The Systematisation of Tradition: Maori Culture as a Strategic Resource

In this article I discuss the systematisation of Maori tradition in New Zealand during the 1970s and 1980s. More particularly, my focus is on the politicisation and rationalisation of Maori tradition within the New Zealand state, these processes occurring partly in response to calls by Maori leaders for a dismantling of colonial and monocultural structures in New Zealand and reactive objectifications of Maori tradition which challenged the legitimacy of the post-colonial state administration. I begin with a consideration of the main objectives towards which the systematisation of tradition has been directed over the past two decades, and I examine the way in which priorities have shifted in response to reactive politicisations of ethnic identity. I then draw upon a number of specific examples to illustrate the ethnicisation and rationalisation of Maori tradition as aspects of the systematisation process within the New Zealand state.     

Defining maritime boundaries: 'the murky hand of history's oversight' in the Gulf of Maine

In this paper, an unresolved boundary dispute in the Gulf of Maine, between the United States and Canada, in an area known as the Grey Zone is examined. In the context of a juridically weak framework of principles for determining international maritime boundaries, the case of a small fishing community caught between conflicting national interests and a lucrative fishing zone being claimed by both countries is examined. Left unresolved with the 1984 International Court of Justice decision defining the 'Hague Line', this dispute is made more problematic because of ambiguous objectives and conflicting agendas between national governments, between state and community levels and within the community itself.     

Pawns,pirates or peacemakers: Fishing boats in the inter-Korean maritime boundary dispute and ambivalent governmentality

Extractive activities such as oil drilling, mining and fishing often appear implicated in international maritime boundary disputes. While natural resources' crucial role as a catalyst for conflict has been well-noted in the literature, such an approach has typically assumed a contextual and passive position of natural resources with little political agency for altering the dynamics of a confrontation. This paper provides an alternative perspective in which resource activities constitute a willful agent that works in part to govern the course of the boundary dispute. Drawing on Foucault's notion of governmentality, I look at how South Korean fishing activities near a disputed maritime border between the two Koreas, called the Northern Limit Line, may be imbued with intentionality representing an indirect arm of the state's geopolitical agenda. Mobilizing the realist narrative of an immovable border and the mundane tactics of education sessions and at-sea radio communication, I suggest that the South Korean government is seeking to create subjects in fishers to reinforce the state objectives of boundary legitimization and defense of claimed waters. The analysis, however, also demonstrates an ambivalent nature of governmentality, with fishers muddling the state interventions through their own conduct and rationale. The South Korean government thus faces a delicate task of managing the fishing operation vis-à-vis the boundary dispute. Taking the seemingly innocuous resource activity such as fishing to the center stage of power relations, this paper also tables one way of engaging with maritime boundaries, one of the understudied domains in political geography.     

The Traditionalisation of the Maori Meeting House

By focusing on two successive phases in the traditionalisation of the Maori meeting house — exhibition and aestheticisation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and standardisation and tribalisation during the 1930s and 1940s — I seek to illustrate how the diverse projects of national identity, tourist marketing, ethnology and state-directed rural development converged to displace meeting houses out of time. I argue that while the short-term effect of this displacement was to suppress developing traditions of oppositional Maori agency this was not the case in the longer term, nor was it always the intention of those engaged in the process.     

Gender,Work and Fears of a ‘Hybrid Race’ in 1920s New Zealand

The 1929 New Zealand Committee of Inquiry into the Employment of Maori on Market Gardens affords insight into the ways in which masculine fears of racial degradation through miscegenation – of a ‘hybrid’ Chinese/Maori race – operated within a hierarchy of race, gender and Iwi (tribal) interests. The participation of Maori men in national politics contributed to a new articulation of ‘National Manhood’, in which Maori men and white men combined to express fears about women's work and sexuality and young women's potential to undermine a fragile and contested hierarchy of racial purity. Maori women, silenced in the cacophony of voices lamenting their plight, were at the centre of debates between Maori men, Pakeha (white New Zealander) employers, Chinese market gardeners, Anglican and Methodist interests and Pakeha women's groups. I argue that the Inquiry was about commerce, both in a business and a sexual sense. As a historical episode, it also serves to complicate the picture of New Zealand as a historically bicultural society, made up only of Maori and Pakeha, by signalling the importance of the Chinese in debates about national belonging.     

The Unstable Coastline: Navigating Dispossession and Belonging in Colombo

This article explores how residents of a small coastal fishing enclave in Colombo live with cumulative waves of dispossession brought on by exclusionary projects of urban development. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, I introduce the analytic of navigation to describe how people move, plan and live with both present and future threats of dispossession. Navigation offers a unique perspective on questions of agency and resistance in oppressive conditions. Rather than framing subjects as “resisting” projects of world-class city-making, this analysis shows that urban residents instead engage in complex and occasionally contradictory modes of living with uncertainty. I complicate existing understandings of the term “navigation” by describing how questions of nation and belonging are crucial to comprehending how people navigate. Ultimately, I suggest that expressions of belonging and obligation to an imagined community might not only be strategic, but instead reflect some of the broader social forces which structure possibilities for action.     

Maori Hapu as a Whole Way of Struggle: 1840s–50s Before the Land Wars

Research in Maori land history, burgeoning under the influence of the Waitangi Tribunal since the mid-1980s, promises a better understanding of the history of Maori kinship as well as New Zealand political economy. It has often been merely assumed, for instance, that contemporary hapu are a (or the) traditional form. I argue that Maori kinship and especially hapu or their equivalent need to be better understood in historical perspective. This essay examines some evidence and issues arising from the first few decades of colonisation before the land wars of the 1860s.     

从南北榜到定额取士——明代会试取士区域矛盾的合理解决

南北榜案、南北卷、定额取士是明代科举中三件极具代表性的大事。在详细考证南北榜案始末,南北卷制定的时代背景和定额取士模式形成的基础上,发现三个事件紧密联系,都与区域公平取士有关。通过南北分卷和定额取士,进士作到了公平录取,取士实现了精细化,公平合理地解决了长期以来科举考试中客观存在的南北区域之争,在科举史上极具创新性。     

Maori Socio-Political Organization in Pre- and Proto-History

At present it is widely assumed that the socio-political organisation of Maori society is made up of four structural levels: the ‘extended family’, the ‘sub-tribe’, the ‘tribe’ and the ‘super-tribe’, each of which, in turn, corresponds with a certain type of Maori leader. It is rarely realised that a consensus about this framework for understanding Maori socio-political organisation did not emerge until the 1930s, approximately 150 years after colonial contact had begun. This raises the question to what extent the standard model of Maori socio-political organisation is based on the same a-historic and objectivist assumptions that were held around the turn of the century when it was developed. The extent to which these assumptions may have influenced the ethnohistorical and ethnographic analysis of Maori society in past and present also requires examination. It is argued that an essentialist model of Maori tribal organisation hampers the understanding of the dynamics of socio-political practices in Maori society.     

‘So long,and thanks for all the fish?’* Examining the built and cultural heritage of the Jaffa port redevelopment

‘Heritage’ is a term that is ambiguous in the best of circumstances; however, it becomes even more so in urban environments where conflicts of identity and culture are pivotal, as in Israel’s mixed Israeli-Palestinian cities. In this paper, I examine the recent redevelopment of the Jaffa port, Israel. Jaffa’s ancient port has had a significant role in facilitating industry, commerce and social ties in the area, and it has recently been remodelled by the city as a cultural and entertainment hub. Through interviews with key stakeholders and observations, I examine the role of heritage in the redevelopment using two broad categories: heritage of the built environment and cultural heritage, including the practice of fishing. I argue that while efforts have been made to conserve the waterfront’s heritage, the redevelopment has resulted in an artificial space that does not speak to the local culture of Jaffa as it is interpreted by the port community, including the fishermen. The Jaffa case study suggests that more attention should be paid to the delicate role of urban planners in facilitating change in a politically and culturally contested environment.     

南中国海争端与中菲关系

中国在南中国海的主权受到一些国家的挑战,菲律宾是其中之一。菲律宾最早对南中国海的岛礁提出领土要求可追溯到20世纪30年代。菲律宾在南中国海的活动分为三个阶段。20世纪70年代以前,菲律宾政府不断地对南沙岛礁提出领土要求,也支持其国民到南沙海域勘探,但未占领中国南沙岛礁;20世纪70年代,菲律宾占领了部分南沙岛礁;冷战结束后,由渔业纠纷而引发了美济礁和黄岩岛问题,影响较大。总的来看,南中国海争端一定程度上影响了两国关系,但不影响双边关系的大局。在可预见的将来,南中国海的局势将维持现状,双方会通过协商途径解决可能出现的纠纷和争执。     

The Market, Marx and Sustainability in a Fishery

A management system of individual transferable quotas was introduced in the Tasmanian commercial rock lobster fishery in 1998. The market for quota units has since become increasingly capitalised. Fishers without substantial wealth find it difficult to participate in this market. Instead, investors purchase quota units. Consequently, fishery managers are somewhat disillusioned with the hidden hand of the market and are seeking a different way to conceptualise what is happening in the fishery. Marx's writings on the hidden abode of production suggest one such way. I bring Marx's work together with quota management and the views of participants as an alternative way of framing these changes in the fishery.     

The Swinging Gate: Katherine Mansfield's Missionary Vision

At the age of thirteen, Mansfield wrote “I want to be a Maori missionary” in her Book of Common Prayer. “The Swinging Gate: Katherine Mansfield's Missionary Vision” by Richard Cappuccio argues that Mansfield's initial diary entry is a lens through which one can read her interests in, rebellion against, and modifications of her Anglican background. The article discusses close readings of her poems “The Sea Child,” “The Butterfly,” and “To L.H. B.” as well as two of her stories — “Prelude,” and “How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped.” In addition it draws on journals and letters to focus on a relationship between Maori systems of belief, her affinities with Frank Harris's “A Holy Man (After Tolstoi),” and her final observations about G. I. Gurdjieff.     

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.     

Justifying exclusion: The politics of public space and the dispute over access to McIvers ladies' baths,Sydney

McIvers Baths is an ocean pool in the Sydney beach of Coogee which is open to women and children only. In December 1992, a male resident of Coogee lodged a formal legal complaint of 'discrimination on the grounds of sex' with the Anti-Discrimination Board of New South Wales. Over the next three years, a coalition of activists and institutions campaigned successfully to oppose this complaint and maintain the exclusion of men from McIvers. In this article, the author considers some of the implications of this dispute for contemporary debates over the meaning of urban public space. Drawing on recent re-theorisations of urban public space and the political public sphere, the author suggests that the problematisation of exclusion in critical urban analysis should not necessarily take the form of opposition to exclusion per se. Rather, exclusions should be interrogated with respect to processes through which they are politically justified, thus enabling critical theorists to distinguish between different kinds of exclusion. The article offers some reflections on the dispute over McIvers as a way of thinking through some of the conditions in which certain forms of exclusion might be compatible with a democratic 'right to the city'.     

Licensed Native Interpreter:

Many of the cross-cultural intermediaries who figure in the New Zealand historiography operated in ‘middle ground’ situations. However, in New Zealand as elsewhere in the Pacific, intermediaries also had roles to play in settings where the authority of the colonial state was more or less assured. Working from government records and the 1920 diary of the Pakeha interpreter Ben Keys, this article examines the sorts of cross-cultural expertise involved in negotiating sales and leases of Maori land and probes the relationship between such instrumental uses of knowledge of Maori culture and the ethnographic interests that this work nurtured. For some settlers, Keys included, amateur ethnographic inquiry constituted the active intellectual work of being a New Zealander. By examining the work of an intermediary and amateur ethnographer in an age of automobiles and cinemas, I seek to demonstrate — in a modest, textured way — how the colonization of New Zealand was an ongoing, twentieth-century process in the sphere of economics and law as well as culture and identity.     

WAC Reflections Through Maori Eyes

For a while now issues surrounding ethics in archaeology have occupied my thoughts, as have case studies of ethical misconduct. In fact a large part of why I gravitated toward archaeology is rooted in past instances of poor ethical practice instigated against my people, and the overwhelming personal need I have, to seek redress and change for Iwi Maori. Part of my commitment to both of these endeavours, is expressed through my association with WAC, with whose present code of ethics and principles i find affinity with.     

Negotiating Green Space with Landed Interests: The Urban Political Ecology of Greenway in the Pearl River Delta,China

Land‐centred urbanisation has precipitated shortage of green space in Chinese cities. However, in the Pearl River Delta, an ambitious greenway system has recently managed to flourish. It is intriguing to ask how this has become possible. Informed by the perspective of urban political ecology, this paper finds that the greenway project in the Pearl River Delta represents a set of politically realistic endeavours to alleviate urban green space shortage by adapting to, rather than challenging, powerful landed interests. Three interlocking dimensions about land—municipal land quota, rural land use claims, and real estate development—have influenced why, where and how greenways have been created. Based on these findings, we argue that research on China's politics of urban sustainability necessarily needs to understand the country's land politics.     

Viewing Urban Development from the Evolution of the Social Environment

Although place-marketing and image-enhancement are increasingly common elements of Western urban policy, when applied to specific locales, these abstract theories have to negotiate local conditions and contexts. This paper discusses the ways attempts to place-market the city of Hull, England, prompted debates surrounding questions of place, memory and heritage. Despite being Britain's leading fishing port in the 20th century, Hull's place-marketing strategy elided this past in favour of a sanitised vision of a modern, post-industrial city. These debates crystallised around a 1999 planning inquiry over the proposed redevelopment of the erstwhile fishing dock. While the proposals contained some reference to the dock's role as a site of place-memory, this was deemed insufficient by local protest groups and politicians who argued for a more appropriate memorial to Hull's fishing community. Eventually, the redevelopment proposals were accepted, but not before attendant debates exposed both the depth of local sentiments over place-memories and fishing heritage, and also the difficulties of negotiating inclusive and plural heritage landscapes.     

Women's ecological oral histories of recycling and development in coastal Yucatán

This article addresses the formation of the Chen Kole ‘Lob women's recycling cooperative and its relationship to urbanization, plastics consumption, and the exclusionary spaces of conservation-as-development in coastal Yucatán, Mexico. Increasing amounts of plastic containers and other nonorganic garbage contaminate backyards, protected wetlands and marine areas, and individual homes located in low-lying floodable areas. However, in this region, the majority of sponsored economic development programs are directed at managing men's activities in sustainable fishing and ecotourism within natural protected areas. Both women's work and urban issues such as recycling and waste management have frequently been excluded from state policies and development practice. I draw from oral histories of women's experience in the home, in conservation space, and as participants in grassroots plastics recycling to underscore what motivated women to become involved in recycling and garbage cleanup, and how women came to be considered local professionals who maintain clean spaces. These histories underscore the links between gendered work, urban practices, and conservation-as-development, and how women's urban recycling work affects social differences and ecological decline within vulnerable coastal areas.