Returning the indigenous to the centre: a view from Aotearoa/New Zealand

Colonisation continues to underpin social identities and relationships in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In this editorial we examine these identities and relationships, pointing out that arguments are frequently made against indigenousMaori rights in favour of the rights of other visibly different communities, such as Pacific peoples and ethnic communities. This construction of competingOthers is a key technique through which unequal power relationships and the dominance of white-settler institutions are maintained in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. We suggest that, with our population projections predicted to make Aotearoa/New Zealand browner and our health workforce increasingly diverse, these social identities and relationships warrant further attention. We advocate for the centrality of Maori rights and the fulfilment of these rights, in order to provide a basis for a broader social justice agenda working for the elimination of both ethnic inequalities in health and racial discriminationmore generally.We suggest that, in so doing, the ideal of having a society that is not structured to privilege and advantage one group (white settlers) over others (Maori and other groups, including migrant groups) can occur. There is a tendency for the impact of colonisation to be minimised or overlooked in contemporary contexts (Wetherell and Potter, 1993), and it is frequently represented as a completed historical process in Aotearoa/ New Zealand, as well as in other settler societies (Augoustinos et al, 1999). However, Pennycook (1998, p. 2) notes that we need to see ‘colonialism not merely as a site of colonial imposition, notmerely as a context in which British or other colonial nations’ cultures were thrust upon colonized populations, but also as a site of production.’ Colonisation therefore continues to underpin social identities and relationships in Aotearoa/New Zealand. White-settler ways of thinking and doing remain instrumental in the construction of social relationships between white settlers and Maori, as well as between white settlers and other Others (Cormack, 2008). Organised settlement in Aotearoa/New Zealand followed the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, which defined the relationship between Maori and Pākehā (white/European peoples), and was signed by the British Crown and some Maori Chiefs. The Maori translation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi is acknowledged as the founding document of Aotearoa/New Zealand. However, despite purporting to recognise Maori sovereignty and land ownership, it was poorly understood by Treaty negotiators at the time, and has been poorly adhered to as a founding document by Pākehā or white settlers since. Consequently, people from ethnic and Pacific communities question their place in bicultural, New Zealand society. As Rasanathan (2005, p. 2) has stated, ‘Some argue that we are on the Pākehā or coloniser side. Well, I know I’m not Pākehā ... I have a very specific knowledge ofmyownwhakapapa, culture and ethnic identity, and it’s not Pākehā. It also stretches the imagination to suggest we are part of the colonising culture, given that it’s not our cultural norms and institutions which dominate this country.’ Our discussion is situated in a context in which identities are roughly hierarchically striated into three main categories: