Okay so I fell asleep last nite before I had a chance to blog, and altho I needed the sleep I also had some stuff to day about the conference. So, we'll say that this blog post is for yesterday and then I'll do another one later for today - I'm flying back to Toronto tonite so maybe it'll be when I'm home in Canada safe n sound :)
We gave our presentations yesterday in the conference, and they went well... although there were three of us on the panel and only three in the audience, which equals the previously worst conference audience which was from MELUS (Multi-ethnic literatures of the US) conference in Texas back in 2004. Actually, in some ways this is a good comparison - those of us on the 'Pacific' themed panel at MELUS had mistakenly assumed that people who were already interested in 'Multi-ethnic' things would be interested in the Pacific, but it turns out they didn't really know what do do with us. They were very excited about their consciousness around the 'five basic foodgroups' as one of my friends used to say (White, Black, Latin@, Asian, American Indian) and the Pacific? Well, the Pacific was invisible.
At this conference, the biggest problem was women.
Now, I'm not only saying this because our panel was all women (although I think it's a factor) and I actually really enjoyed our panel and feel that we had a great conversation... and our three audience members as well as our other panellists loved the whole thing...
I'm saying this because it was something that ran through the whole conference. Gender politics and sexism are things we keep thinking should have been dealt with by now... I mean, the 70s were a long time ago now and surely we won't need to keep on pointing out all the obvious things all the time, like when women are invisible or silent or relegated only to certain positions?
And yet, at this conference the featured panels (roundtables) tended to be all men, two of the three keynotes were men (and one of them managed to speak fluently and interestingly for an hour and a half and only mention any women about 3 times, including musical influences, critical influences, people who matter, etc - thanks DK Spooky! spooky alright), the organisers are almost all men, there were many more men than women participants, and in several sessions the only people who asked questions were men.
Like, seriously? Like, it's 2011 and this crap still goes on?
Well of course it does - sexism is alive and well in 2011. It was enlightening but also sobering to sit with my co-panellists Lesley and Linda after our session and have a couple of drinks and hear about their experiences as women in academia over the years... And really, things haven't changed. I can see it in my home institution, I can see it in the media, I can see it in politics, I can see it in business, I can see it everywhere... After all of these years and all of these struggles, the thing that surprises me is that I can't write the previous comments with the word "we"... Clearly I can't assume that "we can see it" because "we" apparently can't... maybe you, the read of this blog, can, but for so many people the basic questions posed by feminism about structures (explicit and covert) that privilege men and marginalise women are missing from their analysis of their world.
I want to be clear (in case there was any doubt at all) that I love and adore men. I just also happen to think women are deserving of as much love and adoration, and I think we all miss out when sexism suppresses the contributions women can make to any context. Women miss out the most, but so do men.
Several of the men at the conference were surprised when I commented that this was a very men-centred conference, which i admit I found interesting because this conference is called ASAP because it's the Assoc for the Study of Arts of the Present. The whole point of the association is to study the 'contemporary'... and because this is only their third conference, it's early days and they haven't had to inherit old structures or had time to get set in their ways. And yet, the stuctures that underpin the association (and by this I mean the things they take for granted, the ways they operate by default, the things they don't notice because they don't have to) are very old-fashioned. (And not only about gender, I must add: the only other panel which was as poorly attended as our one was the panel I went to on Black film, most of the participants where white, and I don't believe there were papers that engaged with sexuality either. Oh, and despite the theme of the conference being 'Arts of the Planet,' the topics engaged at the conference were very very American.)
This is the thing about sexism: it's not just about the presence or participation or visibility of women, but it's also about the things that are taken for granted and then questions that are not asked so noone can notice whether women are involved or not. Sexism can be blatant, but it can also (and in some ways this is harder to fight) be subtle. I don't believe I heard any specifically sexist comments (women can't write, women artists are inferior, etc) at the conerence, but the people at the *centre* of the conversations (both having them and being the subjects of them) were men.
What does this mean? How does a brand new organisation manage to copy the same sexism that we might expect of something from 'back then' rather than start with everyone at a level playing field?
We have to name sexism (and racism and homophobia etc etc) when we see it - that's what I'm doing now and that's what other women did this weekend too - and we need to shift the structures that underpin it. At the same time, because sexism (and racism and colonialism etc etc) are everywhere, some days it gets a little tiring just to think about how much work needs to be done. It doesn't help, either, that so many people live in a fantasy world where they think that sexism is 'over' and so people who talk about sexism are paranoid, neurotic or obsessed that it gets even more tiring...
So for me, I won't be back to ASAP. We have to pick our battles and I'm not picking this one. I believe in the arts of the present and I believe in studying the contemporary... but this is just not how I roll.
Monday, 31 October 2011
Saturday, 29 October 2011
Dispatches from ASAP/3
Today was the 2nd official day of ASAP/3, but the first one I made it to because I was in transit (and then asleep) for the session yesterday afternoon. However, today I was at the conference the whole day and I have to say it was *fascinating* to attend.
I've been sitting up late tonite making a few changes to my paper I'm delivering tomorrow which is called "Our Sea of Writers: Pacific poetry and the possibilities of precedent." I have ended up using a lot of poetry to help me make my arguments, and near the end I am going to use Hawaiian poet Imaikalani Kalahele's poem 'Make Rope' in order to talk about the ways in which contemporary Pacific poetry draws on and extends the legacy of other Pacific writers, but also will become part of the legacy for the future. I think this is a nice thing to reflect on this evening :)
I've been sitting up late tonite making a few changes to my paper I'm delivering tomorrow which is called "Our Sea of Writers: Pacific poetry and the possibilities of precedent." I have ended up using a lot of poetry to help me make my arguments, and near the end I am going to use Hawaiian poet Imaikalani Kalahele's poem 'Make Rope' in order to talk about the ways in which contemporary Pacific poetry draws on and extends the legacy of other Pacific writers, but also will become part of the legacy for the future. I think this is a nice thing to reflect on this evening :)
one by one
Strand by strand
We become
The memory of our people
And
We still growing...
Friday, 28 October 2011
borders
It's late on Thursday nite and I'm about to go to bed. I'm back in the USA - Pittsburgh this time - and geared up for another conference.
This morning I left my place really early and walked to the subway, caught the train-then-bus, waited in several lines, put up with some questions from some border guards, got a stamp on my passport, and came to Pittsburgh. Inconvenient? Perhaps, if you are in the mood to grumble about standing in line and spending a lot of time geting through processes.
As I waited for my carry-on things to come through the xray machine I needed to wait for the Muslim woman in front of me to be searched by the additional hand-held metal detector... she smiled an apology for holding things up, and I found myself smiling back, hoping to give over the impression that I could see she has to put up with this kind of targetting all the time, that I was in solidarity with her, that if anything I was apologising to her for not being pulled over for extra screening myself. I realised as I thought all of this that this was itself a kind of condescension, that I was projecting as much generalised 'stuff' on her because of her hijab as the border guards had.
I also recalled the story I heard of a Samoan mother, baby and accompanying nurse who were held at the Honolulu border because there was a problem with the mother's papers even though the baby and nurse were US nationals... they were en route to the hospital because the baby was so sick, and despite the mother pleading the guards to let the baby and nurse go through and just hold onto her, they didn't. And the baby didn't make it to hospital.
Yes, these are the stakes of crossing borders and my own privilege as I pass between the US and Canada is so explicit it is almost odious. The response to privilege is to dismantle rather than disavow, and yet in this hotel room tonite it is hard to imagine what kind of dismantling I could really contribute towards. Certainly refusing to come to the US at all is a plausible moral position, but it seems to miss an important point, that the people who experience the border differently from me are - by virtue of their decision to cross the border despite the risks - not able to make the same decision and so that it itself a kind of privilege.
I'm giving a paper this weekend at this conference about transnational writing networks in the Pacific, and specifically how Pacific poets refer to each other and specfically name each other in their work as a way of building up a record of their collective existence despite the massive range of borders and centres across the regoin. I am wondering how these things connect... if I have any thoughts, I'll keep you posted :)
This morning I left my place really early and walked to the subway, caught the train-then-bus, waited in several lines, put up with some questions from some border guards, got a stamp on my passport, and came to Pittsburgh. Inconvenient? Perhaps, if you are in the mood to grumble about standing in line and spending a lot of time geting through processes.
As I waited for my carry-on things to come through the xray machine I needed to wait for the Muslim woman in front of me to be searched by the additional hand-held metal detector... she smiled an apology for holding things up, and I found myself smiling back, hoping to give over the impression that I could see she has to put up with this kind of targetting all the time, that I was in solidarity with her, that if anything I was apologising to her for not being pulled over for extra screening myself. I realised as I thought all of this that this was itself a kind of condescension, that I was projecting as much generalised 'stuff' on her because of her hijab as the border guards had.
I also recalled the story I heard of a Samoan mother, baby and accompanying nurse who were held at the Honolulu border because there was a problem with the mother's papers even though the baby and nurse were US nationals... they were en route to the hospital because the baby was so sick, and despite the mother pleading the guards to let the baby and nurse go through and just hold onto her, they didn't. And the baby didn't make it to hospital.
Yes, these are the stakes of crossing borders and my own privilege as I pass between the US and Canada is so explicit it is almost odious. The response to privilege is to dismantle rather than disavow, and yet in this hotel room tonite it is hard to imagine what kind of dismantling I could really contribute towards. Certainly refusing to come to the US at all is a plausible moral position, but it seems to miss an important point, that the people who experience the border differently from me are - by virtue of their decision to cross the border despite the risks - not able to make the same decision and so that it itself a kind of privilege.
I'm giving a paper this weekend at this conference about transnational writing networks in the Pacific, and specifically how Pacific poets refer to each other and specfically name each other in their work as a way of building up a record of their collective existence despite the massive range of borders and centres across the regoin. I am wondering how these things connect... if I have any thoughts, I'll keep you posted :)
Thursday, 27 October 2011
late nights, early flights...
Another lovely class with very smart Aboriginal Studies students today... talking about urban Indigenous experiences... they're taking risks with their thinking, which is great :)
And in the morning... another conference. Tomorrow morning (actually sooner than I want to admit when I look at the clock) I'm flying to Pittsburgh for a conference... this one is 'ASAP' - the Assoc of the Study of Arts of the Present (I'm pretty sure that's what it stands for anyway)...
Will post from there! And I really will... not like Ethnohistory in LA when I got a bit slack with the posting!
In the meantime, wish me luck for waking to my alarm at 5am!
And in the morning... another conference. Tomorrow morning (actually sooner than I want to admit when I look at the clock) I'm flying to Pittsburgh for a conference... this one is 'ASAP' - the Assoc of the Study of Arts of the Present (I'm pretty sure that's what it stands for anyway)...
Will post from there! And I really will... not like Ethnohistory in LA when I got a bit slack with the posting!
In the meantime, wish me luck for waking to my alarm at 5am!
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Home and Away. Oh, and Land.
Rick Monture and I gave a talk today at the McMaster Museum, where my people (pictures drawn by artists on Cook's ship, including one of a wahine Maori, and one of Omai) and his people (the famous 'Four Kings' series of 4 full-length portraits featuring 3 Mohawk and 1 Mohican diplomats who travelled to London) are currently staying. The Maori portrait is from 1773 and the Kings turned 301 last year!
It was my first opportunity to speak in the general Toronto neck of the woods, and I was super-pleased and humbled that this first talk was alongside a local person (Rick is from Six Nations, a Reserve near Hamilton; this makes him tangata whenua) and in the company of a combination of students, staff, even a student I knew at Vic who is now doing his PhD at McMaster, and surrogate whanau of my own (Nadine and Sarah).
I have to say it was a great success: everyone seemed happy with how it went, and Rick and I enjoyed ourselves... including laughing a bit about how very different our styles are... testament indeed to the diversity of Indigenous people!! ;) About 50 people (according to my rough count) attended the talk, which was a fabulous (and also a little unexpected) number - apparently more than the opening of the exhibition of which these are a part! (Not that it's a competition of course - but we were just so stoked that there was such interest in Indigenous perspectives on this art.
Here's the promo poster:
I'll tell you what was funny, though. And not surprising when I think about it. But striking at the time. Oh, and totally unplanned and unscripted. Both Rick and I, as we talked about our engagements with these eighteenth century portraits of our ancestors, talked about history and representation... but also... drumroll please... land.
Neither of us had talked about land when we met a couple of weeks ago to talk about the paintings and plan the session - perhaps when two Indig ppl are talking about these matters this connection is taken as a given - but when the time came for us to talk publicly about these paintings this is what centred out talks. I asked Rick about it afterwards, publicly, in the Q & A session when the crowd had run out of questions and we were just about to wrap things up. I asked him why it was that we had both talked about land, and he was his usually clear-thinking and direct self.
We look at these ancestors and realise the sacrifices they made for us, and recognise that we in turn are charged to make sacrifices for the next generations. In the time since these were painted a lot has changed but the struggle in which they were engaged is also inherited by us. We also know that when we look at our ancestors we remember who we are. And who we are is where we are: land.
It was my first opportunity to speak in the general Toronto neck of the woods, and I was super-pleased and humbled that this first talk was alongside a local person (Rick is from Six Nations, a Reserve near Hamilton; this makes him tangata whenua) and in the company of a combination of students, staff, even a student I knew at Vic who is now doing his PhD at McMaster, and surrogate whanau of my own (Nadine and Sarah).
I have to say it was a great success: everyone seemed happy with how it went, and Rick and I enjoyed ourselves... including laughing a bit about how very different our styles are... testament indeed to the diversity of Indigenous people!! ;) About 50 people (according to my rough count) attended the talk, which was a fabulous (and also a little unexpected) number - apparently more than the opening of the exhibition of which these are a part! (Not that it's a competition of course - but we were just so stoked that there was such interest in Indigenous perspectives on this art.
Here's the promo poster:
I'll tell you what was funny, though. And not surprising when I think about it. But striking at the time. Oh, and totally unplanned and unscripted. Both Rick and I, as we talked about our engagements with these eighteenth century portraits of our ancestors, talked about history and representation... but also... drumroll please... land.
Neither of us had talked about land when we met a couple of weeks ago to talk about the paintings and plan the session - perhaps when two Indig ppl are talking about these matters this connection is taken as a given - but when the time came for us to talk publicly about these paintings this is what centred out talks. I asked Rick about it afterwards, publicly, in the Q & A session when the crowd had run out of questions and we were just about to wrap things up. I asked him why it was that we had both talked about land, and he was his usually clear-thinking and direct self.
We look at these ancestors and realise the sacrifices they made for us, and recognise that we in turn are charged to make sacrifices for the next generations. In the time since these were painted a lot has changed but the struggle in which they were engaged is also inherited by us. We also know that when we look at our ancestors we remember who we are. And who we are is where we are: land.
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
soo tired!
I won't write for long tonite, because it's late and I'm off to bed. But I had a great trip to LA... and tomorrow I'm off to Hamilton (Ontario) to give a talk at the Museum there with my friend Rick. Will post tomorrow nite for sure!
Monday, 24 October 2011
Ethnohistory... the aftermath
I haven't posted for 3 days, and I have been feeling a deep sense of panic that I must get back to writing to my people ;) I knew it was serious when Mum fb msgd me this morning to ask why she hadn't seen a blog post for the last two days. I am feeling v warm from being in such high demand, so am now making amends :) I must say, I've missed blogging!
I won't try to catch up on everything... just a few key moments of the past three days
* The panel I was on for the Ethnohistory conference went really well... I was presenting a paper about Maori presence in Parramatta, focussing on the Maori students at the New Zealand Seminary and the Native Institution in 1810s and 1820s.
* I met some cool new people, had some great laughs, even had a long chat with someone about some stuff that got us both a bit teary! Awesome :)
* Last nite I watched the Rugby World Cup final - very exciting! Actualyl it was v v nailbiting and in the last 2 minutes yelled out 'I can't breathe!!!' My friend Alyssa, who was sharing the hotel room with me, woke up in a start and panicked on my behalf... until I had to admit I could actually breathe and was just watching a gae of rugby. Heh heh.
* Tonite I'm hanging out with Keith and Juliann - friends from Hawaii days who are here on the UCLA campus where Keith teaches - we went and ate Brazilian BBQ this evening for dinner - yum!! Oh, and did I mention the restaurant was in Beverly Hills?? :)
* Tomorrow afternoon I fly home to Toronto... so might blog from the airport before I'm Canada-bound.
I won't try to catch up on everything... just a few key moments of the past three days
* The panel I was on for the Ethnohistory conference went really well... I was presenting a paper about Maori presence in Parramatta, focussing on the Maori students at the New Zealand Seminary and the Native Institution in 1810s and 1820s.
* I met some cool new people, had some great laughs, even had a long chat with someone about some stuff that got us both a bit teary! Awesome :)
* Last nite I watched the Rugby World Cup final - very exciting! Actualyl it was v v nailbiting and in the last 2 minutes yelled out 'I can't breathe!!!' My friend Alyssa, who was sharing the hotel room with me, woke up in a start and panicked on my behalf... until I had to admit I could actually breathe and was just watching a gae of rugby. Heh heh.
* Tonite I'm hanging out with Keith and Juliann - friends from Hawaii days who are here on the UCLA campus where Keith teaches - we went and ate Brazilian BBQ this evening for dinner - yum!! Oh, and did I mention the restaurant was in Beverly Hills?? :)
* Tomorrow afternoon I fly home to Toronto... so might blog from the airport before I'm Canada-bound.
Friday, 21 October 2011
Dispatches from Ethnohistory... day 1
A great conference - but I'm tired as and off to bed. A longer post tomorrow I promise...
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Thursday, 20 October 2011
ready for ethnohistory!
Today I got my haircut and a pedicure, so I'm ready for a conference :)
Impressively enough, when Dom and I were geting a pedicure (Dom's treat - thanks girl!) we saw an older woman come in and hop up to put her feet in to soak for a pedicure and then put her hands out for a manucire too. Cool, right? An elderly woman getting all prettied up. Well, even cooler - she told us she's 98!! Yep, 98 years old and still getting mani-pedis. Hmm, after 24 hours of talking about how old we were, Dom and I were put in our place. Very much so!
Dominique dropped me off at the hotel and I'm now gossipping with Alyssa who is sharing a room with me... in the morning the conference starts... the conference is 'Ethnohistory' which basically seems to mean what it says: a combinatino of ethno and history. Or, as I like to think about it, brown people in the past. At this conference, the paper I'm giving is about Maori presence in Parramatta (Australia), but my panel isn't on until Saturday... so I've got heaps of time to enjoy the conference before I'm on. I'll keep you posted. Yay!
Impressively enough, when Dom and I were geting a pedicure (Dom's treat - thanks girl!) we saw an older woman come in and hop up to put her feet in to soak for a pedicure and then put her hands out for a manucire too. Cool, right? An elderly woman getting all prettied up. Well, even cooler - she told us she's 98!! Yep, 98 years old and still getting mani-pedis. Hmm, after 24 hours of talking about how old we were, Dom and I were put in our place. Very much so!
Dominique dropped me off at the hotel and I'm now gossipping with Alyssa who is sharing a room with me... in the morning the conference starts... the conference is 'Ethnohistory' which basically seems to mean what it says: a combinatino of ethno and history. Or, as I like to think about it, brown people in the past. At this conference, the paper I'm giving is about Maori presence in Parramatta (Australia), but my panel isn't on until Saturday... so I've got heaps of time to enjoy the conference before I'm on. I'll keep you posted. Yay!
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
catching up
I'm in LA, staying with my friend Dominique... Dom lived not far from Megan when they were both teaching English in Japan... I met her in Japan when I came to visit Megan and the three of us went for a trip to South Korea for a few days... and I've caught up with her several times when I've come through LA... and last summer she was in NZ for New Year and we all went rough camping (well, with blow-up armchairs and a blowup foot-tub for pedicures hehe) beside a river...
Dom is one of those people who has come into our lives and will always be a part of the whanau... she's one of the few people in the world who I'll let tell me off and ask me the hard questions without getting defensive...
When Dom picked me up from the airport, we started talking and we didn't stop until she just went to bed to get her beauty sleep before work tomorrow... an hour or so ago with skyped with Megan and Matiu, and the four of us played the game Matiu has made up for playing on skype... long distance charades, where you act out a scene from a movie and the person or people at the other end have to guess which movie it is... as we cracked each other up: Megan and Matiu in Wellington, and Dom and me in LA, I realised that this is the predicament but also the privilege of having close connections with people in different parts of the world. I'll never live in a city - or even country - with all my close friends and family, and I will never have even the dozen closest friends in the same room at the same time... but that's okay. It just means I live in a world with lots of cities, lots of countries, lots of rooms... and lots of skype! :)
Dom is one of those people who has come into our lives and will always be a part of the whanau... she's one of the few people in the world who I'll let tell me off and ask me the hard questions without getting defensive...
When Dom picked me up from the airport, we started talking and we didn't stop until she just went to bed to get her beauty sleep before work tomorrow... an hour or so ago with skyped with Megan and Matiu, and the four of us played the game Matiu has made up for playing on skype... long distance charades, where you act out a scene from a movie and the person or people at the other end have to guess which movie it is... as we cracked each other up: Megan and Matiu in Wellington, and Dom and me in LA, I realised that this is the predicament but also the privilege of having close connections with people in different parts of the world. I'll never live in a city - or even country - with all my close friends and family, and I will never have even the dozen closest friends in the same room at the same time... but that's okay. It just means I live in a world with lots of cities, lots of countries, lots of rooms... and lots of skype! :)
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
to do, to pack
I'm making a list for tomorrow morning's activities... it's in two columns: to do, to pack. I'm off to LA in the morning so I can go to the Ethnohistory conference which will be held there this week.
I've been working on a paper to present there, my washing is in the dryer, my lists are done and now it's time for bed.
Zzzzzzzzzzzz
I've been working on a paper to present there, my washing is in the dryer, my lists are done and now it's time for bed.
Zzzzzzzzzzzz
Monday, 17 October 2011
Dispatches from Book conf - day 3. A poem I wrote about the oil spill at home during one of the sessions...
he waiata tangi, he waiata aroha
this drifting isn’t swimming, isn’t flight:
these scales and feathers, gills, beaks and eyes
meant for water, salt and wind; not
the quiet surge and flow of thicker tides
when pressed under rock and time, oil
transubstantiates into diamonds, but
this is the wrong pressure, these are not enough years
an oozing has obscured your cut and sheen
sometimes stillness is a sign of gentle strength
the serene depth of quiet calm, but
there is no reflection on this liquid skin
breaths, mouths, even words are too shallow here
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Dispatches from the Book conference - day 2
Met some cool people. Heard some cool papers. Had a good time.
A quotable quote:
George Eliot Clarke (Black Canadian scholar and poet) - in his keynote today he talked about the difference between "a great body of work" and "a body of great work"
A term I heard for the first time today:
Alliterate - when people can read but don't read...
I heard really interesting papers from a librarian who is asking why we feel so emotional about 'book weeding' (when libraries remove and destroy books to make room), an editor of a literary journal who has introduced systems and technology so his press runs more efficiently, an education specialist who has been working alongside an alternative school for at-risk youth (in Canada) which has trialled using e-Readers for their students instead of paper books, a scholar/poet who is writing a book of poetry about the production of books and writing, and an inspiring fabulous teacher who has worked with her students to enable them get more pleasure out of reading...
Had dinner with friends...
And now, as I go to bed, I know the All Blacks will be meeting Australia in just a few hours...
To be honest, though, I don't really care tonite. I am more aware of the legacy of 15 October... the day of the police raids on Tuhoe and others... the ongoing injustice, imperialism, racism and violence... the NZ govt which is incapable of dealing with an oil spill even as it signs more deals for drilling and fracking, which is disinterested in child poverty, which is attempting to create legislation in order to retroactively make legal the illegal filming and surveillance which produced the bogus charges that underpinned the raids in the early hours of 15 Oct... you know, like make a law which says 'the thing we did that was illegal is now not illegal and it is no longer illegal even for when we did it back then.
I learned one more new word today, from a couple of comic book geeks while we ate our lunch at the conference: 'retcon.' A shorthand for 'retroactive conversion,' this term refers to the practice of changing something about the past which contradicts an earlier version of the same past. So, if the comic has already said that Spiderman became a superhero because X happened, it now changes its mind and changes the backstory so that Spiderman became a superhero because Y happened. Retcon.
NZ govt. RetCON.
Sure, go the ABs. Absolutely. But I hope our national pride extends beyond watching rugby tonite all the way to participating actively in our democracy by going to the polling booths in November...
A quotable quote:
George Eliot Clarke (Black Canadian scholar and poet) - in his keynote today he talked about the difference between "a great body of work" and "a body of great work"
A term I heard for the first time today:
Alliterate - when people can read but don't read...
I heard really interesting papers from a librarian who is asking why we feel so emotional about 'book weeding' (when libraries remove and destroy books to make room), an editor of a literary journal who has introduced systems and technology so his press runs more efficiently, an education specialist who has been working alongside an alternative school for at-risk youth (in Canada) which has trialled using e-Readers for their students instead of paper books, a scholar/poet who is writing a book of poetry about the production of books and writing, and an inspiring fabulous teacher who has worked with her students to enable them get more pleasure out of reading...
Had dinner with friends...
And now, as I go to bed, I know the All Blacks will be meeting Australia in just a few hours...
To be honest, though, I don't really care tonite. I am more aware of the legacy of 15 October... the day of the police raids on Tuhoe and others... the ongoing injustice, imperialism, racism and violence... the NZ govt which is incapable of dealing with an oil spill even as it signs more deals for drilling and fracking, which is disinterested in child poverty, which is attempting to create legislation in order to retroactively make legal the illegal filming and surveillance which produced the bogus charges that underpinned the raids in the early hours of 15 Oct... you know, like make a law which says 'the thing we did that was illegal is now not illegal and it is no longer illegal even for when we did it back then.
I learned one more new word today, from a couple of comic book geeks while we ate our lunch at the conference: 'retcon.' A shorthand for 'retroactive conversion,' this term refers to the practice of changing something about the past which contradicts an earlier version of the same past. So, if the comic has already said that Spiderman became a superhero because X happened, it now changes its mind and changes the backstory so that Spiderman became a superhero because Y happened. Retcon.
NZ govt. RetCON.
Sure, go the ABs. Absolutely. But I hope our national pride extends beyond watching rugby tonite all the way to participating actively in our democracy by going to the polling booths in November...
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Dispatches from the 'Books' conference, Uni of Toronto - day 1
Today was the first day of a Book conference - yep, all kinds of things about books: publishing, writing, reading, e-books, etc etc. (Or, in the case of the paper I'm giving on Sunday, no books! - as in the crisis of Maori poetry where very very few are managing to get into print...)
I heard a really interesting keynote speaker talk about e-Books and the 'digital locks' and copyright issues... usually these talks put me into a digital sleep and lock my brain, but he was fascinating... he compared eBooks to CDs and the whole digital music phenomenon... and teasing out the parallel, as well as drawing on eBook-specific research, he argued that not putting a 'lock' on digital media actually discouraged piracy! Interesting.
Then I heard some people present papers... about feminist publishing, the very pretty books produced specific small publishing company in the US, the manifesto as a literary genre, and an illustrated Bible! A real mix.
This evening I came home and worked a little more on my paper for Sunday... especially now that I've got more of a feel for what people at this conference are interested in... and I find myself once again surprised (and then suprised I am still surprised by this kind of thing) to discover that Maori poets (along with many others, but I'm focussing on Maori poets here) continue to be ignored by most of the 'powers that be' in the NZ poetry scene... you want an example? Okay. In 2003, the anthology Whetu Moana came out... not only did it win the NZ Book Award that year for its category, but it contained no less than 25 Maori poets (and most of the poets had more than one poem in the collection). Very exciting! Well, you'd think so. And then you see that the Best New Zealand Poems collection that year selected exactly NONE of them as one of the top 25 poems of that year. Actually, of the ENTIRE anthology, one two (one by Karlo Mila and one by Sia Figiel; both outstanding poems and fabulous poets of course) were chosen. Like, seriously? Sure, BNZP is a bit of a self-congratulatory and insular members-only country-club kind of affair... but still, seriously?
See what I mean about a (poetry) revolution...?
I heard a really interesting keynote speaker talk about e-Books and the 'digital locks' and copyright issues... usually these talks put me into a digital sleep and lock my brain, but he was fascinating... he compared eBooks to CDs and the whole digital music phenomenon... and teasing out the parallel, as well as drawing on eBook-specific research, he argued that not putting a 'lock' on digital media actually discouraged piracy! Interesting.
Then I heard some people present papers... about feminist publishing, the very pretty books produced specific small publishing company in the US, the manifesto as a literary genre, and an illustrated Bible! A real mix.
This evening I came home and worked a little more on my paper for Sunday... especially now that I've got more of a feel for what people at this conference are interested in... and I find myself once again surprised (and then suprised I am still surprised by this kind of thing) to discover that Maori poets (along with many others, but I'm focussing on Maori poets here) continue to be ignored by most of the 'powers that be' in the NZ poetry scene... you want an example? Okay. In 2003, the anthology Whetu Moana came out... not only did it win the NZ Book Award that year for its category, but it contained no less than 25 Maori poets (and most of the poets had more than one poem in the collection). Very exciting! Well, you'd think so. And then you see that the Best New Zealand Poems collection that year selected exactly NONE of them as one of the top 25 poems of that year. Actually, of the ENTIRE anthology, one two (one by Karlo Mila and one by Sia Figiel; both outstanding poems and fabulous poets of course) were chosen. Like, seriously? Sure, BNZP is a bit of a self-congratulatory and insular members-only country-club kind of affair... but still, seriously?
See what I mean about a (poetry) revolution...?
Friday, 14 October 2011
talkin' 'bout (poetry) revolution
So much talk about revolutions at the moment... they 'occupy' movement (oh such an unfortunate word to use - these countries are already occupied!!)... the backlash against the slow govt response to the oil crisis at home... NZ's decision to spend money on rugby rather than child poverty... etc...
It's important to be connected with all of these movements, to be informed about them, to know what the issues are... but also to keep our eyes on the other struggles which continue to matter...
Like poetry... Maori poetry... the publication of Maori poetry... as far as I am aware (and I've verified this with one other person but would love to be proved wrong!) only two (yes two!!) new Maori poets have published their first collections of poetry in the entire twenty first century to date. Yep, that's 2 poets in 11 years. 5 1/2 years each. This despite the massive number of highly talented, enthusiastic and productive Maori poets all around Aotearoa, Australia, Hawaii, and the rest of the world... who cannot get their books into publication...
This, my friends, has got to change. I'm just saying.
(And doing...)
It's important to be connected with all of these movements, to be informed about them, to know what the issues are... but also to keep our eyes on the other struggles which continue to matter...
Like poetry... Maori poetry... the publication of Maori poetry... as far as I am aware (and I've verified this with one other person but would love to be proved wrong!) only two (yes two!!) new Maori poets have published their first collections of poetry in the entire twenty first century to date. Yep, that's 2 poets in 11 years. 5 1/2 years each. This despite the massive number of highly talented, enthusiastic and productive Maori poets all around Aotearoa, Australia, Hawaii, and the rest of the world... who cannot get their books into publication...
This, my friends, has got to change. I'm just saying.
(And doing...)
Thursday, 13 October 2011
An insight.
So, yesterday I read a bit of an Oprah magazine and they had an article about the lines between feeling a bit run down and tired and burned out...
I found the article spoke pretty clearly to me and helped me draw some connections between things I'd been thinking were not necessarily related... and I wasn't totally surprised... this is te tau okioki after all... I'm doing this partly because I'm tired and need to recharge before getting back to things... sure, I am writing, but for me that is a form of recharging too...
So, I decided (for the first time in my life ever!) to follow up on the book which the Oprah article referred to... and I found it at the public library... so yesterday early evening I went to the library and got it out, and I have read the first couple of chapters today while eating breakfast and dinner etc...
I have to say, it's a great book. I'm finding it was actually written with me in mind! Actually, I ended up lying down on my couch (my couch here is v comfy, esp now I've got lovely big cushions and a nice warm blanket on it) reading the book... and, yes, I fell asleep. An hour later I woke up, and giggled when I realised that when I'd fallen asleep the book just kind of fell on top of me and it had waited there while I slumbered, the book called Tired of being tired. Hahaha yes it's really true!
So, one of the chapters is about how people end up wearing themselves out a bit, and it suggests that for lots of people this comes from perfectionism. Yes, perfectionism. Something I have sworn is not a problem I have ever faced... despite good friends (Michelle T comes to mind immediately!) trying to convince me otherwise. So, I start reading the list of the traits of a perfectionist and if you've got more than three of the dozen or so traits then you probably are a bit of a perfectionist and... you guessed it, I identified with, well, shall we say 'a number higher than three' of them! Hmm. What a shock!
Hi, my name is Alice and I'm a perfectionist.
The thing that surprised me was that I'd always thought perfectionists were people who are very detail oriented and particular and organised and who kind of achieve perfection, rather than people who are messier and set themselves too much to do each day and worry that they don't get through everything they're committed to and keep agreeing to do more and more despite not having the time for it and beat themselves up that their work (or cooking or whatever) isn't as good as it could be...
I realised (and this link is what made it all suddenly make sense to me) that perfectionism is like every other -ism: racism, for example, is not a performance of race but is an attitude to race which depends on its own production of race as a knowable category in the first place. So, perfectionism is more about an attitude to one's own imperfect-ness rather than about attainment of perfect-ness and further, perfectionism relies on a notion of 'perfection' which doesn't even exist in any natural or fixed way anyway. Wow. This was actually quite an amazing insight for me. Not because it gave me a diagnosis or label, but because now I can find strategies and ideas that other people have already put forward about perfectionism.
One of the first ones, according to the book, is to sleep more and don't stay up all the crazy hours of the night trying to catch up on the things you thought you'd get done that day. So, on that note, I'm off to bed - and leaving a pile of washing, papers, post-it notes, printouts, books and to-do lists behind me.
That, my dear readers, is something of an achievement. To coin and update and gender-neutralise a phrase: one small step for me, one giant leap for me too.
I found the article spoke pretty clearly to me and helped me draw some connections between things I'd been thinking were not necessarily related... and I wasn't totally surprised... this is te tau okioki after all... I'm doing this partly because I'm tired and need to recharge before getting back to things... sure, I am writing, but for me that is a form of recharging too...
So, I decided (for the first time in my life ever!) to follow up on the book which the Oprah article referred to... and I found it at the public library... so yesterday early evening I went to the library and got it out, and I have read the first couple of chapters today while eating breakfast and dinner etc...
I have to say, it's a great book. I'm finding it was actually written with me in mind! Actually, I ended up lying down on my couch (my couch here is v comfy, esp now I've got lovely big cushions and a nice warm blanket on it) reading the book... and, yes, I fell asleep. An hour later I woke up, and giggled when I realised that when I'd fallen asleep the book just kind of fell on top of me and it had waited there while I slumbered, the book called Tired of being tired. Hahaha yes it's really true!
So, one of the chapters is about how people end up wearing themselves out a bit, and it suggests that for lots of people this comes from perfectionism. Yes, perfectionism. Something I have sworn is not a problem I have ever faced... despite good friends (Michelle T comes to mind immediately!) trying to convince me otherwise. So, I start reading the list of the traits of a perfectionist and if you've got more than three of the dozen or so traits then you probably are a bit of a perfectionist and... you guessed it, I identified with, well, shall we say 'a number higher than three' of them! Hmm. What a shock!
Hi, my name is Alice and I'm a perfectionist.
The thing that surprised me was that I'd always thought perfectionists were people who are very detail oriented and particular and organised and who kind of achieve perfection, rather than people who are messier and set themselves too much to do each day and worry that they don't get through everything they're committed to and keep agreeing to do more and more despite not having the time for it and beat themselves up that their work (or cooking or whatever) isn't as good as it could be...
I realised (and this link is what made it all suddenly make sense to me) that perfectionism is like every other -ism: racism, for example, is not a performance of race but is an attitude to race which depends on its own production of race as a knowable category in the first place. So, perfectionism is more about an attitude to one's own imperfect-ness rather than about attainment of perfect-ness and further, perfectionism relies on a notion of 'perfection' which doesn't even exist in any natural or fixed way anyway. Wow. This was actually quite an amazing insight for me. Not because it gave me a diagnosis or label, but because now I can find strategies and ideas that other people have already put forward about perfectionism.
One of the first ones, according to the book, is to sleep more and don't stay up all the crazy hours of the night trying to catch up on the things you thought you'd get done that day. So, on that note, I'm off to bed - and leaving a pile of washing, papers, post-it notes, printouts, books and to-do lists behind me.
That, my dear readers, is something of an achievement. To coin and update and gender-neutralise a phrase: one small step for me, one giant leap for me too.
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Home and Away
When I was at Ohio State Uni for the SAI symposium, one of my students from Pacific Lit at home who I taught earlier this year came to see me... I had told him I'd be coming for the conference, and he turned up on Saturday morning and sat in on a session (his first conference session! he could still be sleeping... no, not from boredom... from working so hard and taking in so much detail!) beside me... we had a coffee and he told me that before he moved to NZ it didn't exist for him, but now he's back in Ohio he knows about 2 places which are 'real:' where is is, and the other place. He realised it's hard to know two places at once, or at least to be emotionally invested in two places at once: home and away.
In a couple of weeks I will be presenting a talk at the Museum at McMaster University (Hamilton, ON) with my friend Rick, who is Mohawk. We're both going to be talking about 'our people' in the museum: for me, the 'unidentifed' Maori woman who was sketched in May 1773; for Rick, the portraits of the 'Four Kings,' diplomats who went to London earlier in the same century. Our talk is called:
Home and Away: 21st Century Indigenous Perspectives on 18th Century Indigenous Portraits
Lots of home and away for me today... I've skyped with Mum about things here and there... I've emailed with a student back at my home university... I found a cafe on Bloor St called 'Snakes and Lattes, a board game cafe' which I am dying to go to with Megan and Matiu when they come here in Dec/Jan... I've heard more ghastly news about the oil spill near Tauranga... I've been homesick, I've been angry about home, I've wished I was there, I've been glad I'm here.
All in a day's work when I'm 'home and away.' Indeed.
In a couple of weeks I will be presenting a talk at the Museum at McMaster University (Hamilton, ON) with my friend Rick, who is Mohawk. We're both going to be talking about 'our people' in the museum: for me, the 'unidentifed' Maori woman who was sketched in May 1773; for Rick, the portraits of the 'Four Kings,' diplomats who went to London earlier in the same century. Our talk is called:
Home and Away: 21st Century Indigenous Perspectives on 18th Century Indigenous Portraits
Lots of home and away for me today... I've skyped with Mum about things here and there... I've emailed with a student back at my home university... I found a cafe on Bloor St called 'Snakes and Lattes, a board game cafe' which I am dying to go to with Megan and Matiu when they come here in Dec/Jan... I've heard more ghastly news about the oil spill near Tauranga... I've been homesick, I've been angry about home, I've wished I was there, I've been glad I'm here.
All in a day's work when I'm 'home and away.' Indeed.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Thanksgiving
I didn't write a post yesterday because it was a big day of going to the Newark Earthworks (amazing, astounding, humbling, incredible) and driving home from Ohio with Nadine as far as her place in Hamilton Ontario.
This morning, we drove a further 2 1/2 hours north to Daniel and Kent's place for Canadian Thanksgiving.
(Funnily enough, I've never heard of Americans calling their 'American Thanksgiving' - to them it's just 'Thanksgiving' -yes indeed the centre doesn't have to name itself - which is why the US has a Black president and NZ has had women Prime Ministers, despite GWB not being described as a White president nor John Key a man PM. Well, I wouldn't call Key much of a man anyway, but that's another story...)
We had a lovely meal (deep fried turkey!) followed by pumpkin pie and lots of laughs (especially with a new game they'd just been given) and a short walk before Nadine and I headed home again.
And here I am, back on Spadina Ave. Thinking about my weekend in Ohio and Ontario and feeling thankful. Oh, sorry that's Thankful.
:)
This morning, we drove a further 2 1/2 hours north to Daniel and Kent's place for Canadian Thanksgiving.
(Funnily enough, I've never heard of Americans calling their 'American Thanksgiving' - to them it's just 'Thanksgiving' -yes indeed the centre doesn't have to name itself - which is why the US has a Black president and NZ has had women Prime Ministers, despite GWB not being described as a White president nor John Key a man PM. Well, I wouldn't call Key much of a man anyway, but that's another story...)
We had a lovely meal (deep fried turkey!) followed by pumpkin pie and lots of laughs (especially with a new game they'd just been given) and a short walk before Nadine and I headed home again.
 |
| sunset across from daniel and kent's place after thanksgiving dinner. a stunning end to a wonderful few days. |
And here I am, back on Spadina Ave. Thinking about my weekend in Ohio and Ontario and feeling thankful. Oh, sorry that's Thankful.
:)
Sunday, 9 October 2011
Dispatches from the SAI symposium - #2
It was all about the details today. So many details. So many lives and some much complexity and so much complication...
So many biographical details, cultural details, political details, historical details...
It's late so I'm just writing an overriding impression from the day: these histories are not outlines but mosaics. You know those posters that are made up of thousands of little images of the person depicted in the poster; the photographic mosaics? That's what these details feel like...
Indigenous histories span out as they span back... more like an ever-expanding tide emanating in all directions from a single point than a one-way narrow river...
It can be disorienting; maybe even paralysing... but also, at moments like this, invigorating. Humbling. And, dare I say it, inspiring.
So many biographical details, cultural details, political details, historical details...
It's late so I'm just writing an overriding impression from the day: these histories are not outlines but mosaics. You know those posters that are made up of thousands of little images of the person depicted in the poster; the photographic mosaics? That's what these details feel like...
Indigenous histories span out as they span back... more like an ever-expanding tide emanating in all directions from a single point than a one-way narrow river...
It can be disorienting; maybe even paralysing... but also, at moments like this, invigorating. Humbling. And, dare I say it, inspiring.
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Dispatches from the SAI symposium - day 1
The first day of the Society of American Indians symposium here in Columbus Ohio, and I am feeling inspired.
44 people attended the 1911 meeting here at Ohio State University, today we have heard about the people, the meeting, the place, and the significance of it all.
It would be impossible to explain everything - so I thought I would share some quotes I jotted down today during the talks and conversations.
"Put the world on notice that you're involved in a larger collective effort of knowledge" (Phil Deloria)
"While not all Indian intellectuals were university educated, all Indians who were university educated were [active] intellectuals of some kind." (Phil Deloria, talking about the contributions of university-trained Indians)
"I am not an Indian Agent. I am an Indian Agent." (Beth Piatote, talking about agency and the position of Indian Agents)
"If you put their stories alongside one another it's like they were on three different planets." (Tsianina Lomawaima, talking about her research looking at Indian students, teachers and superintendants in schools)
"That's why these people are so interesting - it's the unknowability of them." (Phil Deloria)
44 people attended the 1911 meeting here at Ohio State University, today we have heard about the people, the meeting, the place, and the significance of it all.
It would be impossible to explain everything - so I thought I would share some quotes I jotted down today during the talks and conversations.
"Put the world on notice that you're involved in a larger collective effort of knowledge" (Phil Deloria)
"While not all Indian intellectuals were university educated, all Indians who were university educated were [active] intellectuals of some kind." (Phil Deloria, talking about the contributions of university-trained Indians)
"I am not an Indian Agent. I am an Indian Agent." (Beth Piatote, talking about agency and the position of Indian Agents)
"If you put their stories alongside one another it's like they were on three different planets." (Tsianina Lomawaima, talking about her research looking at Indian students, teachers and superintendants in schools)
"That's why these people are so interesting - it's the unknowability of them." (Phil Deloria)
Friday, 7 October 2011
Columbus!
Am in Columbus... and it's Columbus Day here in the US on Monday.
After a long drive, good laughs, great chats, buffalo wings at Buffalo, dinner with Des Brown (Beh) & her whanau, Nadine and I have arrived. We're very excited about the SAI symposium and dreaming of possible Indigenous intellectual futures.
I've checked my emails and I feel slightly assaulted: emails from home, carrying with them the impact and burden and deep pain of 200 years of colonialism.
Columbus Day is often berrated for celebrating the wrong thing; for placing Columbus at the centre of an over-edited national story. I agree with these critiques and advance them where I can.
At the same time, how can we find ways of thinking about Indigenous futures which simultaneously sideline Columbus (and colonialism of which he is an iconic representative) and recognise the longstanding and devastating impact Columbus/ colonialism continues to have on the ways we interact, think and dream?
After a long drive, good laughs, great chats, buffalo wings at Buffalo, dinner with Des Brown (Beh) & her whanau, Nadine and I have arrived. We're very excited about the SAI symposium and dreaming of possible Indigenous intellectual futures.
I've checked my emails and I feel slightly assaulted: emails from home, carrying with them the impact and burden and deep pain of 200 years of colonialism.
Columbus Day is often berrated for celebrating the wrong thing; for placing Columbus at the centre of an over-edited national story. I agree with these critiques and advance them where I can.
At the same time, how can we find ways of thinking about Indigenous futures which simultaneously sideline Columbus (and colonialism of which he is an iconic representative) and recognise the longstanding and devastating impact Columbus/ colonialism continues to have on the ways we interact, think and dream?
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Indigenous Intellectuals (because I have a dream too)
Someone who shall remain anonymous wrote an email today in which they wrote that our Maori knowledge "cannot and should not be 'contained' within the pages of a book."
I am not writing this post tonite in order to attack this person, but to express my sadness that we continue to believe these things about ourselves and our knowledges.
Absolutely there are things which do not belong in university and absolutely there are knowledges which are only meant for some people. Certainly there have been misuses of Maori knowledge and yes writing something down adds a layer of fixedness which introduces a whole lot of complexity, especially when written things are believed more than non-written things by people who don't understand these things or where their own preference for the written comes from.
But. But. BUT.
It's 12.47am and I'm waiting for my washing to finish in the dryer in ten minutes and then I'm off to bed - I've got a big day ahead of me and need to make sure that I'm ready for a big drive! Tomorrow Nadine and I head down to Columbus, Ohio (yep, back to the US) to attend a conference which commemorates the 100th anniversary of the first gathering of the Society of American Indians which met in Columbus in October 1911.
This gathering was called together by a group of six Indigenous intellectuals from a variety of different iwi who were already making enormous contributions to American Indian scholarship and society... and they were joined by another fifty people who were focussed on making a contribution and working together in order to make a difference for their people. Over the course of the weekend, they spent time presenting to one another about their research and aspirations, and they put together a journal and several action-oriented initiatives which laid important foundations that still provide a hefty foothold for Indigenous scholars of today.
(You can find more info about them, and the symposium which is being run my my dear friend Chad, here: https://americanindianstudies.osu.edu/SAISymposium/AboutTheSAI. Oh and you might notice that the poet Joy Harjo, who had a starring role in a few posts back in early August when she visited snowy Wellington, will be there as well!)
I find the SAI inspiring, and I have enjoyed learning what I have about these intellectual, social, political and cultural leaders, and I look forward to learning a lot more about them over the next few days. Without in any way destracting from their significance, though, one of the additional things they offer me as a Maori scholar is a nudge to remember that we too have a massive legacy of Maori scholarship and intellectual leadership, two centuries of Maori writing, and Maori people have been active participants in universities for over a century. Some of the work I'm doing at the moment for my book Ghost Writers is focussed on making these intellectuals and writers visible, but there are others (researchers, students, whanau, hapu, iwi) doing this work too. These Maori intellectuals did all of this work in order to clear enough room for us to be able to stand up and walk around in university with room to breathe and grow. I remain convinced that they did not write in order to create space for all of us to have enough room to trot around saying that Real Maori People don't write, which is the only posisble logical extension of the claim that Real Maori Knowledge doesn't belong in books.
Just as the SAI crew did not seek to be the singular and only American Indian leaders, but instead aimed to make their specific and skilled contribution to their people (broadly defined) so too the existence, presence and contribution of Indigenous scholars never seeks to replace or marginalise Indigenous knowledges (and indeed Indigenous knowledge practitioners) elsewhere. This acknowledgement is not the same, however, and anti-intellectualism.
It is one thing when other people look at Indigenous people and assume our knowledges are not worthy of being considered 'intellectual' (this is why Osage scholar Robert Warrior and others have been so insistent on calling attention to Indigenous Intellectual histories; so it's not that we get to be only historical and cultural while Europeans get to be intellectual as well)... but it is entirely another when our own people take for granted that writing, university and other dimensions of scholarly life are necessarily non-Maori. Always non-Maori. Always already non-Maori.
A fair and sustained critique of the colonial dimension of European knowledge, and how this plays out in the context of universities, and how universities are hierarchical racist sexist homophobic colonising neo-liberal elitest institutions? Fine with me. I'm leading the charge pretty often on those critiques anyway, and the day I forget where I am is the day I need to pack up and find something else to do.
But, let us not throw out the kaupapa baby with the institutional bathwater.
Universities, and writing, and scholarship, and reading, and intellectualism are not antithetical to being Indigenous. Indigenous people have found ways to work for our people through and with these things as much as despite and around them.
Sure, this probably sounds defensive because I am, in fact, defending something.
I am defending intellectual sovereignty and the multiple possibilities of operating with resolve, determination and dignity in the acres and acres of grey betwen the polar marks of Indigenous and not-Indigenous.
I am defending the several million pages of writing produced by our own tupuna, our own ancestors, in the nineteenth century, many of which contain 'Maori knowledge' and none of which I wish had never been written.
I am defending all of the Maori and other Indigenous people who have found at university a series of opportunities to make their best contribution to our people and the diminishing (even by implication) of whose intellectual legacy I can neither tolerate nor understand: Te Rangihiroa, Ngata, Pomare, Carroll and the rest of them; Makereti; my great-grandfather Hamuera; Grandad and his three brothers; JC Sturm; Ta Paora Reeves; and, yes, all the rest.
I am defending all of the Maori and other Indigenous people who have been denied the opportunity to make their contribution through the university because university and the world wasn't yet ready for them and wasn't fair; all of the ones who never made it back to university for a second chance; and all of those who did, including my Mum, my Auntie and several of their cousins.
I am defending my students, including Indigenous students of various makes and models, who surprise and humble me every single class session as they grapple with these questions and more besides.
Yes, I am defending myself, and all of my colleagues and friends and peers who I know have paid huge personal costs in order to contribute what they have done through teaching, research and community involvement.
I am defending our intellectuals and scholars and researchers and students of the future, who - if we do our jobs right this generation - will be asking different questions than the ones that concern us in 2011 and different questions again from the ones the SAI asked in 1911.
Defensive? Sure. I'm happy to take that accusation. Preachy? Possibly that too.
But there is more than one way to skin this cat. I stand behind the words of Te Rangihiroa who wrote in 1950, when he heard that Ngata had passed away:
I have no more to say. I have followed the path where the spirits led me... In another field, I have tried to contribute to the name and prestige of the Maori people and when I meet my old colleagues, there will be no question of priority for each of us will occupy our separate and appropriate riches.
Or to put it another way, when thinking about the range of ways and spaces in whcih we as Maori can participate and make a contribution, including intellectual spaces, I could quote my lovely rugby coach from back in the days of playing for Teachers Eastern: 'the more the Maori-er.'
*****
Oh, and the person who wrote the email? Has a PhD. Yeah, aye.
I am not writing this post tonite in order to attack this person, but to express my sadness that we continue to believe these things about ourselves and our knowledges.
Absolutely there are things which do not belong in university and absolutely there are knowledges which are only meant for some people. Certainly there have been misuses of Maori knowledge and yes writing something down adds a layer of fixedness which introduces a whole lot of complexity, especially when written things are believed more than non-written things by people who don't understand these things or where their own preference for the written comes from.
But. But. BUT.
It's 12.47am and I'm waiting for my washing to finish in the dryer in ten minutes and then I'm off to bed - I've got a big day ahead of me and need to make sure that I'm ready for a big drive! Tomorrow Nadine and I head down to Columbus, Ohio (yep, back to the US) to attend a conference which commemorates the 100th anniversary of the first gathering of the Society of American Indians which met in Columbus in October 1911.
This gathering was called together by a group of six Indigenous intellectuals from a variety of different iwi who were already making enormous contributions to American Indian scholarship and society... and they were joined by another fifty people who were focussed on making a contribution and working together in order to make a difference for their people. Over the course of the weekend, they spent time presenting to one another about their research and aspirations, and they put together a journal and several action-oriented initiatives which laid important foundations that still provide a hefty foothold for Indigenous scholars of today.
(You can find more info about them, and the symposium which is being run my my dear friend Chad, here: https://americanindianstudies.osu.edu/SAISymposium/AboutTheSAI. Oh and you might notice that the poet Joy Harjo, who had a starring role in a few posts back in early August when she visited snowy Wellington, will be there as well!)
I find the SAI inspiring, and I have enjoyed learning what I have about these intellectual, social, political and cultural leaders, and I look forward to learning a lot more about them over the next few days. Without in any way destracting from their significance, though, one of the additional things they offer me as a Maori scholar is a nudge to remember that we too have a massive legacy of Maori scholarship and intellectual leadership, two centuries of Maori writing, and Maori people have been active participants in universities for over a century. Some of the work I'm doing at the moment for my book Ghost Writers is focussed on making these intellectuals and writers visible, but there are others (researchers, students, whanau, hapu, iwi) doing this work too. These Maori intellectuals did all of this work in order to clear enough room for us to be able to stand up and walk around in university with room to breathe and grow. I remain convinced that they did not write in order to create space for all of us to have enough room to trot around saying that Real Maori People don't write, which is the only posisble logical extension of the claim that Real Maori Knowledge doesn't belong in books.
Just as the SAI crew did not seek to be the singular and only American Indian leaders, but instead aimed to make their specific and skilled contribution to their people (broadly defined) so too the existence, presence and contribution of Indigenous scholars never seeks to replace or marginalise Indigenous knowledges (and indeed Indigenous knowledge practitioners) elsewhere. This acknowledgement is not the same, however, and anti-intellectualism.
It is one thing when other people look at Indigenous people and assume our knowledges are not worthy of being considered 'intellectual' (this is why Osage scholar Robert Warrior and others have been so insistent on calling attention to Indigenous Intellectual histories; so it's not that we get to be only historical and cultural while Europeans get to be intellectual as well)... but it is entirely another when our own people take for granted that writing, university and other dimensions of scholarly life are necessarily non-Maori. Always non-Maori. Always already non-Maori.
A fair and sustained critique of the colonial dimension of European knowledge, and how this plays out in the context of universities, and how universities are hierarchical racist sexist homophobic colonising neo-liberal elitest institutions? Fine with me. I'm leading the charge pretty often on those critiques anyway, and the day I forget where I am is the day I need to pack up and find something else to do.
But, let us not throw out the kaupapa baby with the institutional bathwater.
Universities, and writing, and scholarship, and reading, and intellectualism are not antithetical to being Indigenous. Indigenous people have found ways to work for our people through and with these things as much as despite and around them.
Sure, this probably sounds defensive because I am, in fact, defending something.
I am defending intellectual sovereignty and the multiple possibilities of operating with resolve, determination and dignity in the acres and acres of grey betwen the polar marks of Indigenous and not-Indigenous.
I am defending the several million pages of writing produced by our own tupuna, our own ancestors, in the nineteenth century, many of which contain 'Maori knowledge' and none of which I wish had never been written.
I am defending all of the Maori and other Indigenous people who have found at university a series of opportunities to make their best contribution to our people and the diminishing (even by implication) of whose intellectual legacy I can neither tolerate nor understand: Te Rangihiroa, Ngata, Pomare, Carroll and the rest of them; Makereti; my great-grandfather Hamuera; Grandad and his three brothers; JC Sturm; Ta Paora Reeves; and, yes, all the rest.
I am defending all of the Maori and other Indigenous people who have been denied the opportunity to make their contribution through the university because university and the world wasn't yet ready for them and wasn't fair; all of the ones who never made it back to university for a second chance; and all of those who did, including my Mum, my Auntie and several of their cousins.
I am defending my students, including Indigenous students of various makes and models, who surprise and humble me every single class session as they grapple with these questions and more besides.
Yes, I am defending myself, and all of my colleagues and friends and peers who I know have paid huge personal costs in order to contribute what they have done through teaching, research and community involvement.
I am defending our intellectuals and scholars and researchers and students of the future, who - if we do our jobs right this generation - will be asking different questions than the ones that concern us in 2011 and different questions again from the ones the SAI asked in 1911.
Defensive? Sure. I'm happy to take that accusation. Preachy? Possibly that too.
But there is more than one way to skin this cat. I stand behind the words of Te Rangihiroa who wrote in 1950, when he heard that Ngata had passed away:
I have no more to say. I have followed the path where the spirits led me... In another field, I have tried to contribute to the name and prestige of the Maori people and when I meet my old colleagues, there will be no question of priority for each of us will occupy our separate and appropriate riches.
Or to put it another way, when thinking about the range of ways and spaces in whcih we as Maori can participate and make a contribution, including intellectual spaces, I could quote my lovely rugby coach from back in the days of playing for Teachers Eastern: 'the more the Maori-er.'
*****
Oh, and the person who wrote the email? Has a PhD. Yeah, aye.
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
home and away
That's the title of the talk I'm going to be giving with my mate Rick at the McMaster museum in Hamilton Ontario later this month... Remember how I wrote a while ago about going to a museum and seeing a portrait of a Maori woman there? Well, Rick is going to talk about his relations who are also in the museum (he's Mohawk, and the famous 4 portraits of the 'Four Kings' who went over on a diplomatic mission to London from this part of the world in the earlier 18th century are being exhibited at the museum too) and I'll talk about the one from home. There's also a portrait of Omai (you know, the first Polynesian guy in London back in 1774) alongside the others...
We're calling our talk 'Home and Away' because of all the layers of travel and mobility and connection and proximity contained in this space...
There's Rick, not far from his home (Six Nations Reserve)... talking about his relatives from here and further away... who went to London... and were painted and who portraits have now travelled nearby and far away... and there's me, far away from home (Aotearoa, Te Whanganui a Tara)... talking about a woman who was painted at home and whose portrait is now kept in Canada... but has travelled from Ottawa to Hamilton to be nearer to, well, to me... and to Omai... and the Kings...
Ooooh the layers!
When I'm home, I'm always still a little bit far away... and when I'm far away, I find that home manages to find me to keep me company. Home and Away. Not Home or Away. Both.
We're calling our talk 'Home and Away' because of all the layers of travel and mobility and connection and proximity contained in this space...
There's Rick, not far from his home (Six Nations Reserve)... talking about his relatives from here and further away... who went to London... and were painted and who portraits have now travelled nearby and far away... and there's me, far away from home (Aotearoa, Te Whanganui a Tara)... talking about a woman who was painted at home and whose portrait is now kept in Canada... but has travelled from Ottawa to Hamilton to be nearer to, well, to me... and to Omai... and the Kings...
Ooooh the layers!
When I'm home, I'm always still a little bit far away... and when I'm far away, I find that home manages to find me to keep me company. Home and Away. Not Home or Away. Both.
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Monday, 3 October 2011
writing by the heater
A cool Sunday outside, a warm apartment inside.
I'm writing this evening... after a day of writing, supermarket shopping, coffee & a latte, some tv and more writing.
It's cold enough for warm jackets and woolies today. When I went out of the house I wore gloves and a scarf. This evening the heater is on next to me... it's a water-filled central heating one, so is quietly radiating lovely warmth while I sit here in my study.
Tonight my chapter is nearly done. This is my 'piece of writing' for this week... I'm determined to send it off tomorrow morning.
Te tau okioki. Te tau tutuhi. Te tau... o te kawhe... I'm off to switch on the kettle :)
I'm writing this evening... after a day of writing, supermarket shopping, coffee & a latte, some tv and more writing.
It's cold enough for warm jackets and woolies today. When I went out of the house I wore gloves and a scarf. This evening the heater is on next to me... it's a water-filled central heating one, so is quietly radiating lovely warmth while I sit here in my study.
Tonight my chapter is nearly done. This is my 'piece of writing' for this week... I'm determined to send it off tomorrow morning.
Te tau okioki. Te tau tutuhi. Te tau... o te kawhe... I'm off to switch on the kettle :)
Sunday, 2 October 2011
4.31am
4.31am on the 2nd of October is too late to start writing a blog which was supposed to be about the 1st of October!
But I can explain...
Today I wrote. YAY! The chapter is nearly ready - I've overshot past the 7000 word suggested length which is great because now I can cut out the jumbly rambly bits and focus on the 'meat in the sandwich' as Mum would say. I'm going to make that chapter the 'thing I send off this week' as per last week's big plans to send something fof every week.
This evening I had dinner with Sarah, Ash and Brigette. FUN! We had the yummiest delicious-est Mediterraean style kai: lots and lots of littel dishes which we sampled from... followed by baclava. Mmmmm. And, of course, such fabulous conversation the entire time :)
Afterwards I went (all by myself! - but it's okay because I'm a bit girl) to a bar where I heard the NZers would be watching the RWC game between Canada and NZ (thanks to Rick, Megan and Mum for txting updates until I got to the pub, btw)... I found a seat and enjoyed the game and a couple of Heinekens then Megan txted 'now go and mingle' so I did... I saw a nice looking boy standing by himself in an All Blacks top... and started talking to him... and realised after a while that I remembered him from uni days back in Auckland! We swapped numbers and hopefully there will be no more only-the-lonely rugby watching for me :)
Then (I know, right! even later!) I went and met up with Jason and some of his mates who were enjoying Nuit Blanche, the all nite art thingie on in Toronto this evening from 6.59pm until 7am. I was out on the streets with them from about 1am until after 3am: so great to be in a town which does these awesome free events! (Funny tho, because the Canadians were all moaning about the cold - I was thinking 'um, guys, I think it gets colder here, right?)... We checked out some modern art installations in various parts of a particular part of town, then I headed off home when the toll of the evening's activities started to make me feel a bit weary...
Once I got home, I had to stay up and check online until I knew how the Warriors went in the grand final! Hmm, well, not quite so well as the ABs against Canada unfrotunately.
So, it's late! But I'm happy. Am off to bed. Zzzzzzzz...
But I can explain...
Today I wrote. YAY! The chapter is nearly ready - I've overshot past the 7000 word suggested length which is great because now I can cut out the jumbly rambly bits and focus on the 'meat in the sandwich' as Mum would say. I'm going to make that chapter the 'thing I send off this week' as per last week's big plans to send something fof every week.
This evening I had dinner with Sarah, Ash and Brigette. FUN! We had the yummiest delicious-est Mediterraean style kai: lots and lots of littel dishes which we sampled from... followed by baclava. Mmmmm. And, of course, such fabulous conversation the entire time :)
Afterwards I went (all by myself! - but it's okay because I'm a bit girl) to a bar where I heard the NZers would be watching the RWC game between Canada and NZ (thanks to Rick, Megan and Mum for txting updates until I got to the pub, btw)... I found a seat and enjoyed the game and a couple of Heinekens then Megan txted 'now go and mingle' so I did... I saw a nice looking boy standing by himself in an All Blacks top... and started talking to him... and realised after a while that I remembered him from uni days back in Auckland! We swapped numbers and hopefully there will be no more only-the-lonely rugby watching for me :)
Then (I know, right! even later!) I went and met up with Jason and some of his mates who were enjoying Nuit Blanche, the all nite art thingie on in Toronto this evening from 6.59pm until 7am. I was out on the streets with them from about 1am until after 3am: so great to be in a town which does these awesome free events! (Funny tho, because the Canadians were all moaning about the cold - I was thinking 'um, guys, I think it gets colder here, right?)... We checked out some modern art installations in various parts of a particular part of town, then I headed off home when the toll of the evening's activities started to make me feel a bit weary...
Once I got home, I had to stay up and check online until I knew how the Warriors went in the grand final! Hmm, well, not quite so well as the ABs against Canada unfrotunately.
So, it's late! But I'm happy. Am off to bed. Zzzzzzzz...
Saturday, 1 October 2011
mix mingle think
I went to an awesome event tonite - at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) which is a couple of blocks from my place there was a 'Mix Mingle Think' on the theme of conspiracy theories. So much fun!
A ticket into the event got admission to a lecture by a journalist who's been writing about conspiracy theories (he spoke for about half an hour and was really interesting), then we all went upstairs to a cool room with drinks and nibbles... and a game of True/ False where they had objects from the ROM collection at different tables which had two possible descriptions of the object (eg dinosaur bone or lady's wrist rest) and you picked which one you thought was right... there were prizes for the most correct answers, which we didn't win even tho Sarah is an Historian of material culture! ;)
The real point of the T/F game, of course, was to get ppl mixing as we moved around the various tables with drinks in our hands... and altho some people had come with partners it was a bit of a singles event too, so those of us who had come with mates rather than wedding rings started chatting with each other and looking around the room...
The man of my dreams wasn't there, but we met a couple of nice guys to go out for more drinks with... and had a lovely time chatting late into the evening.
It was awesome - a great combination of brains and booze - and as we walked hom we agreed that perhaps we might check it out again next month...
**
Speaking of months, altho this is supposed to be the 30th Sept post, it's now actually a couple of hours into the 1st of October... which is not only the one month anniversay of my birthday, and my friend Carleen's birthday, but also the three month anniversary of the start of sabbatical! Quarter of the way into te tau okioki already! Oy ;)
A ticket into the event got admission to a lecture by a journalist who's been writing about conspiracy theories (he spoke for about half an hour and was really interesting), then we all went upstairs to a cool room with drinks and nibbles... and a game of True/ False where they had objects from the ROM collection at different tables which had two possible descriptions of the object (eg dinosaur bone or lady's wrist rest) and you picked which one you thought was right... there were prizes for the most correct answers, which we didn't win even tho Sarah is an Historian of material culture! ;)
The real point of the T/F game, of course, was to get ppl mixing as we moved around the various tables with drinks in our hands... and altho some people had come with partners it was a bit of a singles event too, so those of us who had come with mates rather than wedding rings started chatting with each other and looking around the room...
The man of my dreams wasn't there, but we met a couple of nice guys to go out for more drinks with... and had a lovely time chatting late into the evening.
It was awesome - a great combination of brains and booze - and as we walked hom we agreed that perhaps we might check it out again next month...
**
Speaking of months, altho this is supposed to be the 30th Sept post, it's now actually a couple of hours into the 1st of October... which is not only the one month anniversay of my birthday, and my friend Carleen's birthday, but also the three month anniversary of the start of sabbatical! Quarter of the way into te tau okioki already! Oy ;)
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