adventures in cultural politics

Three problems in whiteness discourse, and a fear of men’s support groups.

In her book Decolonizing Methodologies, Linda Tuhiwai Smith describes how “theories about research are underpinned by a cultural system of classification and representation” that has commodified non-European forms of knowledge into the cultural archive and body of knowledge of the West. Today, the role of the West as a globally authorising culture has come into crisis; and with it the ideal of a consensual, anti-dialectical “human stock of knowledge” in the Popperian sense. Accepting the contention of feminist theorist Patti Lather that it is precisely in the aporia between paradigms that methodological inquiry lies, this paper proposes that practice-based research methods are uniquely equipped to develop our collective understanding of the urgent tensions and contradictions structuring postcolonial life.

Over the last four years, and with the support of numerous people including many in the Aotearoa Digital Arts network, I have been writing articles, giving talks, editing books, producing creative works and organising events that ask what it means for new media to consider the implications of indigenous knowledge, culture, and ways of being. This article summarises the theoretical learning from that work, with a view toward bringing an end to what Guillermo Gómez-Peña suggests is a necessary “hyperintensification” of certain cultural problematics that I have been engaging in over the last few years.

Results-oriented development frameworks often continue to advocate what Iris Marion Young calls a ‘distributive paradigm’, without a holistic overview of the real outcomes for communities. Community practitioners can avoid some of these pitfalls in planning and evaluating their projects by looking beyond the project’s practical outcomes that may mask deeper levels of unintended consequences or lack of effectiveness. Central to this process is a need for detailed stakeholder engagement and active management of donor and funder expectations.

My first presentation in Aotearoa to a primarily Maori (and non-academic) audience, on white settlers and indigenous self-determination. This was an introduction to a panel I organised for the Parihaka Peace Festival in 2007.

Alternative models are overrated. I attempt to justify this feeling by considering the insights of Judith Butler and Gayatri Spivak in relation to my own career trajectory through the creative industries. I also gesture at some thoughts about the “story” as a way of both understanding the limits of our practices and (paradoxically) making connections with others. I guess this is kind of a manifesto, although characteristically there is too much crammed too awkwardly together to be inspirational.

Every country would like to believe that its unique culture and creativity will be recognised and could form the platform for a new economy. But the cosmopolitans who develop cultural exports are always at odds with the nation, not to mention the place-bound classes.

New media practice is often thought of as placeless. In reality, new media discourse and theory is invested in colonial culture and particular relationships to land. Recognising the difference between this and indigenous world-views in uses of new media shows the potential for reshaping our suppositions. Surfing gives an example of the ways different conceptions of place can exist in a given locality.

A brief piece on the Cultural Futures symposium held at Hoani Waititi, December 2005

An interview with Anand Taneja from Sarai-CSDS, discussing why I think the questions around indigenous knowledge have broader implications for contemporary politics. Also, a little personal background.

The biculturalism versus multiculturalism debate in New Zealand is tired. To develop either means opening our imaginations to an other possibility, rather than assuming there can be many possibilities without us changing. That is why Aotearoa New Zealand’s biculturalism is so interesting and challenging - but only if we take a bicultural approach to biculturalism itself. To understand more, we can to turn to feminist theory, particularly more psychoanalytically-inflected models. Also, Christchurch gives me the creeps. This is a very rough paper, not designed to be published, so excuse some poor grammar etc. But it does contain the idea of why I live in Aotearoa.

Why I stopped writing a weblog. The perils of public writing as a member of the dominant culture. And some unfortunate school memories. Although it was written in a more informal way, there is something in here which is the clearest expression of my background and the way it impels my writing projects.

The two forms of activism I know well - the first world anti-copyright struggle and the fourth world struggle to prevent unlawful exploitation of traditional knoweldge - seem to be unbridgeable. I think the first world has more to learn from the fourth than vice-versa.

A review of the excellent conference that I attended in Sydney, that featured some of the best Australian discussion on indigenous issues I’ve encountered for a while… Marcia Langton and Lewis Gordon were in full effect.

Why do my favourite Maori academics get so rarely cited by Pakeha New Zealanders? Partially because it’s difficult to maintain the coherence of the nation-state. This makes me suspect that undoing that coherence might be the key to cultural justice. My first academic paper on these issues.

From 2004, when the Foreshore and Seabed legislation was being proposed. I have been told that this was a reasonably accurate account of the most galling avoidance of due process by a New Zealand government in recent memory.

New Zealand historian Michael King died in a terrible car accident. Unfortunately, his obituaries are being used for some Pakeha self-gratification and trashing of academia, which irritated me enough to write about, at the risk of being seen as disrespectful.

“The high-tech is an epistemological constraint I want to escape. That’s the secret of hybridisation. The biggest hybridisation is of course the sexual encounter which you want to escape and at the same time are seduced by. Yes, epistemologic constraints seduce me because they are outside of me, while at the same time I want […]