Pacific Islands Occasional Seminar

Monday March 15^th, 2010
12:00 pm in Moore Hall 319

Ilana Gershon, PhD
Department of Anthropology, Indiana University
presents,

The Origins of Maori in Parliament: The 1867 Maori Representation Act in New Zealand

Why did the settler New Zealand parliament decide in 1867 to pass a bill that set aside four seats in the House of Representatives for Maori representatives? This unique British colonial legislative act supporting indigenous rights has allowed subsequent Maori members of parliament to help transform New Zealand's politics of recognition and advocate for indigenous rights. This paper will examine the political debates surrounding this 1867 legislation, and, in particular, how New Zealand settler politicians' ideologies of political performance and oratory underpinned the debates over whether to grant indigenous people self-representation. It is largely about how settlers perceive indigenous political performances and address how these perceptions, or ideologies of performance, influenced the ways legislative structures were established in the early stages of New Zealand's settler nation building to include indigenous actors.

Ilana Gershon is a cultural anthropologist in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University. Her previous research compared Samoan migrant experiences in New Zealand and the United States, focusing on the contrasts between how governments and migrants understand what it means to have a culture. In her current research project, she is looking at Maori members of the New Zealand parliament, exploring how indigenous self-representation in the national legislature has contributed to the current Maori renaissance.

The seminar is cosponsored by the UHM Center for Pacific Islands Studies, the UHM Department of Anthropology, and the Maori Language and Culture Program in the UHM Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures. For information, and disability access, please call 808-956-7700.

page last updated March 5, 2010