Postscript to Hungary:

A Commentary on Tacit Racism within Eurocentric Criminology

Background

In the blog I released on 10 September, based on my presentation at the 2013 European Criminology Conference, I said that I would add a postscript focused on feedback I received during the session.  So here it is:

During question time two members of the audience took exception to my critical commentary on the Restorative Justice (RJ) industry's use of indigenous artifacts to construct and market their products.  The first made an exaggerated claim that I had accused ALL RJ theorists, writers, etc, of doing this; when clearly I was referring to many who write about FGC, sentencing circles, etc, and so his criticism was easily dismissed as nonsense.  The more interesting response was the second, and I want to highlight this individuals statements as I believe they are representative of the kind of lazy, prejudiced, sometimes even racist attitudes I've experienced in the last 15 years: they beautifully illustrate the 'tacit racism' and Eurocentrism that is never far below the surface of certain forms of the discipline of criminology.

In response to my commentary the individual in question countered with 2 comments:

"Who really owns culture; do you (Maori) have intellectual property rights over your culture"; and

"When I was in New Zealand I found out that the word 'Maori', means 'other person', so, I can call myself Maori...."

The first comment is typical Eurocentric bullsh*t: the line of argument is that unless we have a piece of paper saying 'we own these elements of our culture', as understood in Western legal terms, our culture, or anyone else's for that matter, is fair game.  In response; it is intellectually lazy to see these issues simply in terms of Eurocentrically-derived understandings of ownership of culture, and the racism inherent in these understandings are well documented in critical literature.  The issue for me was not 'ownership' per se, but the way in which European criminologists, RJ practitioners, policy entrepreneurs and RJ franchise companies are utilising Indigenous 'cultural artefacts' in ways that are unethical, such as exaggerating the 'Maoriness' of certain products in order to sell them on the crime control market.

While the first comment was intellectually lazy, the second was outrightly racist and offensive: first of all the word 'Maori' means different things, depending on dialect and socio-historical context, but was interpreted in the early to mid-19th century by Europeans to refer collectively to the various members of iwi (tribe), hapu (sub-tribe), whanau (family) etc.  There is no debate about it; to be 'Maori' you must be able to trace your whakapapa (genealogy) to these entities. 

What this individual was doing was taking one translation of the word from sometime in the mid-19th century to make the argument that he was 'Maori' in order to justify being able to 'take' whatever cultural artifacts he wanted to.  Now, in all my years of working in criminology and policy, I've come across some really obnoxious, Eurocentric assh*les, but never have I encountered this level of racism before, and never in an academic setting.  Since returning from Budapest I have pondered this response time and again, trying to make sense of it.  So far my only conclusion is that this individual, and the other person who's comments I discussed above, belong to that small group of Western academics who have been utilising First Nation cultural artifacts, as and how they wish, without ever having been challenged.  Well, they got challenged, and their responses revealed much about themselves AND the wider discipline they are members of.  

The Eurocentrism of the 'Liberal' Academy
Lately, I have been asked by a few colleagues whether we can/should develop an Indigenous Criminology as a sub-set of the broader discipline.  Those asking this question make the assumption that an Indigenous component to the discipline is required, and that staying 'in house' is the most effective way of challenging the issues I and other Indigenous criminologists have expressed about the discipline.  Looking at this question from inside the discipline, this makes sense, for as the saying goes 'how can you effect change if you are sitting outside the tent'.  Well, some tents you simply don't want to be sitting in, especially when it stinks of the racist paternalism, faux 'liberalism' and Eurocentrism that pervades certain portions of the discipline.  

Of late, the behaviour of members of the Eurocentric Academy such as the two individuals at the Budapest conference discussed above, and the behaviour of the two professors at the 2012 Australian and New Zealand criminology conference I dealt with in a previous blog, has me thinking that we are perhaps better off leaving the tent and thereafter applying a liberal dose of anti-bullsh*t spray.  My drift to this position has been propelled lately by the behaviour of a bunch of criminologists who seem to think that being obnoxious covers for being 'ethical'.  Their behaviour matches many of the concerns held by the Indigenous Academy, most particularly their preference for responding to the critical Indigenous voice by personalising issues and demonising the Indigenous Other who dares express a different point of view to them.  When you dovetail those issues with the inability to develop different (meaning respectful, collaborative) ways of engaging with the Indigenous academic community, then yet again we are faced with concluding that if you scratch the surface of Eurocentric criminology hard enough, the shiny, thin lacquer of liberalism falls away and the same tired old paternalistic odour is released that has permeated Criminology since its birth in colonial times. 

But all is not lost: there are those within 'White' Criminology we can work with and trust to behave ethically towards ourselves and our communities.  Presently, we are most likely to find these individuals within Cultural Criminology, Peacemaking Criminology, and the developing schools of Post-Colonial and Queer Criminology.  However, we should not forget that we owe the wider discipline of criminology nothing, especially as its practitioners have given us very little, except more prison, more brutal policing, more trauma. In response I expect some of its practitioners will talk about how we would be better off being part of a public criminology as opposed to becoming a boutique sub-school.  I'm also certain that some of them will like nothing more than for us to add an Indigenous element to the discipline, thus 'correcting the discipline from within'. Unfortunately, given the pervasiveness of the paternalistic, colonising attitudes of the wider discipline, I fear this approach will end up as nothing more than the criminological equivalent of the state's indigenisation of youth justice, where we 'add a bit of colour' to the same, tired old epistemologies, methodologies etc, as opposed to the discipline taking a long, hard look at itself. Sadly, given the repetitiveness of the unethical, racist behaviour of members of the Academy that I and other Indigenous scholars have experienced over recent years, it is apparent that the wider discipline is not our friend, and nor is it ever likely to be: I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it might be better for us to walk away and leave it to stink up its own tent.

But if we do walk away, what then?  I don't know, I haven't really thought that question through in detail.  We could walk back into the Indigenous/Maori/Aboriginal justice fold and become a justice/human rights component of that discipline.  We might look to the growing, sophisticated school developing in Australia called Settler Colonialism, where Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars engage in critical analysis of the strategies used by neo-colonial states to subjugate First Nations.  Or we could become part of the growing Postcolonial studies movement, or even dovetail with our colleagues working in law and International relations to construct a broad 'school' of Indigenous Justice.  

A lot of food for thought and definitely the topic of a future blog.

A Critical Response to Advocates of Restorative Justice and Family Group Conferencing

The following blog seeks to answer some of the comments made in recent time by advocates for restorative justice, and in particular of the Family Group Conferencing (FGC) forum in response to the Indigenous critique.

Background

From its inception via the Child, Young Persons and their Families Act of 1989, until the late 1990s, advocates of FGC and the wider RJ context, and the policy sector responsible for its implementation, dominated commentary on the forum (Tauri, 1999).  The commentary was universally positive, but theoretically 'light', and lacking in data derived from independent research (as opposed to that supported by government agencies).  There was little in the way of critical commentary from within government circles, and dissenting voices from without were more often than not ignored, and sometimes vilified.  In the case of the author, the latter came in the form of a phone call one day in late 1999 from a senior Judge and noted advocate of FGC who bleated that he had heard I had criticised FGC's during a presentation at a conference in Canberra earlier that year and asked "how could you say such things".  Apart from the fact that what he had been told 2nd hand I had said being wrong, I also stated that the FGC was not a sacred cow and I was entitled to make critical comments if I wish.

Except I was wrong: the FGC had by then become a sacred cow.  It had also become a cash cow for some criminologists, policy entrepreneurs and ex-policemen from New Zealand and Australia in the decade since its inception.  By the early 2000's FGC of some form or other had 'travelled' from New Zealand to Australia, from Australia and New Zealand to North America, and from New Zealand to Germany and from there to other Western European jurisdictions.  The FGC had gone global, and the forum, at the time and ever since New Zealand's only original crime control idea/policy, had made the country the darling of the then developing restorative justice industry.

Now, since the late 1990s I and a whole host of other critical criminologists have critiqued the FGC from various angles, including Kathy Daly, Harry Blagg, Chris Cunneen and Kelly Richards on the Australian perspective, Wenona Victor, Jonathan Rudin and Gloria Lee on the Canadian context, and myself and Cath Love on the New Zealand context.  Within this growing body of critical literature has been identified a number of issues with the FGC forum, far too many to discuss in detail here.  But one that is key to our understanding the importance of the FGC to the ever-expanding globalised RJ industry, is the constant exaggeration of its Indigenous (read Maori) foundations; what Daly (2002) would probably (and accurately) call one of the key Origin Myths of restorative justice.  

In short, the origin myth goes something like this: in the mid-1980s a Maori-led committee produced a critical review of social policy/care and protection practices as they impacted Maori (known as 'Daybreak' - see Ministerial Advisory Committee, 1988); that this report recommended that a Maori-centred justice process be developed, that the report and this recommendation lay the foundation for the FGC, and finally, that because of all this, the FGC forum was 'Maori inspired'; a 'Maori process', and/or 'rich with Maori philosophy and justice practice', etc.  Certainly, the forum developed out of Maori concerns for government responses to youth justice (amongst a number of issues), but as one of the key architects of the 1989 legislation, Doolan (2005: 1) “those of us who were involved in the policy development process leading up to the new law had never heard of restorative justice”, and nor was a major concern the oft-made and exaggerated claim that they were motivated by wanting to 'empower Maori to deal with their own youth offenders'.  Instead, their focus was on producing a state-centred forum based on what was then becoming the fashionable ideological bases to western youth justice policy, namely the responsibilisation of youth offenders and their families (see Richards, 2007 for a full analysis of the exaggerated way in which Maori input has been constructed by FGC advocates). 

This all sound lovely; the state producing a forum based on Maori justice principles, to empower us, etc, etc; except it is all exaggerated bull-dust.  Yes, when you look closely the forum includes some 'Indigenous' elements, and some RJ one's, but these were after-the-fact 'discoveries' manufactured by New Zealand and Australian criminologists who, in my opinion, simply cherry picked features of the FGC process that matched with so-called Indigenous and RJ processes, thereby creating the illusion of its 'Maoriness': in other words, they created a fiction which has since evolved into a myth: a myth many advocates of RJ and FGC have used since to facilitate the successful transfer of the forum across various jurisdictions. Nothing wrong with that per se, except those who are purposely doing this are doing so on the back of incomplete information (constructed in the form of the 'myth'); they are misrepresenting the forum as Indigenous, when it is not, and some are making quite a nice living from doing so.  And that, I believe, is unethical.  

Critiquing the Advocates

I want to focus for the remainder of this blog on responding to one particular RJ advocates critique of Indigenous criticisms of the FGC forum; namely comments made by Gabrielle Maxwell in a 2008 publication, in which she stated that:

In New Zealand there has been criticism that family group conferences have not been managed in ways that conform with traditional practice of Maori or those from other cultural backgrounds.  It has been suggested that the high proportion of Maori staff managing the process and the inclusion of Maori greetings and blessing is little more than tokenism and can rarely be described as a truly Maori process.  This is despite the undisputed origins of many aspects of the conference process in traditional Maori procedures (Consedine, 1995).  On the other hand, on occasion, the management of the conference process is sometimes passed over to a Maori social service group (Maxwell, 2008: 87).

These sentiments had previously been expressed by Gabrielle's one time collaborator, Alison Morris just a few short years before when she argued that in 'critiquing FGC's I failed to acknowledge the high numbers Maori working in New Zealand's Child Care and Protection service'.

Within Maxwell and Morris' comments we can identify many of the issues Maori and other critical Indigenous/non-Indigenous commentators have with much of the Academy’s writing on the FGC forum, in particular the manipulation of the available record to establish and sustain the origin myths of the FGC:

First: the most obvious issue is the claim that the FGC’s Maori foundations are ‘undisputable’.  The previous discussion, especially the research of Richards (2007) exposes the exaggerated nature of this claim.  In reiterating this origin myth and presenting it as ‘undisputable’, Maxwell and others ignore the significant amount of literature exposing this myth published since Consedine’s 1995 book.  Maxwell’s approach to espousing the origin myth of FGC highlights one of the fundamental criticisms Indigenous scholars have made about some members of the restorative justice Industry, namely the lack of engagement with the critical Indigenous/non-Indigenous literature (see Tauri, 2012; Tauri and Webb, 2011; more on this issue below).  

Second: Maxwell’s own published research on the FGC process (Morris and Maxwell, 1993; Maxwell et al, 2004) reported some Maori FGC participants being especially concerned with the tokenistic way in which ‘Maori culture’ was afforded space in the process, which more often than not comprised of state officials allowing elders to recite karakia (pray) at the beginning and end of the process: and that was pretty much it.  The 'reality' of the cultural context of the forum exposed by their own research, demonstrates that the actual practice of FGC is often far removed from ideological claims that the process offers meaningful opportunities for the empowerment of Maori, especially in 'leading' responses to the offending of their youth (See also Morris and Maxwell, 1998).  

Third: in the above quote Maxwell is replicating a fundamental weaknesses in the FGC/Maori justice scholarship, which is to ignore the lack of direct Maori input into the actual design of the Act and the FGC forum.  She also ignores the fact that officials involved in the developing the process - including the chief policy architect, Doolan - have since admitted that they were not focused on developing a ‘Maori justice process’, or indeed even a restorative justice one. 

What Maxwell and other restorative justice advocates are constantly doing is erroneously equating Maori requests for a ‘traditional forum’ (more especially in Moana Jackson’s 1988 report He Whaipaanga Hou than in Daybreak), with Maori justice philosophies being foundational to the formulation of the forum itself.  To do so is to ignore the reality of policy making in the New Zealand context, in particular the historical tendency for the criminal justice sector to ‘Indigenise’ Eurocentric crime control processes (see Jackson, 1995; Tauri, 1998; 2009; Tauri and Webb, 2011; Williams, 2001).  It also ignores that the supposed ‘Maori’ and restorative elements were identified long after the formulation and implementation of both the Act and the forum.  As Daly (2002: 63) effectively argues “the devising of a (white, bureaucratic) justice practice that is flexible and accommodating towards cultural differences does not mean that conferencing is an indigenous justice practice”.  Daly (2002: 4) then goes further, revealing that Maxwell herself is aware of this distinction when she includes the following quote from Maxwell and Morris’ original 1993 study:

A distinction must be drawn between a system, which attempts to re-establish the indigenous model of pre-European times, and a system of justice, which is culturally appropriate. The New Zealand system is an attempt to establish the latter, not to replicate the former. As such, it seeks to incorporate many of the features apparent in whanau [extended family] decision-making processes and seen in meetings on marae today, but it also contains elements quite alien to indigenous models.

Fourth: her claim that critics argue that “the high proportion of Maori staff managing the process… is little more than tokenism” does not feature in any of the literature published on the New Zealand context up till now, including the work of Jackson (1995); Love (2003) and Tauri (1998; 1999, 2005).  That significant numbers of Maori work in New Zealand’s child care and protection services (which involves FGC) is undisputed. However, it is simplistic to equate their employment in New Zealand's social services, with actual support for the process.  Indeed, Maori staff have in the past criticised the child care and protection processes utilised by the government agencies they work for, especially for the mono-cultural foundations of both policy and practice; most notably during Child Care and Protection Services staff consultation during the development of its differential service model, during Maxwell and colleagues own reviews of FGC published in 1993; 1998 and 2003, and most recently in Paora Moyles’ (2013) Master’s thesis on Maori social workers views and experiences of social work-related processes.  

Fifth: Maxwell’s attempt to counter criticisms of the tokenistic nature of the FGC process by noting that 'some FGC’s are handed to Maori and Pacifica service providers to facilitate', ignores the reality that her own research exposed - that very few FGCs actually take place in Maori homes or are run by non-Government entities (see Morris and Maxwell 1993; Maxwell et al, 2004).  

And

Lastly: as a critic of the way in which the FGC process continues to be marketed as a Maori process, and author of a number of journal articles and having read a considerable amount of the critical Indigenous/non-Indigenous literature, I found it interesting that when summarising the criticisms of authors like me, that none of the published, critical material was actually referenced, either in the body of the work, or in the bibliography.  Nor were the 'critics' actually named. The problem with this strategy, and probably the reason for it, is that it makes it difficult for readers to test the veracity of our claims.  And just as importantly, it makes it extremely difficult for readers to critically analyse Maxwell’s representation and analysis of our arguments - hence why some of our work is included in this blog.  I have come across this type of behaviour before: back in the early 2000's the justice system called for submissions for contract research on youth justice, to which the Crime Research Group at Victoria University of Wellington submitted a proposal.  In response to the submission, I and my colleagues challenged the lack of engagement in the groups proposal, with Maori and other Indigenous peoples criticisms of RJ in general and FGC in particular.  The response? One line, stating "... although Tauri has a different view".  So much for critical analysis of all available literature and once again, we see the critical Indigenous voice silenced. 

References

Daly, K (2002) Restorative Justice – The Real Story, Punishment and Society, 4(1): 55-79.

Doolan, M (2005) Restorative Practices and Family Empowerment: Both/And or Either/Or? Retrieved 8 August from http://www.americanhumane.org/site/DocServer/au13

Jackson, M (1988) Maori and the Criminal Justice System: He Whaipaanga Hou: A New Perspective.  Wellington: Department of Justice.

Jackson, M (1995) Cultural Justice: A Colonial Contradiction or a Rangatiratanga Reality?  In F. McElrea (ed.) Legal Pluralism and the Colonial Legacy.  Aldershot: Avebury: 31-45.

Love, C (2002) Maori Perspectives on Collaboration and Colonisation in Contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand Child and Family Welfare Policies and Practices, paper presented at the Policy and Partnerships Conference, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo. 

Maxwell, G (2008) Crossing Cultural Boundaries: Implementing Restorative Justice in International and Indigenous Contexts, Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, 11: 81-95.

Maxwell, G and Morris, A (1993) Family, Victims and Culture: Youth Justice in New Zealand.  Wellington: Social Policy Agency and the Institute of Criminology, Victoria University of Wellington.

Maxwell, G; Robertson, J; Kingi, V; Morris, A and Cunningham, C (2004) Achieving Effective Outcomes in Youth Justice.  Wellington: Ministry of Social Development.  

Ministerial Advisory Committee (1988) Puao-Te-Ata-Tu (Daybreak): The Report of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on A Maori Perspective for the Department of Social Welfare.  Wellington: Department of Social Welfare. 

Morris, A and Maxwell, G (1993) Juvenile Justice in New Zealand: A New Paradigm, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 26(1): 72-90. 

Morris, A and Maxwell, G (1998) Restorative Justice in New Zealand: Family Group Conferences as a Case Study, Western Criminology Review, 1(1) retrieved from http://wer.sonoma.edu/v1n1/morris.html.

Moyle, P (2013) Fro Family Group Conferencing to Whaua Ora: Maori Social Workers talk about their Experiences, unpublished Master's thesis. Palmerston North: Massey University. 

Richards, K (2007) 'Rewriting History: Towards a Genealogy of 'Restorative Justice', unpublished PhD thesis. Penrith: University of Western Sydney. 

Tauri, J (1998) Family Group Conferencing: A Case-Study of the Indigenisation of New Zealand’s Justice System, Current Issues in Criminal Justice: 10(2): 168-182.

Tauri, J (1999) Explaining Recent Innovations in New Zealand’s Criminal Justice System: Empowering Maori or Biculturalising the State, Australian New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 32(2): 153-167. 

Tauri, J (2005) Indigenous Perspectives (chapter), in Walters, R and Bradley, T (eds), Introduction to Criminological Thought:  Auckland: Pearson Longman.

Tauri, J (2009) An Indigenous Commentary on the Standardisation of Restorative Justice, Indigenous Policy Journal, forthcoming.

Tauri, J (2011) Indigenous Perspectives (reconfigured chapter), in R. Walters and T. Bradley (eds), Introduction to Criminological Thought (2^nd ed.).  Auckland: Pearson Longman.

Tauri, J (2012) Indigenous Critique of Authoritarian Criminology, in K. Carrington; M. Ball; E. O’Brien and J. Tauri (eds.), Crime, Justice and Social Democracy: International Perspectives.  London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 217-233.  

Tauri, J and Webb, R (2011) The Waitangi Tribunal and the Regulation of Maori Protest, New Zealand Sociology.

Williams, C (2001) The Too Hard Basket: Maori and Criminal Justice Since 1980.  Wellington: Institute of Policy Studies.  

Globalisation of Crime Control: Restorative Justice and Indigenous Justice

The following text is based on my notes for a presentation at the European Criminology conference, held in Budapest 3-6 September, 2013.

Introduction

Firstly, I want to articulate my 'position' to the audience, in others words expose both my purpose and my prejudice: this presentation is not the 'scientific observations of an Administrative Criminologist', but rather the subjective, grounded observations of an Indigenous activist.  My first, and primary goal is to articulate the Indigenous experience of the activities of criminologists, policy makers, and the restorative justice industry; to expose our concerns with how the activities of these crime control 'players' are exacerbating the neo-colonialism of First Nations through their ongoing use of Indigenous cultural artifacts in support of the inter-jurisdictional transfer of their crime control products.  My focus on expressing the Indigenous voice and experience enables me to meet the challenge laid down by First Nation leaders to further the cause of Indigenous justice, and also that of a small number of Western criminologists, such as O'Malley, Muncie and Stenson for criminology to move on from obsessive theorising about the shape and depth of contemporary globalising of crime control, and instead (my interpretation of what they were asking for) 'get real' and start analysing the micro-level impact all this 'globalising activity' is having 'on the ground' and with specific communities - in this case First Nations residing in Settler Societies like New Zealand and Canada.

I became interested in the globalisation of crime control as a criminological topic in the early 2000's, as a result of critical research into family group conferencing (see Tauri, 1998; 1999).  My interest was fuelled by a) engaging with the then growing criminological literature on the seeming increasing global transfer of western crime control policies, as a way of understanding how the FGC forum had moved from New Zealand to other jurisdictions; and b) because of a curious incident that occurred at an Indigenous justice conference I attended in British Columbia, Canada, in March of 2004.  The 'incident' went something like this:

Marketing restorative justice
At one point I was sitting working on my notes for my keynote address, when 2 delegates came to me and handed me a document, saying that I should read it and perhaps even comment on it later.  The document was a glossy, A4 marketing booklet for an RJ franchise (private) company.  The 'product' being spruiked was the company's franchised version of the FGC forum.  But that wasn't the really interesting part of the document (although finding out, at that time, that FGC had been privatised, certainly was revealing), it was the cover, and the language being used to 'sell' the product that really caught my attention. 

The script on the cover talked about 'real justice for Aboriginal peoples' and included a Koru motif, a well known 'Maori' art symbol, and the primary colours were Black, Red and White, the well known colours of the Maori sovereignty movement and its flag.  On opening the document I was confronted by  the usual over-the-top spiel associated with marketing materials, but in summary it went something along these lines:

'do you have an Aboriginal justice problem?  Are your Aboriginal peoples significantly overrepresented in the the criminal justice system?  If so, we have the deal for you, FGC's, a Maori (Aboriginal) justice initiative'... etc.etc

The Restorative Justice Industry and Indigenous Peoples
So, we might ask ourselves'what is wrong with this story?  What is concerning about this particular private company spruiking its wares on the international crime control market utilising the symbols, language and art of Maori? 

From an Indigenous perspective the answer is... everything, because a) the company in question certainly had not engaged with Maori to discuss using this material (evident from the script and work cited in the document), or sought permission to utilise it (more about that issue, and 'ownership' of culture in a postscript on responses to my presentation to be discussed in the next blog), and b) what was in fact being marketed, the FGC product, was not an Indigenous justice forum, at least not to the extent the company was claiming.  What the company was doing was simply repeating the oft-told, exaggerated claim of certain Australasian Administrative Criminologists, what I call the 'Origin Myth of the FGC', namely that the FGC forum is heavily imbued with 'Maori cultural practice', or is indeed an 'Indigenous forum'. 

Let us be clear - these claims are exaggerated: the forum is in fact much more heavily imbued with Western 'cultural artefacts', having its 'biological genesis' from the then growing mediation/western communitarian crime control response at the heart of its (heavily institutionalised) practice.  It is a Western policy/criminological invention on to which Administrative Criminologists and policy workers have grafted bits of Indigenous philosophy and practice.  At its philosophical heart the product is less about 'our ways of justice', and more a reflection of the then growing policy focus of responses to Western youth justice - the 'responsibilisation' of youth offenders and their families. 

From an Indigenous perspective, the activities of certain Western criminologists, policy-makers, and private franchise companies, spruiking certain RJ products, like FGC and Sentencing Circles - Western crime control models replete with bastardised Indigenous components - represents one of the biggest and most serious Criminological shams of the past 50 years (others include claims that 'more police = less crime', or that 'prisons are/can be therapeutic environments'). 

These are the products that are all too often valorised in the RJ literature; offered up as evidence to support the social movements claim to be significantly different to the brutalising, violent state justice system, and to its commitment to cultural sensitivity and empowerment of Minorities.  In fact the movement needs to wake up to itself and realise the following uneasy truths that all this activity:

a) is playing into the hands of government and policy makers - enabling them to offset the Indigenous challenge to the legitimacy of the formal justice system by providing it with artifacts that enable the appearance of cultural sensitivity and responsivity, in place of a genuine critique of the genocidal practices of state dominated crime control;

b) is more about fuelling the careers of criminologists and profits for private RJ companies, than empowering First Nations and furthering their desire for judicial autonomy.

Apart from a few well known exceptions (Kath Daly, Harry Blagg and Chris Cunneen, in the Australian context), the the acceptance of the Origin Myths associated with FGC and Sentencing Circles (re: their Indigenous foundations) within the RJ Academy, policy making, etc, is almost total, and goes largely unchallenged in the criminological and RJ lexicon.  This situation is a disgrace and there is no excuse for it, especially since publication of the Indigenous critique of all this activity has been steadily growing since the late 1990s, including my own work and that of Wenona Victor and Gloria Lee, to name a few.  And yet if you look at any bibliography on these artifacts published by the Academy you rarely find any reference to these publications, or meaningful engagement with the Indigenous issues and experiences they offer.  And what discussion there is, is more often than not highly superficial and dismissive.  For Indigenous criminologists like myself the situation is fuelling our discontent with the wider discipline of Criminology as it yet again demonstrates its willingness to support the neo-colonial subjugation of First Nations, just as it did during the colonialism, a fact eloquently exposed by Biko Agozino in his 2004 book Counter-colonial Criminology.

As an Indigenous person I find it easy to understand why Western criminologists, policy makers, private RJ companies and the like, are drawn to using Indigenous culture to sell their wares.  After all, one of the fundamental 'rules' of modern marketing is that 'sex sells', and let's face it, the Indigenous life-world is very sexy and very exotic.  This process - the Western criminological enterprise using, even stealing our 'stuff' - let us call it what it really is, namely the Eroticisation of Western crime control; a process driven by the desire to strengthen the marketing of Indigenised products on international markets.  But let's be just as clear about what it is not - the empowerment of the Indigenous Other.

And what may we ask, is the philosophical basis to all this marketing activity?  Well, one fundamental driver is the belief amongst many Western crime control 'experts' of the universal appeal of their wares; that Western crime control 'culture' can be universally applied anywhere in the world so long as you indigenise and eroticise for local consumption.

In 2001 Susanne Karstedt wrote that criminology was moving towards Indigenisation; rediscovering 'traditional' communitarian practices, but utilising Indigenous modes of crime control due to the Wests loss of their own practices over time; importing our practices from the Periphery to inform justice practice at the Centre.   Susanne was right to a point, because what was being imported were not Indigenous wares but Western responses, eroticised 'packages of political subjectivity' that met Western needs to 'get in touch with their historical, communitarian selves'.  In other words, you were all 'had' by a wonderfully effective marketing strategy.

The Impact of RJ Marketing on First Nations
The impact on First Nations of all this activity is very real, and very concerning.  Over the past 3 decades First Nations around the world have been resisting colonialism and neocolonialism by attempting to create for themselves some form of jurisdictional autonomy.  In response to these activities, and at the forefront of state resistance, have been globalised RJ products that are used as offerings of appeasement in place of real change to the racist, brutalising practices of crime control agencies.  Returning now to the story I used to open this presentation, the use of Indigenous cultural components to sell RJ products was a standard practice of companies operating in the North American jurisdiction.  And it had a very real impact as the Royal Mounties began utilising the forum as a standard response to youth offending.   

Dr Wenona Victor, a criminologist from the Stolo Nation of the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, underlines the successful transfer of FGC’s to Canada through the targeting of First Nations as recipients of this particular form of neo-colonial crime control product, and of the impact it had on First Nation moves to empower themselves.  By the late 1990s the Stolo First Nation of the Fraser Valley had begun the process of reinvigorating their own justice processes.  During that process they were informed that to 'receive' referrals of their youth (offenders) they would need to use FGC's.  Dr Victor describes receiving training on implementing FGC within Stolo territory, a process that had been sold to them by justice officials as “…developed by the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand”  She recounts the Stolo experience of receiving this training thus:

On the first day we all eagerly awaited her [the trainer’s] arrival.  We were somewhat surprised to see an extremely “White” looking lady enter the room; however, we have blonde blue-eyed, even red-headed Stolo among us, and so, too, we presumed, must the Maori.  However, it did not take us long to come to realise this lady was not Maori and was in fact Xwelitem [European].  Ah, the Maori had sent a Xwelitem; okay, we do that too, on occasion.  It is one of the many ironies of colonisation whereby Xwelitem often become our teachers….. [t]here are times when it is an Xwelitem who is recognised as the Stolo ‘expert’ and therefore, is the one talking even when there are Elders present.  But by the end of the three day training course I was convinced the Maori had lost their minds!  There was absolutely nothing Indigenous about this [FGC] model of justice whatsoever! (in Palys and Victor, 2007: 6)

Let me finish by reiterating what is going on here: the Stolo First Nation is attempting to empower themselves in part by resurrecting their own, tradition-based justice processes. While doing so government agents inform them that to be able to 'practice' Stolo justice with their own youth they would need to practice the 'justice' of another group of First Nations. Except that what they were expected to use was not Indigenous. The Academy, the RJ movement has a lot to answer for.

'Statistics, Damn Statistics.. and Bullsh*t': a Critique of 'Newboldian' Criminological Analysis of Maori and Crime

The following entry is a response to analysis of Maori and crime made by Professor Greg Newbold during a debate with Moana Jackson on Maori TV's Native Affairs in June 2013.

Introduction 

In previous blogs I have argued that one of the key issues facing First Nation peoples is the propensity for non-Indigenous commentators (whether criminologists, journalists or shock-jocks) to talk bullshit about First Nation peoples and crime.  More often than not, when critically analysing their comments you find that rarely is their position/perspective or critique backed by empirical research of the kind that requires you actually go talk to Indigenous peoples about their experiences of crime and crime control.  

A few weeks ago we observed yet another episode of this kind of behaviour, this time in the form of University of Canterbury criminologist, Professor Greg Newbold's performance on Maori TV's excellent show, Native Affairs (Monday 17 June, 2013).  I recommend that anyone who hasn't seen the show do so as it represents an interesting approach to the issue of whether or not police practice in New Zealand is biased, and whether or not bias plays a part in incidents that result in police shooting and killing Maori.  

The part of the show dedicated to this topic covered a number of issues, including an interesting discussion with Wally Haumaha from NZ Police National Headquarters, who's comments on the possibility of police bias were far more reticent than those offered recently on the same topic by the current Police Commissioner who unequivocally stated that there was no 'bias in New Zealand Police', and that perceptions of it as such were uninformed.  

It should come as no surprise that senior management of New Zealand Police would make these kinds statements despite empirical and anecdotal evidence to the contrary (e.g. Jackson, 1988; MRL, 1993; 1995; New Zealand Police and Te Puni Kokiri, 2001). If we take the Commissioner's position and that expressed later in the piece by Professor Newbold, then none of this 'evidence' is of any use to a debate on the issue of bias because it isn't the 'right' kind of evidence (more on that point below). In the case of the Commissioner, he was using the time honoured strategy employed of New Zealand police officials to sideline criticism of the organisation, namely presenting research or commentary that demonstrates the existence of bias or racism within the organisation as simply a reflection of peoples uninformed 'perceptions' of policing, rather than their actual experiences of it.  

The term 'perception' is critical to any/all discussions on the issue of bias in the criminal justice system, because it is a favourite rhetorical device of policy makers/criminal justice officials and Authoritarian Criminologists in New Zealand and other Settler Societies, who seek to dismiss any criticism of their activities, especially by minorities and First Nations. In using this term commentators are implying that we never 'experience' policing, we only have uninformed, unevidenced 'perceptions' of it.  

The underlying bias inherent in this  semantic stupidity is obvious when you analyse it for what it is saying about the Indigenous experience and critical criminological commentary: 1) 'We (in this case New Zealand Police) reject any and all accusations of bias in our dealings with Maori or any other population group; therefore 2) any evidence/claims of said bias is pure fiction, based on unsubstantiated perception; 3) any evidence that is generated via empirical research is tainted by the fact it was carried out by a biased researcher (meaning anyone who disagrees with or critiques the organisation is automatically assumed to be biased/subjective/probably a tree-hugging socialist, etc, etc); 4) anyone having experienced policing who then claims bias can be dismissed because they are probably an offender (who we haven't caught yet), or someone in their family is/was, so anything they say is invalid; and 5) we actually have no evidence to support our claim there is no bias, but in our case we don't need to prove any statements we make, unlike our critics'.

Before discussing Professor Newbold's statements, I want to make the following response to senior managers within the New Zealand Police, starting with the current Commissioner -  your recent claim that there is no bias in the force is clearly ridiculous and contradicts the small amount of research that has been published on this issue, and the stated position of some of your predecessors. If you actually believe the comments you made on this issue and if you are inferring that New Zealand's is the only police force in any Western jurisdiction that has no bias/racism, then you a) need to do more reading (such as the aforementioned New Zealand material and perhaps some of the hundreds of reports from other western jurisdictions, such as Bowling and Phillips, 2007, Hall et al, 1989 and Holdaway, 1996 amongst numerous others) and/or b) resign because someone this uninformed shouldn't be in charge of such a powerful institution.

So, how about we put aside the bullsh*t and work to do something about the problem... cool?  And a good start would be for the key justice agencies, the Ministry of Justice in particular, to step aside and allow independent, critical research on the topic of bias (see previous comments on this issue, in earlier blogs); which brings me to Professor Newbold's comments on Maori, crime and bias. 

The Newboldian Perspective on Maori and Crime

Let me begin by saying that I have great respect for Professor Newbold's work on penal policy in New Zealand; but that this respect usually evaporates when he comments on Maori issues.  

As for his latest attempt at expert commentary on Maori crime, where to begin?  We could spend an hour alone talking about his insensitive, provocative comments that a Maori victim of a police shooting should have been shot in the heart and not the head.  I note that Greg has refused to apologise for these words, claiming he was only stating a 'fact'.  Indeed, this is true to a point, police are (or should be) trained to aim at the body as it is larger in mass and therefore easier to hit.  But it is equally reasonable to predict and prepare for the fact that the comment would be hugely insensitive to the deceased's whanau, friends and others in the community, that the attitude expressed would come across as arrogant and insensitive.  Personally, I suspect that Greg wouldn't give a shite about any of that, as he probably got the outcome he wanted, to be provocative and to sound informed. The fact that his comments added nothing substantive to the discussion that was taking place at that particular point was irrelevant. 

So instead, let's deal with other elements of the analysis Professor Newbold offered in what I will call his 'Newboldian analysis of Maori and crime', a world where bias, at least that which is directed at Maori, does not appear to be allowed to exist, and which is willed away regardless of existing evidence, or lack of evidence to the contrary.  And so to my critique and in no particular order of importance:

1. There is no evidence of police bias: yes there is, and as an experienced New Zealand criminologist I expect Professor Newbold to have read it.  Ah, but of course the main issue is the nature of the 'evidence', right?  According to Professor Newbold the only valid research is that which is 'controlled', meaning that which is 'scientific'.  This can only be described as a load of tutai which rather conveniently ignores an extensive amount of published, critical criminological material that critiques the methodologies he seems to prefer. I could list and discuss the criticisms here, but as Professor Newbold is an experienced criminologist I shouldn't have to, he should already know what they are. For everyone else, Jock Young's recent expose of the fallacy of 'scientific' criminology, The Criminological Imagination (2011) is a good place to start.

2. Maori are over-represented in the criminal justice system because of their violent offending and drunkenness (my paraphrasing of one of his key arguments):  Certainly, the levels and nature of our offending goes some way to explaining our over-representation, but to dismiss bias the way Professor Newbold did, is intellectually redundant and can be critiqued in a number of ways, a) by repeating that evidence of bias and racism does in fact exist, but to recognise it for what it is, requires putting aside convenient bias against 'non-scientific' research methodologies; b) by recognising that there is significant evidence that racism and bias exists in jurisdictions we often compare ourselves to, such as Great Britain and Australia, which then begs the question 'why would we be the exception to the rule'?  

In turn I would ask those making the argument that there is 'no evidence of bias', to provide evidence that everything is actually ok, that bias and racism does not exist: Just as bias alone cannot explain Maori over-representation, nor can one make, with any scholarly authority the simplistic argument that bias and racism has nothing to do with it.

3. Research in Australia demonstrates that Aboriginal peoples are treated more leniently by the criminal justice system: I take it that Professor Newbold was referring to research carried out by Jeffries and Bond?  In this particular case he was likely referring to their analysis of sentencing decision in New South Wales.  If so, yes their research did show that (but you might like to take a long, hard look at the 'scientific' methodology before using the findings uncritically, as was done here), but for some reason Professor Newbold failed to a) contextualise his argument by mentioning other research published by the same authors that demonstrates bias in sentencing-related decision-making in the Queensland jurisdiction (in particular the lower courts) (see Bond and Jeffries, 2011); and b) the existence of plenty of other research that demonstrates bias policing practices across various Australian jurisdictions, carried out by criminologists Harry Blagg, Thalia Anthony, Chris Cunneen and so on. 

4. The only valid research has be 'scientific'; it has to 'control' for certain variables: hogwash... see previous comments about the work of Jock Young.  The Professor might wish to engage with the qualitatively informed work on biased policing in England (Hall et al, 1978), just for starters and go from there to engage with the truckload of critical, 'grounded', ethnographic, detailed research that demonstrates the existence of bias in contemporary, Western, neo-liberal societies, like Great Britain, the U.S, Australia and... New Zealand. Comments made during Native Affairs about how complex bias research is/can be because of all the things you need to 'control for' is true to a point, but conveniently ignores the (validity of) research findings from scholars who employ observational and ethnograpnic techniques.  All of this demonstrates the weakness of some of the arguments Professor Newbold offered on Native Affairs. Overall, it appeared that the statements made were highly selective in terms of the so-called 'evidence' used to support them, while at the same time, a different 'measure' of quality was used to critique alternative perspectives.

and lastly

5. That the research Moana is carrying out on police/Maori engagements would only be valid when published in a 'reputable criminology journal': my response is to ask 'what qualifies as a reputable journal'?  Would it be Criminology, or the Australian New Zealand Journal of Criminology, or the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, all of which have poor records of publishing research on bias based on engaging methodologies?  Is the Professor not aware of the inherent bias in many of the leading criminological journals and other publications, as pointed out by Biko Agozino (2003), who's expose is supported by a soon to be published article by Dr Antje Deckert (AUT University) that confirms the paucity of Indigenous-centred research across the entire range of 'reputable criminology journals' in Settler Societies? I have a sneaky suspicion that reputable Indigenous-focused journals such as MAI Review and the Indigenous Policy Journal, and perhaps even QUT's own International Journal for Crime and Justice, wouldn't make the Professor's list of 'reputable' journals, most likely because they break a cardinal rule of Authoritarian Criminology - namely that they publish research where academics have actually gone out and engaged with Indigenous peoples, and sought to privilege the Indigenous experience of crime control, rather than hide behind the 'cloak of objectivity'.

References
Agozino B (2003) Counter-Colonial Criminology: A Critique of Imperialist Reason. London: Pluto Press.  
Bond C and Jeffries S (2011) Indigeneity and the Likelihood of Imprisonment in Queensland’s Adult and Children’s Courts. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 19(2): 169–183

Bowling B and Phillips C (2007) Disproportionate and Discriminatory: Reviewing the Evidence on Police Stop and Search. Modern Law Review 70(6): 936-961.

Hall S, Critcher C, Jefferson T, Clarke J, Roberts B (1978) Policing The Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order. London: Macmillan.

Holdaway, S (1996) The Racialisation of British Policing.  London: Macmillan.

Jackson M (1988) Maori and the Criminal Justice System: He Whaipaanga Hou: A New Perspective. Department of Justice, Wellington.

MRL Research Group (1993) Public Attitudes Towards Policing.  MRL Research Group, Wellington.

MRL Research Group (1995) Public Attitudes Towards Policing.  MRL Research Group, Wellington.

New Zealand Police and Te Puni Kokiri (2001) Challenging Perspectives: Police and Maori Attitudes Toward One Another.  New Zealand Police National Headquarters and Te Puni Kokiri, Wellington.

Doing Things for Ourselves: Responding to the Condescending Ethos of Institutional Ethics Processes

This blog builds on the previous discussion of the condescending ethos of institutionalised ethics processes, by arguing for Maori/First Nation-led ethics processes:

Introduction

In a powerful call to arms for the decolonisation of the edifice of Eurocentric, colonialist research, Arthur Smith (1997: 25/26) asserts that:

It is self evident that Indigenous people now want their voice in research, and they want it to be heard and understood.... [t]he right to establish and control the terms and conditions of cultural research is an inalienable right for all peoples of the Earth. The colonial era is dead, if not yet buried.

Given the experiences of Research Ethics Board-related conduct reported in the previous blog, one might argue that at least in the realm of academic, institutionalised ethics, the paternalism that characterised colonialism is alive and kicking in the present.

One strong justification for the need for an overhaul of First Nation experience of institutionalised ethics is the impact it has on us as ‘ethical researchers’.  In the end, the repeated requests for assurances from the author that he would adhere to AUT University's preferred, individual-focused ethics protocols (particularly relating to informed consent) were given (albeit by my supervisor), simply so the REB would sign-off and enable my doctoral research to proceed.  This was done with full knowledge that in all instances the ethics protocols of First Nation communities, participants (whether as individuals, groups or communities) would take precedence over the protocols of the REB in question (see Haggerty, 2004: 408, for further discussion of the related issue of ‘conscious subversion of formulaic, institutionalised ethics protocols’).  Schwandt (2007: 92) refers to this strategy as ‘playing the game’ for the sake of receiving the gift of authorisation; a strategy she used from time-to-time to keep her own students safe (albeit from REBs) as related thus:

We publicly and privately complain about the onerous review process, but when it comes time to file the papers, we simply figure out what it is in terms of language and procedure that IRBs [REBs] are looking for and then find ways to say it just so.... a major problem with such a strategy is that it encourages confusing technical compliance with IRB regulations with careful and sound substantive ethical review of one’s research.  Moreover, it creates the impression that ethical matters are dealt with once IRB approval has been granted (ibid: 92).

According to focus group participants in research I carried out in New Zealand and Canada in 2010-11, personal communications with Indigenous researchers, and the extant literature,  ‘playing the game’ is widespread; indeed it is considered by some as necessary for their protection as a researcher, and for the protection of their participating Indigenous communities.  Understanding a researcher’s decision to ignore the advice and direction of an institutional REB is easy when we see that “... research ethics boards can create an unproductive tension between receiving ‘ethics approval’, and being an ‘ethical researcher... because REBs regularly confuse the difference between ‘ethics’ as a noun (i.e. a process for ‘ethics’ review), and ‘ethical as an adjective (i.e. a research review process that is ‘ethical’) ’” (Riviere, 2011: 195).  

While it is easy to understand or validate resistance strategies like ‘playing the game’, I wish to propose a different strategy, one that requires us to stop playing the ‘ethics game’ as dictated by institutional REBs.  I am advocating that we develop our own REB(s), modelled on our specific socio-cultural and ethical principles and practices (see Brant-Castellano, 2004 and Manson, Garroutte, Goins and Henderson, 2004: 60S for similar arguments in other colonial jurisdictions).

What is being proposed here is neither novel, nor unrealistic.  Similar calls have been made by Maori commentators in the past with regards the development of a Maori Ethical Framework (e.g. Palmer 2009; Te Ropu Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pomare, 1996) Precedents have already been set by other First Nations residing in Settler Societies; including the Cherokee (Manson et al, 2004: 65S-70S; Nuu Chah Nulth First Nation (Wiwchar, 2004) and Mi’kmaq Grand Council of Mi’kma’ki (also known as Sante Maio’mi within the seven districts of the Mi’kmaq nation, Nova Scotia).  Indeed, in relation to Canada Menzies (2001: 21) writes that:

Many First Nations communities have now instituted research protocols that researchers must abide by when researching in a First Nation community.  Such protocols, whether community – or researcher initiated, ultimately contribute to the establishment and maintenance of respectful research relations.   

Let us consider the example provided by the eminent leaders of the Mi’kmaq First Nations who authorised the development of the Mi’kmaw Ethics Watch (Ethics’ Eskinuapink) “to oversee research processes that involve Mi’kmaw knowledge sought among Mi’Kmaw people, ensuring that researchers conduct research ethically and appropriately within Mi’Kma’ki” (Battiste, 2007: 114).  Battiste (2007: 114-115) relates that developing the process was “... a significant step toward ensuring Mi’kmaw peoples’ self-determination and the protection of our cultural and intellectual property”.  The said Ethics Committee oversees the research protocol and ethical research throughout the seven traditional districts of the Grand Council, which includes the provinces of Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec.  Members of the original Mi’kmaw Ethics Watch included community elders, leaders and researchers.  This body works in similar ways to REBs; members receive and consider research proposals, assessing them against identified ethics norms and protocols.  The purpose is again, similar to that of an institutionally-focused REB, except in this case the primary goal is the protection of Mi’Kmaw peoples and Mi’Kmaw knowledge (Battiste, 2007: 126-127).

Doing Things for Ourselves

The important thing is that the time has passed when non-Indigenous researchers could even presume to speak on behalf of Indigenous Australians or speculate for one moment about whether their research is different and what the current priorities are, or will be.  This is Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander business.  The right to establish and control the terms and conditions of cultural research is an inalienable right for all peoples of the Earth.  The colonial era is dead, if not yet buried (Smith, 1997: 25). 

No doubt that the construction of a pan-Maori ethics process would cause discomfort for some REBs and non-Indigenous researchers.  After all, as Glass and Kaufert (2007: 27) write REBs “are accustomed to being the sole arbiters of the ethical acceptability of a project.  With contemporary demands for indigenous participation, they may now be asked (or told) to collaborate with communities who perform another review”.... and furthermore that “[m]ost conventional boards are not yet well prepared to meet the demand of communities for a more interactive partnership”.  No doubt some, including Maori and other Indigenous researchers, will likely advocate for continued participation in REBs, in order to enhance their processes ‘from within’, in a display of beneficial co-operation.  There is some validity to this position because most, if not all New Zealand REBs involve Maori academics as members or external advisors'.  Also, most committees in their protocols a sub-section dedicated to ‘protecting’ vulnerable populations such as Maori and Pacifica peoples.  And yet despite all this, too many Maori academics and post-graduate researchers report being victimised and sidelined by analysis and decision-making behaviour of these committees.  So, by all means let us carry on being members of REBs, and provide gentle chastisement for any unethical, disempowering conduct and decisions.  But let us not lose sight of who they work for in the first instance – the institutions in which they reside.  We need to force the issue by developing a body dedicated to advising, nurturing and supporting our post-graduates and established researchers; a body capable of holding REBs, government agencies and private researchers to task if their conduct negatively impacts Maori researchers and Maori research participants.

In response to the anticipated resistance from REB, their members and the wider Academy, I offer the following rationale: I believe that a separate Maori ethics review forum is a necessity because it would:

• underline the unique status of Maori as Treaty partners;
• serve as a real, observable action that operationalises self-determination in the realm of knowledge production (see Bishop, 1998: 201);
• send a strong message to the non-Indigenous academy, and in particular the institutions they serve, that their perspective on ‘how to research’ the Indigenous Other is no longer hegemonic;
• provide emerging and experienced Maori researchers with an experienced body of experts to whom they can turn for support; advice on methods, methodology, analysis and all other issues relating to scholarship;
• provide an experienced body to which non-Maori/Indigenous scholars, REBs, etc, can engage with to enhance their ability to carry out ethical research with Maori; and
• provide a Maori-dominated body to which Maori individuals, organisations, hapu, iwi and communities can turn for support when confronted with issues involving researchers, REBs and academic institutions. 

Furthermore, by developing our own REB, albeit freed from the ideological strains brought about by Eurocentric hegemony, we will move towards enveloping knowledge construction within the movement towards sovereignty (Wilson, 2004).  We will, in effect, be better positioned to meet the required actions of a sovereign people, as identified in First Nation literature, namely to:

1. resist or reject Eurocentric theory – in this instance theories about the gathering and dissemination of ‘valid’ knowledge;
2. resist or reject versions of ourselves that are fantasies of the power elite – in this instance the hegemonic constructions of ‘otherness’ that permeate New Zealand REB’s;
3. free ourselves to explore epistemological differences, thus freeing ourselves from the constraints of Eurocentric epistemology;
4. reclaim that which is too often denied us – namely the right to gather and disseminate information as we see fit, and resist (if need be) what is said and written about us (see Tuck and Fine, 2007: 163 and Battiste, 2000).

Any arguments (especially by members of the Academy and REB’s) to this suggestion will need to respond to the recent United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the General Assembly in 2007 that recognises the often poor treatment of Indigenous peoples by its member states and calls for “control by Indigenous peoples over development effecting them and their land”, and the need for Indigenous peoples to give their “[f]ree, prior and informed consent” to any decisions or actions that affect their well-being.  Inarguably, the actions of researchers and research bodies – including academic institutions and their REB’s – can be considered as such. And as Castellano (2004: 102) rightly points out:

 [f]undamental to the exercise of self-determination is the right of peoples to construct knowledge in accordance with self-determined definitions of what is real and what is valuable.  Just as colonial policies have denied Aboriginal Peoples access to their traditional lands, so also colonial definitions of truth and value have denied Aboriginal Peoples the tools to assert and implement their knowledge.  Research under the control of outsiders to the Aboriginal community has been instrumental in rationalising colonialist perceptions of Aboriginal incapacity and the need for paternalistic control.

The Academy, especially members of REBs, and the general population of researchers, might balk at an Indigenous-led ethics process.  No doubt some will view it as just another level of ‘red-tape’.  Schnarch (2004: 93) preempts such concerns when he writes that:

Some researchers may balk at the idea of a First Nations review/approval process, construing it as political interference contrary to academic freedom.  They do, however, readily accept the constraints of peer review for funding proposals, journal articles, and so on.  As with academic review, a First Nations review process is generally intended to ensure quality of the work, its relevance, and the appropriateness of interpretation.

Having prompted some of the likely counter-arguments, I see no reason why we cannot proceed to develop a Maori-specific ethics body in the social sciences.  We already have a ready vehicle upon which to build the process, the Maori Association of Social Sciences, which I believe can easily be turned from a representative/relational body, into one that actively works to support and protect researchers and research communities. 

Concluding Remarks

This now brings us full circle, back to the opening section of the previous blog, that highlighted the range of First Nation criticisms of Eurocentric, institutionalised research processes.  A key motivation for the First Nation focus on Western modes of knowledge construction was the role this activity played in the colonisation process and its ongoing role in Indigenous marginalisation in the neo-colonial context (Tauri, 2009).  As Battiste and Henderson (2000: 132-133) write “[m]ost existing research on Indigenous peoples is contaminated by Eurocentric prejudice.... [thus the development of] ethical research must begin by replacing Eurocentric prejudice with new premises that value diversity over universality”.  It is my contention that if we are to achieve the retrenchment of Eurocentric hegemony over knowledge construction and dissemination, we must challenge the power and authority the academy has granted itself over the production process; a power that is personified in institutionally-centred bodies such as REBs. 

As if we need further justification for Indigenous resistance, we might consider Bradley's (2007: 341) comment that:

By controlling the models of research, who gets to speak and how subjects get to represent themselves, IRBs are in a powerful position as part of the institutional structure.  In this position they can, and often do, silence the voices of the marginalised and perpetuate an academic political economy and a traditional top-down research and professional model that quantify and objectify human lives by keeping them nameless, faceless and voiceless.

References

Battiste, M (2000) Introduction: Unfolding the Lessons of Colonisation, in M. Battiste (Ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous Voices and Vision: xvi-xxx.  Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. 

Battiste, M (2007) Research Ethics for Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: Institutional and Researcher Responsibilities, in N. Denzin; M. Giardina (Eds.), Ethical Futures in Qualitative Research: Decolonising the Politics of Knowledge: 111-132.  Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press. 

Battiste, M and Henderson, J (2000) Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage: A Global Challenge.  Saskatoon: Purich Publications Ltd. 

Bishop, G (1998) Freeing Ourselves from Neo-colonial Domination in Research: A Maori Approach to Creating Knowledge, Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(2): 199-219.

Bradley, M (2007) Silenced for their own Protection: How the IRB Marginalises those it Feigns to Protect, ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 6(3): 339-349. 

Brant-Castellano, M (2004) Ethics of Aboriginal Research, Journal of Aboriginal Health, 103: 98-114.

Castellano, M (2004) Ethics of Aboriginal Research, Journal of Aboriginal Health: 98-114.

Glass, K and Kaufert, J (2007) Research Ethics Review and Aboriginal Community Values: Can the Two be Reconciled? Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, 2(2): 25-40. 

Haggerty, K (2003) Ethical Drift: Governing Social Research in the Name of Ethics, paper presented at the American Law and Society meeting, Pittsburgh, 5-8 June.

Manson, S; Garroutte, E; Goins, R and Henderson, P (2004) Access, Relevance and Control in the Research Process: Lessons from Indian Country, Journal of Aging and Health, 16(5): 58S-77S. 

Menzies, C (2004) Putting Words into Action: Negotiating Collaborative Research in Gitxaala, Canadian Journal of Native Education, 28(1/2): 15-32. 

Palmer, S (2009) Te Tauranga Waka.  Coromandel: Tumana Research. 

Riviere, D (2011) Looking from the Outside/In: Re-thinking Research Ethics Review, Journal of Academic Ethics, 9: 193-204.  

Schnarch, B (2004) Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession (OCAP) or Self-determination Applied to Research: A Critical Analysis of Contemporary First Nations Research and Some Options for First Nation Communities, Journal of Aboriginal Health, January: 80-95. 

Schwandt, T (2007) The Pressing Need for Ethical Education: A Commentary on the Growing IRB Controversy, in N. Denzin; M. Giardina (Eds.), Ethical Futures in Qualitative Research: Decolonising the Politics of Knowledge: 85-98.  Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press.

Smith, A (1997) Indigenous Research Ethics: Policy, Protocol and Practice, The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 25(1): 23-29.

Tauri, J (2009) The Maori Social Science Academy and Evidence-based Policy, MAI Review, June (online).  

Te Ropu Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pomare (1996) Hui Whakapiripiri: A Hui to Discuss Strategic Directions for Maori Health Research.  Wellington: Te Ropu Rangahau Hauora a Eru Pomare.

Tuck, E and Fine, M (2007) Inner Angles: A Range of Ethical Responses to/with Indigenous/Decolonising Theories, in N. Denzin; M. Giardina (Eds.), Ethical Futures in Qualitative Research: Decolonising the Politics of Knowledge: 145-169.  Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press. 

Wilson, W (2004) Indigenous Knowledge Recovery as Indigenous Empowerment, American Indian Quarterly, 28: 359-372. 

Wiwichar, D (2004) Nuu-chah-nulth Blood Returns to West Coast, Ha-Shilth-Sa, 16 December.