Generative Tensions: Meaning making in a social movement

social movements;Te Tiriti o Waitangi;decolonisation;socially just relationships;Treaty of Waitangi;Pakeha Treaty movement

Parker, Anna Rachael ; Clements, Kevin ; Warbrick, Paerau

University of Otago

关键词: social movements;    Te Tiriti o Waitangi;    decolonisation;    socially just relationships;    Treaty of Waitangi;    Pakeha Treaty movement;   

Others  :  https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/bitstream/10523/4437/1/ParkerAnnaR2013MA.pdf

美国|英语

来源: Otago University Research Archive

【 摘 要 】

During the 1980s — responding to indigenous Māori demands for self determination and redress for 150 years of violent colonisation — a dominant group (Pākehā) anti-racism movement adopted the Treaty of Waitangi as a framework to address issues of dominant cultural hegemony in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Consulting with Māori groups, this social movement (described as the Pākehā Treaty movement) developed a methodology of ;;co-intentional” relationships. This practice saw Māori and Pākehā groups working with their own people separately to progress a decolonisation agenda. During the early 2000s, a ;;third generation” of activists with a commitment to decolonisation sought a place in this Pākehā Treaty movement. This third generation brought with them questions of identity and practice as they worked to negotiate their own cross-cultural relationships in a Pākeha space.From a position as ;;insider” in this social movement, I draw upon the social constructionist influence on social movement studies, positioning meaning making as a ;;knowledge-practice” central to the work of social movements. In this qualitative study, I use narrative inquiry to explore the stories of third-generation participants for the meanings they construct about their Treaty/decolonisation work. The meanings participants construct are examined in dialogue ¬-with movement discourse, where there is both convergence and tension.By focusing on meaning making in the cross-cultural group experience, this research identifies that third-generation decolonisation practices flow from, and are critical to, the formation of socially just relationships. Out of the decentering encounters of socially just relationships, third-generation participants open up the fixed meanings of ;;others”, of identity, of power and language and the ways in which these ;;singularities” do not serve a decolonisation agenda. From my reading of activist narratives, I argue that socially just relationships allow for agonistic dialogue, where tension in meaning can be generative, where differences and challenges produced intergenerationally and intersubjectively can produce ;;new ways of being”.This study contributes and speaks to several audiences: to the development of relationships in the Pakeha Treaty movement, to the cultural turn in Social Movement Studies, and to the re-imagining of methodologies in Peace and Conflict Studies.