Status Rivalry and the Politics of Biculturalism in Contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand

Could it be that despite a huge literature spanning decades from many disciplines, a corpus of writing that examines seemingly every twist and turn of a complex situation, we still are missing something basic and fundamental to a proper understanding of contemporary cultural politics in Aotearoa New Zealand? A thing so obvious and omnipresent, that it was characterized long ago in the anthropological literature as the fundamental dynamic of Polynesian culture, and acknowledged even further back by Maori in their ancestral sayings? He tauranga uta, he toka tu moana (a resting place ashore, a firm rock at sea). ‘This metaphor describes the chief whose influence is unchallenged in his territory which extends from the land to the sea’ (Mead and Grove 2003:125). But surely real chiefs, those solid anchoring points, no longer exist as they did before the coming of the Pakeha. Be that as it may, the elements of social organization and associated cultural values of chiefly status continue to resonate in contemporary society. This paper argues that Goldman's concept of status rivalry is that crucial overlooked aspect of cultural politics necessary to a full understanding of what is happening today in the Waitangi Tribunal, Parliament, and so many other places where biculturalism and multiculturalism are debated and discussed, and that it is an aspect of Polynesian culture that has been part of the interrelationship between the Crown and te tangata whenua (the indigenous people) since their first encounters.     

The Tertiary Turn: Locating “The Academy” in Autobiographical Accounts of Activism in Manchester,UK and Auckland,Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract: Activists often strategically negotiate sectoral boundaries by switching between public, private and voluntary sectors over the life course in order to pursue their aims. This paper draws on a cross‐national study that explored the extent of this inter‐sectoral movement and the specific “career pathways” activists developed in relation to governmental, private and voluntary/community sector organisations. Using an analysis of 46 biographical narratives gathered from activists in Manchester, UK and Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand during 2007 we situate “the academy” in these life stories of activism. Teasing out from these accounts the motivations behind a turn towards tertiary education at particular moments we examine how “academia” supports and sustains individual activists while legitimising and professionalising their activism. In so doing, we track the tactical transfer of knowledge, skills and expertise effected by contact with “the academy” to make substantive and conceptual claims around the future role universities might play in the knowledge economy.     

The corporeal,the social and space/place: exploring intersections from a midwifery perspective in New Zealand

This article explores the interrelations between the corporeal, the social and the spatial as they operate to shape the discursive and material realities of childbirth in the obstetric hospital setting. It draws on interviews conducted with midwives throughout New Zealand and embodies key insights derived from the work of Michel Foucault and Elizabeth Grosz. The obstetric hospital is theorised as a product of particular socio-political relations that privilege biomedical constructions of the body and childbirth. Midwives, however, proffer an alternative construction of childbirth and the space/place it is enacted. It is one that requires a woman to actively engage with a variety of birth spaces and take up a range of subject positions that enable her to be a more active agent in the process of parturition. The limited and limiting spatial and discursive arrangements of the obstetric hospital, it is argued, shape the behaviour, subjectivity and corporeality of the maternal body confined within it and therefore the practises of midwives. Unfortunately, and as this article demonstrates, the opportunity to take up such an alternative is limited in the obstetric hospital despite some recent cosmetic attempts to render it more welcoming.     

Exhibiting enterprise: how New Zealand museums generate revenue

Museums in New Zealand are not a homogeneous group in terms of their level of incomegenerating activity or the nature of those activities. The gap of knowledge consequent on this situation led to the National Services unit of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, commissioning primary research into the revenue‐generation activities of the sector. This paper presents the results of that research, specifically the data gathered through a questionnaire. The results provide a profile of respondents in relation to their operating contexts, the sources of financial and non‐financial support they received (from the local community, local authorities and central government), and the types of income‐generating activities they undertook. The results contribute to a better understanding of both how organisations within the sector generate income (from traditional sources and new, more innovative activities) and what factors influence their ability to do so.     

Deciduous Nothofagus leaves from the Miocene of Cornish Head,New Zealand

Pole, M.S., 1994:03:28. Deciduous Nothofagus leaves from the Miocene of Cornish Head, New Zealand. Alcheringa 18, 79–83. ISSN 0311-5518.

Nothofagus leaves with plicate vernation, indicating a deciduous habit, are recorded from the Late Miocene of New Zealand. This is the first unequivocal record in New Zealand of deciduous Nothofagus, deciduous species now being restricted to Tasmania and South America.     

华人新移民在澳大利亚、新西兰的生存适应分析

澳大利亚、新西兰自上世纪七八十年代开始实行面向亚洲的政策以来 ,来自亚太地区不同国家的华人移民以及其他亚裔移民大量移进这两个国家。他们在异国他乡面临着以高失业率为主要特征的生存危机。但这一包括中国大陆新移民的华人群体 ,克服重重困难 ,站稳脚跟 ,逐步积累 ,取得了初步的成功     

Characterization of New Zealand obsidian using PXRF

New Zealand has some of the most active areas of rhyolitic volcanism in the world and this has produced numerous obsidian sources in the northern half of the North Island. In total archaeologists have recognized 27 named locations from which obsidian can be obtained scattered across 4 geological source regions. Shortly after colonization in the late 13th century AD Polynesian settlers began transporting this material some thousands of kilometers throughout the country and across the sea in small quantities to distant neighbors in the Kermadecs and Chatham islands. Although considerable research has been conducted on obsidian sourcing in New Zealand the complexity of geochemical source discrimination and the lack of a practical method of non-destructive geochemical analysis has hindered progress. We present the results of our use of PXRF to provide geochemical data on New Zealand obsidian sources and to compare the use of discriminant analysis and classification tree analysis to discriminate among sources and attribute archaeological samples to sources. Our research suggests that classification tree analysis is superior to discriminant analysis in sourcing studies. A large case study using an important settlement phase site (S11/20) from the Auckland region demonstrates the utility of the methods and the results support a model of high degrees of mobility and interaction during the early settlement of New Zealand.     

A visceral approach: cooking 'at home' with migrant women in Hamilton, New Zealand

People's visceral experiences of food – the tastes, textures and aromas – can tell us a great deal about their emotional and affective relations with place. Questions of bodies and embodiment are increasingly becoming a focus for geographers and migration scholars. In this article we extend some of this work by examining how the visceral can shape (and be shaped by) a range of socio-political relations. We concentrate on food and eating as a central political issue and illustrate how a visceral approach can push understandings of migrants' experiences. We focus on a group of 11 migrant women from South Africa, Singapore, Korea, Iraq, Thailand, Hong Kong, Somalia, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and India in their 'new home' in Hamilton, New Zealand. Each of the women prepared and cooked for us a dish that was significant to them in some way. These migrant women are comfortable in their domestic spaces and largely experience cooking not as a burden but as an important way of staying viscerally connected with their 'old home'. Creating a domestic space where the body feels 'at home' can help resituate and reconstitute the diasporic subject. This kind of visceral approach is useful for informing the development of social policy.     

Prehistoric seal carcass exploitation at the Shag Mouth site,New Zealand

Seal populations in New Zealand declined dramatically during the prehistoric period. The loss of this important resource significantly affected the foraging practices at the Shag River Mouth site. Previous research documented substantial changes to the diet with the decline of seals and the corresponding decline in foraging efficiency. In this study, I examine how New Zealand foragers altered their use of seal carcasses as the availability of these marine mammals declined. Otariid seal data from the Shag River Mouth site in southern New Zealand are analyzed to test changes in butchery/transport and skeletal element breakage patterns expected with resource depression and declining foraging efficiency. This research shows that at Shag Mouth, seal carcasses were used more intensively over time. However, bone breakage patterns showed little change in the exploitation of within-bone nutrients.     

Triassic plant fossils from Pollock Road,Southland, New Zealand

Pole. M. S., & Raine. J. I., 1994:03:28. Triassic plant fossils from Pollock Road, Southland. New Zealand. Alcheringa 18, 147–159. ISSN 0311-5518.

Sedimentary rocks of the Murihiku Supergroup considered to be latest Triassic (Rhaetian), crop out about 10 m below the Glenham Porphyry, near Glenham, New Zealand. They contain the vegetative macrofossils Marchantites sp. (Hepaticae), Pachydermophyllum praecordillerae (Frenguelli) Retallack and Pachydermophyllum benmorensis Anderson & Anderson (Peltaspermaceae), cf. Dicroidium dubium var. dubium Anderson & Anderson (Corystospermaceae), Desmiophyllum sp. cf. D. indicum Sahni (possible conifer), and Gingkophytopsis sp. (possible progymnosperm).

Reproductive material includes ovulate structures (Peltaspermum cournanei sp. nov.), pollenbearing structures (Antevsia sp.) and probably seeds of the Peltaspermaceae, ? Umkomasia (Corystospermaceae), and a possible progymnosperm microsporophyll.

The palynoflora is dominated by bisaccate gymnospermous pollen, mainly Alisporites spp., consistent with the presence of corystosperm macrofossils. Moderately common pollen of Cycadopites spp. may be of peltasperm origin.     

Pastoralism and politics: reinterpreting contests for territory in Auckland Province, New Zealand, 1853–1864

As colonial frontiers expanded in the nineteenth century, contests over access to land suitable for farming between pastoralists, small farmers and indigenous populations were the inevitable result. In colonial Auckland, this contest was particularly vigorous, firstly because the young settlement's economic survival was at stake, since environmental constraints largely prevented its participation in the lucrative New Zealand wool industry, and secondly, because the economic and military prowess of indigenous Maori meant that settlers had little room to move in. Auckland's wealthy pastoralists pinned their hopes on the occupation of Maori land to the south of Auckland, since this was more suitable for sheep than the settlement's immediate environs, but this required dispossessing the Maori population by force. Initially, this obstacle gave small farmers a political advantage over the pastoralists, but as firstly arable markets, and then plans for small farmers and Maori to rear sheep themselves, all faltered, the pastoralist cause became increasingly difficult for colonial authorities to resist. When these authorities finally turned against the Maori communities south of Auckland, and launched an imperial war against them, the pastoralists successfully lobbied for the lands they most coveted to be confiscated from Maori, an event that radically altered New Zealand's future economic geography.     

The role of labrid fish in prehistoric economics in New Zealand

Labrids are one of the most common types of fish to occur in inshore rocky marine habitats in New Zealand. There are major discontinuities in their relative abundance in archaeological sites from different regions of New Zealand, and these are difficult to reconcile with known distributional patterns. A number of possible explanations are examined such as changes in fishing technology and various ecological factors. It is concluded that the reasons for these observed fluctuations may vary considerably from one case to another, but where large numbers were caught by prehistoric people who had access to alternative fish resources, unreliability of some major aspect of the economy may be inferred. A combination of poor sea conditions and marginal horticulture is likely to increase the importance of labrid fish.     

An early Miocene ant (subfam. Amblyoponinae) from Foulden Maar: the first fossil Hymenoptera from New Zealand

Kaulfuss, U., Harris, A.C., Conran J.G. & Lee, D.E., 2014. An early Miocene ant (subfam. Amblyoponinae) from Foulden Maar: the first fossil Hymenoptera from New Zealand. Alcheringa 38, 568–574. ISSN 0311-5518.

The ant subfamily Amblyoponinae is presently represented in New Zealand by one endemic species in the cosmopolitan genus Stigmatomma and an introduced Australian species of Amblyopone. The fossil record of the group is restricted to two species of Stigmatomma from late Eocene Baltic Amber. Here, we describe the third fossil record, an Amblyopone-like specimen from the early Miocene of Otago, southern New Zealand, based on a winged male that resembles the extant A. australis Erichson in size, general habitus and characters of wing venation, but also shares features with the African amblyoponine genus Zymmer. This represents the first fossil record of Amblyoponinae from the Southern Hemisphere and the first example of Hymenoptera among the few pre-Quaternary insect fossils known from New Zealand. It suggests a long history of Amblyoponinae in New Zealand and Australia.

Uwe Kaulfuss [uwe.kaulfuss@otago.ac.nz] and Daphne E. Lee [daphne.lee@otago.ac.nz], Department of Geology, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9016, New Zealand; Anthony C. Harris [anthony.harris@otagomuseum.govt.nz], Otago Museum, PO Box 6202, Dunedin 9059, New Zealand; John G. Conran [john.conran@adelaide.edu.au], ACEBB & SGC, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Adelaide, Benham Bldg, DX 650 312, Adelaide SA 5005, Australia. Received 18.3.2014; revised 15.5.2014; accepted 23.5.2014.     

新西兰中国大陆新移民初探

论文基于统计数字,分析了新西兰移民政策对中国大陆移民的影响、中国大陆移民在新西兰的定居状况以及近期新移民的政治诉求。得出结论,新西兰中国大陆新移民群体的形成始于新西兰在1987年所颁布的新移民法案,此后分别于20世纪90年代中期和2000年以后共两次大批的中国大陆人士移民新西兰;近年的新移民包括数以万计的留学生转化的移民以及数额可观的商业移民,尤其是投资移民;如此数万之众的留学生和新移民的到来,对新西兰华人社会经济产生了巨大影响;很多中国大陆新移民对参与新西兰政治表现出了浓厚的兴趣;未来的研究应做多角度和深度研究,如探讨新西兰中国大陆移民的身份认同问题,他们与其他华裔移民及土生华裔的关系以及这个群体中的＂空中飞人＂和海归现象等。     

The impacts of extra-territorial voting: Swings,interregnums and feedback effects in New Zealand elections from 1914 to 2011

How are elections affected by the votes of people living abroad? The majority of states now allow extra-territorial voting in some form, but the research literature on this topic remains underdeveloped. Moreover, even though extra-territorial voting raises issues about the relationship between territory and political obligation that are relevant to political geographers, political geography has been under-represented in discussions on the topic. Against this background, this research examines a century of overseas voting impacts in New Zealand, a country with an unusually long recorded history of such activity. The study identifies three types of extra-territorial voting impact over the period 1914-2011, referred to as swings, interregnums and feedback effects.     

Thelodont fish and conodonts from the Early Devonian of Reefton,New Zealand

Thelodont scales and associated fragments of conodont elements identified as Turinia sp. cf. Turinia australiensis and Ozarkodina sp. cf. Ozarkodina buchanensis respectively are described for the first time from the Early Devonian Murray Creek Formation of Reefton, New Zealand. The conodont and thelodont components of the fauna suggest a late Pragian to early Emsian age for the assemblage.     

Mobilizing Manhood: Gender and the Great Strike in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand

The Great Strike of 1890 in Australia and New Zealand symbolized the rise of class, influenced nationalist discourse, and shaped labour politics. It also signified a crisis in gender relations. Conservatives and unionists openly contested the meaning of masculinity, mobilizing concepts of manhood in ways specific to class, community, ethnicity and age. Both groups were alarmed by the role women played in the dispute; attacks on scabs and special constables and the occupation of public, ‘male’ spaces challenged ascribed boundaries, customs and locales, and revived a rich tradition of pre-industrial protest.     

Going for the win‐win: including the public in underwater cultural heritage management through citizen science in Australia and New Zealand

UCH managers are increasingly aware of the limitations of excluding public participation in heritage management both in terms of their own limited resources and need for wide public political support. This article assesses a pilot project in South Australia to train citizen scientists to record and monitor underwater cultural heritage sites. The results reinforced the need to ensure the data collected is robust and meaningful, and that citizen scientists know their contribution is valid; the need to help citizen scientists interpret data and foster peer‐to‐peer learning, and highlighted the importance of open source data for site conditions.     

Fish and crayfish from the Washpool Midden site,New Zealand: Their use in determining season of occupation and prehistoric fishing methods

A method is suggested whereby modern ecological information on fish behaviour and distribution, together with commercial catch figures, may be used to assess season of occupation of archaeological sites. Monthly catch probabilities for each species are scaled by minimum numbers from prehistoric osteological assemblages to yield an overall likelihood of the fish being caught at different months of the year. A test case on two assemblages from Palliser Bay, New Zealand, suggested year-round habitation, and this was consistent with individual qualitative seasonal markers. The fishbone evidence can also be used to comment on aspects of prehistoric technology connected with marine foods, such as the use of canoes, baited traps, long line hauling, rock fishing and seine netting. In addition, the fish information substantiated subtle environmental changes which are believed to have taken place in this region.     

Rich Pickings: An Analysis of Opportunistic Behaviour at Rangitoto Island,Aotearoa/New Zealand

Rangitoto Island, Aotearoa/New Zealand, is the location of a graveyard of abandoned vessels and three communities of baches (circa 1910s–1930s)—small and modest holiday homes. In 2014, an archival and archaeological investigation of 11 discarded watercraft located at Boulder Bay and the bach communities of Beacon End, Rangitoto Wharf and Islington Bay revealed evidence of salvage and reuse of abandoned vessel materials in the construction, modification and use of the island’s baches. This evidence in turn provides insight into opportunistic behaviours of communities unassociated with the maritime industries that created ships’ graveyards, and consequently affords a more well-rounded understanding of post-depositional site formation processes. Influenced by social and economic impacts, the Rangitoto Island bach communities’ resourcefulness enhances our knowledge of behaviours towards ships as sources of material.