Towards a Grammar of Race In Aotearoa New Zealand

by Arcia Tecun, Lana Lopesi, Anisha Sankar

A search for new ways to talk about race in Aotearoa New Zealand brought together this powerful group of scholars, writers and activists. For these authors, attempts to confront racism and racial violence often stall against a failure to see how power works through race, across our modern social worlds. The result is a country where racism is all too often left unnamed and unchecked, voices are erased, the colonial past ignored and silence passes for understanding.

By 'bringing what is unspoken into focus', Towards a Grammar of Race seeks to articulate and confront ideas of race in Aotearoa New Zealand – an exploration that includes racial capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness. A recurring theme across the book is the inescapable entanglement of local and global manifestations of race.

Each of the contributors brings their own experiences and insights to the complexities of life in a racialised society, and together their words make an important contribution to our shared and future lives on these shores.

Contributors to this book: Pounamu Jade Aikman, Faisal Al-Asaad, Mahdis Azarmandi, Simon Barber, Garrick Cooper, Morgan Godfery, Kassie Hartendorp, Guled Mire, Tze Ming Mok, Adele Norris, Nathan Rew, Vera Seyra, Beth Teklezgi, Selome Teklezgi and Patrick Thomsen.

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

Published September 1, 2022

Reviews

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literally best book. Super comprehensive and worth a read

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vital collection of thought and discussion surrounding race in NZ from a group of eminent BIPOC scholars. Some of these essays are somewhat esoteric, meaning you might need a post-grad sociology degree to be able to fully engage with it (I got low-key lost a few times), but if you're used to navigating academic jargon you'll probably be fine. This is something I hope to come back to and continually reflect upon, as both a student and a citizen, and hopefully without sounding pretentious I am going to do a tiny bit of summary/reviewing below mainly so I don't instantly forget what I just fucking read.

The first essay from Anisha Sankar, Lana Lopesi and Arcia Tecun, 'Colonisation and Race in New Zealand', served as a perfect introduction, contextualising the notions of race and racialisation in New Zealand and tracing the basic history of the development of the 'Maori-Pakeha binary'. I liked especially the conversation about the development of a reactionary 'Pakeha' identity with deep, built in insecurities based in the "violent and invasive nature of their colonial ancestry" that necessitates a kind of 'historical amnesia' - an amnesia that sets the beginning of New Zealand's historical narrative firmly in 1840. This insecurity surrounding Pakeha identity is argued to result in the kind of thinking that lead to Don Brash declaring 'we are one people' - a claim to a unified national identity that decries notions of race, and therefore race-based inequalities or differences, in favour of a more comfortable colour-blind 'Kiwiness' that sweeps the past under the rug (Luxon and Seymour I am looking aT YOU). As these scholars observe, half the battle in discussing race in New Zealand is "convincing New Zealanders we have a race problem", and that this problem manifests not just in the actions of lone individuals or casual behavioural racism but in the entire goddamn system.

The other essays get generally more broad in their contexts and more niche in their theoretical focus, but I found most of them super rewarding. Morgan Godfery's essay 'Whiteness, Blackness, and Somewhere In Between: Maori and the Whakapapa of Race' was a stand-out for me personally, only partially because he's one of my favourite lecturers I've ever had. Patrick S. Thomsen's essay 'My Husband is Samoan, So Talofa: The Erasive Racial Politics of Judith Collins' was excellent and engaging, analysing and dissecting the depths of how truly fucking problematic her weaponising of her husband (and use of him as a legitimator to lend herself a veneer of authority to speak on and over Pasifika perspectives) as a political marketing tool was. And Nathan Rew's 'To Speak of Liberation in a Black Oceania' introduced me to a colonial history I knew shit-all about, that of Papua New Guinea/West Papua, and served as both a concise history lesson and a call to action. 5 out of 5 and one to revisit.

[Lulu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This puka should be taught in our kura as well as a recommended reading for people living in and visiting Aotearoa. It implicates our confrontation with collective and unique intersections of race, place and capitalism such as Māori & blackness/ anti-black consumption practices & selective solidarity, belonging vs white privilege in Pākehā treaty work and the implications of white-passing categorisation for poc in upholding white supremacy if left unquestioned.

I was really grateful to learn about the journalism and social discourse surfacing from Te Hokioi e Rere Atu Na and the ways Maniapoto were expressing their definition of race and solidarity as Maniapoto and Māori with Haiti.

🖤❤️🤍

[Bea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good.