An Examination of the Noken and Indigenous Cultural Identity: Voices of Papuan Women

Noken is an essential tool/bag/clothing in the lives of Indigenous people of West Papua, which is made from knitting thin strips of wood primarily from the Gnetum Gnemon tree. Raw materials required to make noken have become scarce due to massive deforestation. An analysis of the noken lends itself to a useful understanding of the link between economic development initiatives in the Merauke Regency of West Papua and shifting cultural identity among Indigenous Papuans. Drawing on the Women, Culture and Development (WCD) approach, this qualitative study examines interviews from Papuan women in order to understand how the noken resonates with Indigenous Papuans, and how perceptions of noken and their accessibility have changed. The findings reveal that a combination of factors contribute to dwindling noken supplies, which adversely impact Papuans’ ability to produce and reproduce their culture. This paper argues that Papuan women possess an unwritten specialized knowledge that is of increased value in a shifting social context and hold new meaning in response to competing influences of non-Papuans

Colorblind ideology, mass incarceration, and controlling racial images: An intersectional analysis of presidential rhetoric from 1969–1996

Ample research exists on the relationship between mainstream constructions of racialized images and perceptions of criminals. Fewer studies, however, have assessed the influence of political rhetoric in the construction and the mobilization of images of criminals as the “racial other.” This study employs a qualitative content analysis guided by an intersectionality framework to answer the questions: to what extent Presidential rhetoric influenced images of criminals; and how was colorblind language used to facilitate this process? The examination of Presidential speeches related to crime policies, given from 1969 to 1996, revealed that criminal activity was primarily articulated as being committed by “young Black impoverished males.” Through the use of colorblind strategies, race, while not explicitly referenced, was the most salient dimension of the imagery of criminals depicted in Presidential rhetoric

Pacific peoples, New Zealand housing-related political rhetoric and epistemic violence

In the nearly 50 years since the Dawn Raids, Pacific peoples have continuously faced a housing crisis defined by precarious dwellings. This article employs content analysis to examine the political framing of Pacific peoples in housing-related political rhetoric from 2007 to 2021. The analysis reveals that Pacific peoples almost exclusively featured only in discussions led by Pacific and Māori politicians who sought to add their communities’ perspectives into debates where most politicians either ignored them or made uninformed comments. The findings reveal levels of epistemic violence, meaning Pacific peoples are placed in positions where they have to prove their experiences are real within power structures that render institutional constraints invisible. Limited attention towards the specificity of what this article refers to as the “Pacific housing crisis” illustrates an active ignorance employed to uphold the dominant epistemic order. Just like the Dawn Raids, which fell into national amnesia and were erased from public memory for decades, the Pacific housing crisis follows the same trend.

The 2020 cannabis referendum: Māori voter support, racialized policing, and the Criminal Justice System

In the New Zealand 2020 cannabis referendum, 50.7% of all voters rejected the creation of a legally-regulated cannabis market and instead supported retaining the current prohibitionist policy. Although the referendum failed to pass, a majority of Māori voted in favor of cannabis law reform. This paper suggests that within the Māori community there is a more nuanced appreciation of the impact of policing cannabis. Māori perceive that greater harm is caused by the racialized policing of cannabis than by the usage of it. Following McCreanor, et al. (2014), this paper employs a thematic, content analysis of the New Zealand Herald’s coverage of the 2020 cannabis referendum to investigate the presence of race-based targeting/policing in discussions of the legislation. The results reveal that racial disparities emerged as secondary to framing both the impact of cannabis and the referendum as race-neutral and affecting everyone in society equally. This paper argues that the impact of the policing of this particular drug impacts Māori differently, wherein they bear the brunt of racialized policing. Thus, Māori possess a more sophisticated understanding that warrants consideration because it is inextricably linked to lived experiences of policing that differ from wider social narratives of policing and drug policy in New Zealand

Donna Awatere’s Māori Sovereignty: Reflections on White Supremacy and the Racialization of Crime Control and Surveillance in Aotearoa New Zealand

Donna Awatere’s examination of whiteness within the Aotearoa New Zealand context, specifically white cultural imperialism, has largely been ignored in academic scholarship. For her, white culture, and its articulation through governance and policy, is the starting point and lens to understanding and addressing historical and contemporary Māori dispossession and ensuing strategies of racialized surveillance, control, and containment. In this essay, we argue that Awatere’s attention to past forms of genocide – mapping them to emerging forms of state confinement of Māori, which engender genocidal characteristics, and problematizing “whiteness” – situates the book Māori Sovereignty as an important text in the field of criminal justice, especially that which manifests in settler-colonial contexts

Donna Awatere on Whiteness in New Zealand: Theoretical Contributions and Contemporary Relevance

In June 2022, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern designated the US-based neofascist groups The Base and the Proud Boys as terrorist organisations. This designation marks one of the few times white supremacy entered the national political discourse in New Zealand. Discourses of whiteness are mostly theorised in the North American context. However, Donna Awatere’s 1984 examination of White Cultural Imperialism (WCI) in her book Māori Sovereignty advanced an analysis of whiteness in New Zealand that has received limited scholarly attention and is essentially unexplored. This paper reintroduces Awatere’s conceptualisation of WCI. It offers core tenets of WCI and theoretical insights into contemporary discussions of white supremacy that move beyond the focus of individuals and groups to a broader national framework of New Zealand. Two interrelated features of WCI, as defined by Awatere, are the minimisation and normalisation of whiteness and white racial hostility – inherent features that maintain, protect, and reproduce the white institutionalised body as the primary beneficiary of Western European domination that will always thwart Indigenous sovereignty and equality. This paper concludes that Awatere’s articulation of WCI links whiteness in the New Zealand context to the broader network of global white supremacy that offers insight into contemporary criminal justice scholarship

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron-B.1.1.529 leads to widespread escape from neutralizing antibody responses

On 24th November 2021, the sequence of a new SARS-CoV-2 viral isolate Omicron-B.1.1.529 was announced, containing far more mutations in Spike (S) than previously reported variants. Neutralization titers of Omicron by sera from vaccinees and convalescent subjects infected with early pandemic Alpha, Beta, Gamma, or Delta are substantially reduced, or the sera failed to neutralize. Titers against Omicron are boosted by third vaccine doses and are high in both vaccinated individuals and those infected by Delta. Mutations in Omicron knock out or substantially reduce neutralization by most of the large panel of potent monoclonal antibodies and antibodies under commercial development. Omicron S has structural changes from earlier viruses and uses mutations that confer tight binding to ACE2 to unleash evolution driven by immune escape. This leads to a large number of mutations in the ACE2 binding site and rebalances receptor affinity to that of earlier pandemic viruses

Thesis Review Series: Identity narratives by New Zealand African youth: A participatory visual methodological approach to situating identity, migration and representation by Makanaka Tuwe

This fascinating and original work explores the experiences of third-culture children of African descent in New Zealand. The term ‘third-culture kid’ refers to an individual who grows up in a culture different from the culture of their parents. Experiences of youth of African descent is under-researched in New Zealand. The central research focus explores racialised emotions internalised by African youth that are largely attributed to a lack of positive media representation of African and/or black youth, coupled with daily experiences of micro-aggressions and structural racism. In this respect, the case-study analysis is reflective of careful, methodological and deliberative analysis, which offers powerful insights into the grass-roots strategies employed by African youth to resist negative stereotypes that problematise and marginalise them politically and economically

Are we really colour-blind? The normalisation of mass female incarceration

The sharp rise in female incarceration rates in both the United States and New Zealand has received increased attention. Even more pressing are the racial disparities among imprisoned females. This exploratory case study examines 13 peer-reviewed articles published between 2005 and 2016 to understand the nature of colour-blind ideology in discussions of female imprisonment in New Zealand. Several themes emerged including the homogenisation of female prisoners. Apart from moderately linking vast racial disparities between incarcerated White women and Indigenous women to ill-defined colonial practices, contemporary explanations for the substantial racial disparities receive little attention. This article concludes that the absence of a critical lens toward contemporary forms and experiences of racism undergirding the mass criminalisation of Indigenous people perpetuates a colour blindness that in turn works to normalise mass female incarceration. Even in attempts to be unbiased, the way race/ethnicity, gender, age, and class are discussed in academic research exploring female incarceration seems to reflect the influential nature of controlling images rather than critique them

Interrelated struggles and the role of the academic in the fight for freedom

Professor Biko Agozino delivered the keynote address for the launch of the new journal Decolonisation of Criminology and Justice on the 7th June of this year. He began his talk recounting his earliest memories as a child survivor of the Nigerian Biafra War that occurred in 1967 to 1970. Specifically, he called attention to the critical role of intellectuals and academics, trained at top Universities, in facilitating the conflict that claimed millions of lives through bombings and starvation. Genocides of Indigenous peoples are still occurring and state-sanctioned violence (e.g., police brutality, mass imprisonment, criminal justice system, inadequate housing) is commonplace for Indigenous and Black peoples(Benson & Lewis 2019, Estes 2019, Kanem & Norris 2018, Ritchie 2017). Professor Agozino asked for us to reflect upon the place of the academy and the role of the scholar-activist in the struggles occurring all around us