Bonnie-Estelle K. Trotter-Simons Disrupting a Settler-Colonial Gendered Culture through Intersectionality: Towards Collective Liberation and Constitutional Transformation in Aotearoa
As a tangata Tiriti feminist seeking to engage in constitutional transformation in Aotearoa, I open discussion by thinking with the whakataukī: ‘kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua’ (‘I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past’). In this paper, I argue for an intersectional frame through which to critically understand how a hetero- and cis-normative gendered culture is integral to ongoing white settler colonial processes and legacies imposed upon Aotearoa. I begin by bringing into conversation a body of dynamic and radical work rooted in sociology, Mana Wahine scholarship, feminism, and critical race theory. Dialogue across these areas of scholarship reveal the interconnection of race, gender, class and sexuality with colonialism in Aotearoa and elsewhere. Through engagement with critical literature and activism alike, I explore potential possibilities of taking an intersectional approach to understanding and resisting settler colonial gendered processes. These involve strengthening collective praxis and fostering relationships of solidarity across difference which honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and realise constitutional transformation. Finally, I explore how this approach resonates for several Aotearoa-based musicians who develop intersectional praxis through their music in ways that disrupt a settler colonial gendered culture and enact new ways of being together beyond it.
Richard Jackson State Terrorism and the Settler Colonial Project in Israel
The issue of terrorism in the Israel-Palestine ‘conflict’ has almost entirely been reserved as a label for Palestinian resistance. The reasons for this lie in the deliberate campaign of the ‘terrorisation’ of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, as documented by Ilan Pappe, as well as powerful discursive intimidation by pro-Israeli supporters against any application of the term to Israel’s actions. However, recent events have reduced the suppressive impact of pro-Israel propaganda, providing an opening for an in-depth analysis of the history and nature of Israeli state terrorism. This paper provides a brief overview of the extent and nature of Israeli state terrorism, and examines how it has been used as a tool for both coercive diplomacy against external opponents, and a form of terror governance for occupied Palestinian populations. Drawing parallels with other settler colonial projects, such as South Africa, Kenya, Algeria, and others, the paper argues that state terrorism is one of the primary tools employed in the settler colonial project, being used for the purposes of ethnically cleansing land to make way for settlers, suppressing national self-determination movements by indigenous populations, and pacifying captive populations. This finding of the centrality of state terrorism to the settler state-building and state-maintenance project has major implications for our understanding of states, power and contemporary IR, as well as criminology and state crime. In disciplinary terms, it suggests that terrorism studies as a field (alongside criminology) has a myopic and distorted analytical focus which needs to be turned towards the much more significant issue of state terrorism.
Liana MacDonald Title: Deconstructing the Settler Colonial Crypt
Anti-Māori sentiment oozes from the coalition government, as evidenced by legislative attacks on the Treaty and local Māori representation, and a 2024 Budget intent on squashing Māori aspirations. How can we explain such rigid ignorance of colonial history and lived Māori realities as contributing factors of long-standing and persistent racism in Aotearoa New Zealand today?
In this presentation, I introduce the settler-colonial crypt as analogy for considering the role that collective memory and remembering play in upholding state sovereignty and whiteness in settler societies. Drawing from Indigenous philosophy and sociology, I deconstruct different components of the crypt (the exterior, the walls, the interior) through a storytelling methodology that shows how everyday spaces and places accommodate a ‘settler fantasy’; an embodied narrative about how good ol’ New Zealand Kiwis come to belong in the nation state. I argue that a settler fantasy trumps rational thought to ensure that economic and social privileges remain in the hands of Pākehā settlers. Then, we will consider what an Indigenous approach to collective remembering can offer towards dismantling the crypt structure. Indigenous remembering is a relational and grounded view of society that can bring past grievances and the structuring force of colonisation into public view, to transform popular thinking about race relations.
Teaching Fellow, Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington
Kia ora, my name is Bonnie-Estelle and I recently completed my PhD in Sociology, which is titled Music as Critical Social Theory: Developing Intersectional Feminist Praxis through Music in Aotearoa. I'm currently a Teaching Fellow in the Sociology Programme at Te Herenga Waka.
Bruce Curtis The impossible Predator Free 2050: A balance of cruelty, a post-colonialism
This presentation explores how a hierarchy of animal species normalizes the eradication of feral animals (Clark 1999; Curtis 2002, 2018; Major 2024), and the sanctification of native animals in Aotearoa New Zealand. The result is a balance of cruelty wherein tens of thousands of feral animals, mainly mammals, with a high capacity for suffering (Singer 1976, 1979, 1985) are exterminated in the putative interests of dozens of native animals, mainly birds and frogs, with a low capacity for suffering. Predator Free 2050 codifies this balance of cruelty. It anticipates the extermination of introduced mammals, designated feral (rats, ferrets, stoats, weasels, and possums and, if public opinion can be thwarted, cats). In practice, Predator Free 2050 is an impossibility: undermined in the short-term by cost constraints and socio-technical limitations; undermined in the long-term by climate-change and the likely influx of new invasive species. As a result Predator Free 2050 is best understood as an eco-nationalism (Ginn 2008) or as a post-colonialism which chastens its colonial past.
Shinya Uekusa, Tyrone Barnard, Steve Matthewman, Christine Stephens, Fiona Alpass The intersection of rural inequalities and resilience: The experiences of rural informal caregivers during the pandemic in Aotearoa New Zealand
This study explores the intersection of rural inequalities and resilience experienced by older informal caregivers in Aotearoa New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Informal caregivers in rural areas, who provide care for family members, friends and neighbors, faced heightened challenges during the pandemic. These challenges were driven by increased care demands coupled with reduced access to essential health and social services, further exacerbating pre-existing rural inequalities. However, despite these hurdles, many participants demonstrated remarkable resilience, with relatively positive experiences emerging from the study. Our findings highlight that rural informal caregivers – many of whom are accustomed to managing everyday vulnerabilities – exhibited a form of “earned strength” in the face of the pandemic. This resilience, observed amidst significant structural and systemic disadvantages, aligns with broader disaster research, which suggests that rural populations, through their ongoing navigation of routine hardships, may develop a unique preparedness for crisis. This paper will seek to deepen our understanding of how rural inequalities shape, and at times strengthen, resilience among informal caregivers. By focusing on the adaptive strategies and social networks that enables caregivers to persist, we aim to contribute to discussions on rural health disparities, caregiving challenges and community resilience in times of social disruptions.
