & Evaluation, Massey University

In this white paper [1], we outline the vitality of connecting across cultures, anchored in Māori leadership in shaping and guiding anti-racist interventions in Aotearoa New Zealand, connected to anti-colonial struggles by Māori. Noting that the entrenched settler colonialism in New Zealand is based on a history of Whiteness[2], we argue that witnessing this Whiteness in the colonial configuration of New Zealand is the first step to dismantling it[3]. Māori have historically experienced, negotiated and resisted the racist structures of Whiteness that form the architectures of settler colonialism in New Zealand through their everyday organizing across whanau and hapū. We center Whiteness to the colonial structures of racism in New Zealand because of the centering of White norms as the basis for perpetuating oppression, expulsion, genocide, rape, and murder of indigenous communities (Māori in New Zealand) and the simultaneous marginalisation of communities of colour, many of whom have experienced similar histories of expulsion, genocide, and violence.

In this paper, we argue that recognizing and centering the leadership of Māori as people of the land lies at the heart of the process of cultural centering we discuss here, anchoring interventions seeking transformations in racist structures in the everyday lived experiences of the indigenous people of the land. The leadership of Māori is vital to anti racist struggles not only as a way for building strategies that work but more fundamentally as the basis for turning to Te Tiriti. At the same time, connecting with the struggles of communities of colour, migrants and refugees in Aotearoa New Zealand creates a framework of solidarity that sees the Whiteness percolating through racist structures, witnesses the connections between them, and seeks to decolonize them. We argue here that seeing the connections between and across indigenous, ethnic, migrant and refugee struggles is central to culture-centered strategies of anti-racism that seek to dismantle Whiteness in colonial organisations, institutions, and society.


[1] We note in the naming of the white papers as authorial sources of knowledge the logics of Whiteness that constructs it.

[2] Whiteness refers to the hegemonic values of the colonising white culture, established as universal. See Moreton-Robinson, A. (2015). The white possessive: Property, power, and indigenous sovereignty. U of Minnesota Press

[3] Here we note the ongoing efforts at silencing conversations on Whiteness in Aotearoa by both white liberals and white supremacists. While white liberals suggest that the concept of Whiteness does not apply to Aotearoa, white supremacists deploy the age-old strategy of using communicative inversion by labelling anti-racist critiques of Whiteness as racist toward white communities.

Link to the CARE White Paper Launch with Marise Lant and Professor Mohan J Dutta.

FRI 28 AUG – 11AM – CARE WHITE PAPER LAUNCH
Venue: SSLB3 |Social Science Lecture Block | Manawatū campus, Massey University
& YouTube

Read More about Marise Lant’s Activist In Residence Events on Challenging Racism In Aotearoa New Zealand below:

Event Dates: 24th – 28th August 2020.
Location: Manawatū campus, Massey University

Events:

TUE 25 AUG – 6PM – A CONVERSATION WITH MARISE LANT
Venue: Online – via Facebook: @CAREMassey/videos
& YouTube

WED 26 AUG – 12PM – CARE PUBLIC TALK
Venue: SSLB3 |Social Science Lecture Block | Manawatū campus, Massey University
& YouTube

THU 27 AUG – 11AM – CARE WORKSHOP
Venue: CARE Lab | BSC1.06 | Manawatū campus, Massey University

Speaker Bio:

Marise Lant is a Māori leader; Lobbyist,an Indigenous rights protector; Founder of 250 Years of Colonisation – The Aftermath leading the protest and burning of the Union Jack in opposition and response to the arrival of the year replica of Endeavour to Gisborne on 8 October 2019;Previous chairperson of the Tairāwhiti District Māori Womens Welfare League; Current representative on the Tairāwhiti District Māori Council;Supporter of the Tairāwhiti Multicultural Council.

FOR MORE DETAILS FOLLOW US on: @CAREMassey or visit www.massey.ac.nz/care and YouTube: @CAREMassey

CARE Activist In Residence – Challenging Racism In Aotearoa New Zealand with Marise Lant – 24-28 August 2020

#CAREMassey #ActivistInResidence #ChallengingRacismInAotearoa  #NewZealand #MasseyCJM #MasseyUni

Professor Mohan Dutta is recognised with Outstanding Contributions to Promoting Equity and Inclusion Award by the National Communication Association

Professor Mohan Dutta, Dean’s Chair in Communication at School of Communication, Journalism & Marketing, Massey University is recognised with Outstanding Contributions to Promoting Equity and Inclusion Award by the National Communication Association.

CARE: Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation congratulates Professor Mohan Dutta, as the inaugural recipient of the Outstanding Contributions to Promoting Equity and Inclusion Award of the Health Communication Division, National Communication Association. This award recognises Professor Dutta’s significant and sustainable contributions to addressing inequalities in health outcomes through communication interventions that seek to change unequal structures. Over two decades, he has created and led community-led culture-centered solutions to health and wellbeing among the most marginalised, creating spaces for communities to own decision-making processes. These culture-centered solutions have addressed classed, raced, gendered inequalities that adversely impact human health and wellbeing and created sustained changes in the overarching structural determinants. Outstanding Contributions to Promoting Equity and Inclusion Award by the National Communication Association. In promoting equity and inclusion across communities at the margins spread over eight countries, he has mentored multiple generations of academics, activists, and community researchers. This has contributed to the transformations in the disciplinary structure of health communication, building the basis for a movement toward equity.

Referring to Mohan Dutta’s influence on promoting equity and inclusion, noted Dr. Satveer Kaur-Gill, “Dr. Dutta has not just significantly contributed to toward theoretic health communication literature but has built an impressive register for socially impactful scholarship through community-led change in some of the most disenfranchised communities in different parts of the globe. His public scholarship is an exemplar for how to build health equity amidst marginalization and in challenging the very structures that impede health. This includes writing countless opinion pieces regarding important and challenging health and social issues of our time, leading social change campaigns, participating in protests, writing and signing petitions, and developing strategies alongside communities for changing structures.”

#CAREMassey #PromotingEquityAndInclusionAward #NationalCommunicationAssociation #HealthCommunicationDivision #HealthCommunication #CARECCA #MasseyCJM #MasseyUni

#CAREMassey,#PromotingEquityAndInclusionAward, #NationalCommunicationAssociation, #HealthCommunicationDivision,#HealthCommunication #CARECCA,#MasseyCJM,#MasseyUni,

Follows us on: www.facebook.com/CAREMassey/posts/5158580567491640

CARE COVID19 Lecture Series- Fear, Trauma, Loss and Grief: The effects of Terror and Covid-19 on Polarity and Discrimination within Workplaces with Dr Fatima Junaid, School of Management, Massey University

CARE COVID19 Lecture Series- Fear, Trauma, Loss and Grief: The effects of Terror and Covid-19 on Polarity and Discrimination within Workplaces with Dr Fatima Junaid, School of Management, Massey University

Event Details:
Monday, 15th February 2021 @ 6PM NZDT
Facebook Livestream: @CAREMassey
Link: https://www.facebook.com/CAREMassey/posts/4525821997434170

Abstract:
In this talk Fatima talks about the implications of prolonged exposure to terrorism, and the current context of Covid-19. She highlights the influence of stress and trauma due to loss, and how that impacts us in terms of drawing closer to those we trust, while the fear of death makes our social attitudes rigid, especially towards those who are different. This complexity can cause polarity and discrimination within workplaces.

#Fear #Trauma #Loss #Grief #EffectsOfTerror #Covid19 #Polarity #Discrimination #Workplaces #CARECOVID19LectureSeries #CARECCA #CAREMassey #MasseyCJM #MasseyUni

CARE Activist In Residence – Challenging Racism In Aotearoa New Zealand with Marise Lant – 24-28 August 2020

CARE Activist In Residence – Challenging Racism In Aotearoa New Zealand with Marise Lant

Event Dates: 24th – 28th August 2020.
Location: Manawatū campus, Massey UniversityEvents:

TUE 25 AUG – 6PM – A CONVERSATION WITH MARISE LANT
Venue: Online – via Facebook: @CAREMassey/videos

WED 26 AUG – 12PM – CARE PUBLIC TALK
Venue: SSLB3 |Social Science Lecture Block | Manawatū campus, Massey University

THU 27 AUG – 11AM – CARE WORKSHOP
Venue: CARE Lab | BSC1.06 | Manawatū campus, Massey University

FRI 28 AUG – 11AM – CARE WHITE PAPER LAUNCH
Venue: SSLB3 |Social Science Lecture Block | Manawatū campus, Massey University

Link to the CARE White Paper Launch with Marise Lant and Professor Mohan J Dutta.

Speaker Bio:

Marise Lant is a Māori leader; Lobbyist,an Indigenous rights protector; Founder of 250 Years of Colonisation – The Aftermath leading the protest and burning of the Union Jack in opposition and response to the arrival of the year replica of Endeavour to Gisborne on 8 October 2019;Previous chairperson of the Tairāwhiti District Māori Womens Welfare League; Current representative on the Tairāwhiti District Māori Council;Supporter of the Tairāwhiti Multicultural Council.

FOR MORE DETAILS FOLLOW US on: @CAREMassey or visit www.massey.ac.nz/care and YouTube: @CAREMassey

#CAREMassey #WhitePaper #ActivistInResidence #CrossCultures #Colonization #AntiRacistStrategies #TeTiriti #ChallengingRacismInAotearoa #NewZealand #MasseyCJM #MasseyUni