Problematics of Applying Indigenous Oral History to Politico-Racial Reconciliation in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Abstract

New Zealand is a country of four million people some 2000 kilometres east of Australia. It is internationally renowned for a number of things that reflect national mythology, such as landscape, flora and fauna, sporting prowess and - especially important for today's paper - race relations. The relations between Maori, the first arrivals a thousand years ago, and pakeha (non-Maori, mostly of British origin), has been lauded as being based on reciprocal tolerance, enlightened policies and mutual agreements - 'the best race relations in the world'. National myths, of course, seldom stand up fully to reality. Sizeable parts of the landscape have been stripped of forest, many indigenous species are under threat of extinction, the All Blacks did not reach the finals in the 2003 Rugby World Cup, and race relations, past and present, have been loaded with cultural misunderstandings and located within a conflictual rather than a consensual paradigm. This paper will outline how two separate historico-cultural worldviews, Maori and pakeha, have interrelated in a key recent political process - the addressing of indigenous claims relating to dispossession and marginalisation by colonisation. Such reconciliations are part of a global trend in former settler colonies whose governments perceive that discontented minorities are counterproductive to social progress. Reparational negotiations between the New Zealand Crown and tribes have, by international standards, been successful in their timelines and outcomes. Nevertheless they have presented many practical and conceptual difficulties, resulting in part from profound differences in worldview and, relatedly, historical methodology. On the other hand, the interaction between the two perspectives has enhanced the value and possibly durability of the reparations agreements. The paper analyses the role of oral history in these processes, and concludes that a consequence of the reconciliation project, an effort being made in various quarters to reconcile these two methodologies, presents cutting edge opportunities for scholarship.