Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2013

In late 2007, the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Rouen announced its intention to return to New Zealand a Maori head that was part of its South Pacific collection. Just a few weeks before the official ceremony, the Minister of Culture blocked the restitution through a court injunction, arguing that the head must be considered the property of the French State and that such procedures threatened museum collections nationally. This developed into a major controversy, which raised legal issues, as well as provoking debates on museology and ethics. The controversy was resolved in early 2012, with the restitution of twenty such heads through the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, an institution now in partnership with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington. This article will explore the conflicting visions in France and in New Zealand and the political implications of the controversy. Then it will analyse the impact on the work of George Nuku, a leading New Zealand artist who was commissioned to work on the renovation of the Rouen Oceania Gallery. Nuku, whose creations have been integrated into the permanent collections of museums around the world, has produced a series of works inspired by the Maori heads, and in these works they are used as the basis for rethinking the colonial legacy and challenging politically correct reconciliation politics.

New Zealand is a liberal democracy where state censorship is among the lightest in the world. However, in 1964, the government intervened in the controversy surrounding the publication of a primary schools bulletin called Washday at the Pa. This booklet which showed photographs of the home life of a rural Maori family, engendered strongly differing social views on the representation of Maori, the desirability or otherwise of censoring classroom resources, and the shifting dynamics of race relations in the country. This article scrutinizes the events of 1964 surrounding Washday at the Pa in detail to provide an account of the complex series of actions undertaken by government departments, government ministers, publishers, pressure groups, and commentators on both sides of the debate. It also extends its coverage to subsequent events such as the 2011 re-publication of the bulletin for a twenty-first-century readership. This article argues that the censorship of Washday at the Pa has had long-lasting ramifications and illustrates the evolution of attitudes to the representation of Maori over the decades.

This is a discussion of the major constitutional review of governance in the Fiji Islands conducted in 1995–1996 (the Reeves Report) that was aborted by the 2000 coup d’etat of George Speight. Political instability and dictatorship have ensued in Fiji (especially from 2006 with the Commodore Frank Bainimarama coup), but the Yash Ghai independent Constitution Commission (whose ideas have re-shaped a new transcultural future for Fiji) was clearly significantly inspired by the 1997 Constitution presented to President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara in 1996. This article was written a year before the promulgation of the new democratic document (2013) for Fijian elections in 2014 and it traces the core ideas contesting ethnocracy in the Reeves Report. The article explores the lengthy road of constitutional planning in the Fiji Islands from 1965 to 2013 and, through a focus on that nation’s most robust and modern constitution (its third) before 2012, points to the best way forward for a multi-ethnic republic in the country which hosts the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.

This article utilizes public choice theory, in particular the logic of appropriateness analysis, developed by James March, on recognition, identity and rules to argue that political appropriateness in Fiji was centred around communal considerations. As such, it was incompatible with multiracial governance, which resulted in conflict between Indo-Fijians and indigenous Fijians which in turn caused internal factionalization within indigenous Fijians, leading to coups and civil unrest in 2000 and 2006. However, since the December 2006 coup, there have been attempts by the military-led regime to change the communal logic towards a new logic based on ethnic inclusiveness, which allowed for the framing of a new political typology where all ethnic groups in Fiji have equal citizenry. However, the article identifies that there may be risks involved with the new political structuration process where contending rules and identities of the past may not be reconciled, creating a circulatory that undermines the new logic trajectory. Regional governments, Australia and New Zealand, imposed travel bans on Fiji government ministers and a number of local Non Government Organizations and unions have criticized the military led regime of being autocratic and insensitive to the concerns of indigenous Fijians. Nevertheless, the article suggests that there is an opportunity for cementing the new logic by setting up deliberative forms of governance including reforms to parliamentary institutions through a committee system where conflicting views and ideas can be debated and reconciled.

The consequences of social and economic development in Pacific island states are far reaching and on a number of levels illustrate the head-on collision of endogamous and exogamous forces. This is particularly evident in the ways in which manifestations of cultural property and traditional knowledge are harnessed and regulated. Laws inspired by western liberal thinking and capitalist economies see intellectual effort as giving rise to property rights and their related remedies, which are premised on individualism, exclusion and the commodity value of knowledge and creativity and its physical manifestation. Traditional, indigenous perceptions are however different. While knowledge may be power it is not always exclusive, individual or commercial. Cultural property creates networks of exchange and reflects continuums between the past and the present, between people and generations, and people and places. Increasingly, there is pressure internally and externally to exploit and use cultural property and traditional knowledge to meet the economic imperatives of development. Linked to this is a real or perceived need to adopt or incorporate a range of legal measures. Many of these are reflections of the colonial past of Pacific islands and an illustration of the neo-colonial present. There are, however, some attempts to moderate this onslaught and to take steps to shape the ­regulatory ­framework in a way that bridges the traditional and the modern. This article considers the challenges facing Pacific island states seeking to articulate laws that meet the demands of modernity and satisfy the values of tradition.

Decolonizing voices: Maori scholarship comes of age Colonising Myths – Maori Realities: He Rukuruku Whakaaro, Ani Mikaere (2011) Wellington: Huia, 380pp., ISBN 978 1 8696 9453 1 (pbk), NZ$45

Weeping Waters: The Treaty of Waitangi and Constitutional Change, Malcolm Mulholland and Veronica Tawhai (eds) (2010) Wellington: Huia, 260pp., ISBN 978 1 8696 9404 3 (pbk), NZ$40

The State of Maori Rights, Margaret Mutu (2011) Wellington: Huia, 251pp., ISBN 978 1 8696 9437 1 (pbk), NZ$45

‘Always Speaking’: The Treaty of Waitangi and Public Policy, Veronica Tawhai and Katarina Gray-Sharp (eds) (2011) Wellington: Huia, 400pp., ISBN 978 1 8696 9481 4 (pbk), NZ$45

Mana Tangata: Politics of Empowerment, Huia Tomlins-Jahnke and Malcolm Mulholland (eds) (2011) Wellington: Huia, 293pp., ISBN 978 1 8696 9480 7 (pbk), NZ$45

The Meeting Place: Maori and Pakeha Encounters, 1642–1840, Vincent O’Malley (2012) Auckland: Auckland University Press, 320 pp., ISBN 978 1 8694 0594 6 (pbk), NZ$45

Trading Cultures – A History of the Far North, Adrienne Puckey (2012) Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 388 pp., ISBN 978 1 8696 9454 8 (pbk), US$35

Far From ‘Home’: The English in New Zealand, Lyndon Fraser and Angela McCarthy (eds) (2012) Dunedin: Otago University Press, 232 pp., ISBN 978 1 8775 7832 8 (pbk), NZ$45

New Zealand’s London: A Colony and its Metropolis, Felicity Barnes (2012) Auckland: Auckland University Press, 344 pp., ISBN 978 1 8694 0585 4 (pbk), NZ$49.99

New Zealand’s Muslims and Multiculturalism; Muslim Minorities Series, Vol. 9, Erich Kolig (2009) Leiden: Brill, 274 pp., ISBN 978 9 0041 7835 9 (hbk), €125

Indigenous Identity and Resistance: Researching the Diversity of Knowledge, Brendan Hokowhitu, Nathalie Kermoal, Chris Andersen, Anna Petersen, Michael Reilly, Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez and Poia Rewi (eds) (2010) Dunedin: Otago University Press, 264 pp., ISBN 978 1 8773 7283 4 (pbk), NZ$49.95

Patched – The History of Gangs in New Zealand, Jarrod Gilbert (2013) Auckland: Auckland University Press, 360 pp., ISBN 978 1 8694 0729 2 (pbk), NZ$49.99

Patterns of the Past: Tattoo Revival in the Cook Islands, Therese Mangos and John Utanga (2011) Wellington: Huia, 224 pp., ISBN 978 0 4731 9377 5 (pbk), NZ$49.99

A History of the Pacific Islands (Second Edition), Steven Roger Fischer (2013) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 368 pp., ISBN 978 0 2303 6269 7 (pbk), £17.99

I am Five and I go to School: Early Years Schooling in New Zealand, 1900–2010, Helen May (2011) Dunedin: Otago University Press, 320 pp., ISBN 978 1 8773 7286 5 (pbk), NZ$49.95

Piano Forte: Stories and Soundscapes from Colonial New Zealand, Kirstine Moffat (2011) Dunedin: Otago University Press, 280 pp., ISBN 978 1 8773 7279 7 (pbk), NZ$45.00

The ‘Ukulele: A History, Jim Tranquada and John King (2012) Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 296 pp., ISBN 978 0 8248 3634 4 (pbk), US$20.99

Dunedin Soundings. Place and Performance, Dan Bendrups and Graeme Downes (eds) (2011) Dunedin: Otago University Press, 176 pp., ISBN 978 1 8775 7822 9 (pbk), NZ$40

The Settler’s Plot: How Stories Take Place in New Zealand, Alex Calder (2011) Auckland: Auckland University Press, 312 pp., ISBN 978 1 8694 0488 8 (pbk), NZ$45

Striding Both Worlds: Witi Ihimaera and New Zealand’s Literary Tradition, Melissa Kennedy (2011) Amsterdam: Rodopi, 255 pp., ISBN 978 9 0420 3357 3 (pbk), €55