Being Explicit About Culture: Maori, Neoliberalism, And The New Zealand Parliament
Ilana Gershon, 2008
In this article, I explore how people use the culture concept in legislatures to understand the minorities they legislate for and about. I focus on recent debates in the New Zealand parliament over whether the indigenous M?ori are a cultural group or a racial group. A Westminster parliament system encourages these debates, in which political parties argue that M?ori are either cultural or racial but not both. For the ruling Labour Party and its allies, M?ori are cultural; for their opposition, the National Party and its allies, M?ori are a racial group. This division is possible only because of the legislators' neoliberal assumptions about identity categories. To complicate these political divisions, M?ori MPs currently belong to political parties from all parts of the political spectrum, and their effectiveness as culture bearers in a parliamentary context can disrupt the terms of this debate.
American Anthropologist, 110(4):422-431.
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On This Day in Indigenous History
Sunday, 02 September 1838
Last Sovereign Queen of Hawai'i Born
On This Day: In 1838 the last sovereign Queen of Hawai'i, Lydia Kamakaʻeha Kaola Maliʻi Liliʻuokalani, was born. Liliʻuokalani inherited the throne from her brother Kalakaua on 29 January 1891. On 14 January 1893, a group composed of Americans and Europeans formed a Committee of Safety seeking to overthrow the Hawaiian Kingdom, depose the Queen, and seek annexation to the United States. The Queen was deposed on 17 January 1893 and temporarily relinquished her throne to "the superior military forces of the United States". She had hoped the United States, like Great Britain earlier in Hawaiian history, would restore Hawaii's sovereignty to the rightful holder.
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