'I, Too, Am Auckland' and Racism in the Academy

In the past few weeks 3 video's have appeared on Facebook produced as part of a research project on racism in the academy.  Motivated by a project on racism in the U.S Academy called 'I, Too, Am Harvard', ' I, Too, Am Auckland' is a project undertaken by Maori and Pacifica students at the University of Auckland and guided by a member of the Department of Sociology, Dr David Mayeda.  The project also involved a number of Pacifica and Maori members of staff, some of whom appear in the third video that deals with perceptions of  targeted admission schemes. 

As someone currently researching the topic of racism within the Academy, and particularly within my discipline, criminology, the material produced by Dr Mayeda and his research team is a godsend.  To my knowledge, the project represents the first significant social science research on academic racism in Aotearoa/New Zealand; well at least one that goes out of its way to share the lived experiences of participants.  The videos that are embedded below provide details of the many and varied micro-aggressions utilised by racist assholes (my interpretation and expression, not those involved in the project!) to belittle and disempower their fellow students; descriptions enriched with the lived experiences of the participants. The decision to use video to transmit the experiences of participants was inspired as reading about them on the printed page, while important, does not have the same impact as being able to see people speak for themselves.    

One of the issues raised by participants was that academics were also responsible for behaviour they experienced as disempowering. This comes as no surprise to me, having experienced racist conduct at various points in my career, and having recently conducted research that involved Indigenous colleagues in New Zealand, Australia and North America recount numerous stories of racist, unethical conduct they had experienced during their time in the Academy.  But it does trouble me greatly that Maori and Pacifica students are also experiencing this type of behaviour from people who are meant to be working to create a safe environment for their learning.

The fact that students involved in 'I Too, Am Auckland' project reported experiencing disempowering conduct by academics, places recent statements by a spokesperson for the University of Auckland, in an interesting light.  On the weekend media asked for the University's response, which pretty much followed the standard, 'dot point', 'drag sh*t from the strategy document' response institutions rely on in the face of criticism or research that does not present the organisation in the positive light it prefers: the response was of the 'if racism occurs students should report it' and 'the University supports Maori and Pacifica students', etc, etc, kind... well for me the experiences of the students presented in the videos kinda makes these 'strategic statements' appear a little vacuous.

If the micro-aggressions and racist conduct are being perpetrated by staff, what are the chances that students will feel empowered enough, or safe enough, to report it?  After all, we are talking about students having to go up against the weight of an institution that, in my experience, will be hell bent on killing off the issue as quickly as possible.  And often 'killing off the issue' involves turning the problem back on the Maori or Pacifica student or academic, in a process that can involve a whole range of silencing strategies, from dismissives like 'you are being too sensitive' to 'your response was angry and/or aggressive'.  In other words, the focus moves from the racist act, to our response, or even (as reported by academics in my research) on the fact that we actually made a complaint, as in 'your complaint makes the institution look bad'! Seriously, this shit happens; I'm not making it up.

Anyway, back to 'I, Too, Am Auckland'.  There are so many things about the project and those involved in it to praise, including the fact that it provides further evidence of the widespread racism that occurs at academic institutions; grounded in the lived experiences of Maori and Pacifica students and academics.  But what I find most impressive is that the research took place at all given the increasing corporatisation of the tertiary education sector.  The neo-liberal education policies of recent governments have created tertiary institutions that are hyper-sensitive to research, publications and dialogue that throws anything less than a positive light on their business.  If you think about it, this situation is kind of funny given that so much of the research activity of said institutions involves critical analysis of a whole range of external institutions and their activities, including government agencies... but turn your critical gaze towards the universities themselves and sit back and watch the dummy fly across the room... but I digress: 

I am calling the research for what it is... bold, powerful and heartening. 

Bold - because it takes guts to stand up and be heard.

Powerful - because the methodology that drives the project empowers the participants to speak for themselves, thus ensuring their experiences and perspectives are the focus of the work, and not, as often occurs in academic research, mediated through the interpretative lens of an academic.  This is Indigenous Emancipatory Methodology, or Kaupapa Maori Research, or whatever term you prefer, at its best.

Heartening - because despite dealing with serious issues that can and do negatively impact Maori and Pacifica students, the project highlights a number of positives, including a) the aroha (love) and support the students give to each other, b) the depth of their strength and resilience in the face of adversity, and c) the commitment Maori and Pacifica (and no doubt some non-Maori and Pacifica) staff have to support them to succeed.

I am thankful to all those involved in the project for their wonderful, insightful work.  I am especially thankful to the students involved, and in awe of them, because if they are willing to stand up and speak out while they are STILL enrolled in their studies, given the power institutions can weld over them, just imagine what they will do when they graduate.  

Despite the racism and micro-aggressions, the students (clearly supported by Maori and Pacifica staff, and each other) are getting on with their mahi ('stuff') and succeeding.  Now imagine how much easier things would be if the White Privileged Academy got over itself, and responded meaningfully and with purpose, to the racist assholes that exist in its midst.  

The videos are inserted below:

Breaking the Criminal Justice-Criminology Nexus - Empowering Indigenous Communities

Introduction

I want to begin by telling two stories in order to provide context for the issues I will cover in this presentation:

The stories

The 2013 European Criminology Conference: (see description of this case study included in the Indigenous Criminologist post of 29/10/2013).

Drivers of Crime: In 2008 New Zealand's Ministry of Justice organised a 1 day hui (meeting) with a range of service providers, researchers, academics, and community members as part of the consultation process for the development of what is now called the Drivers of Crime project.  In the lead up to the hui various government agencies 'bargained' with the Minister of Justice (and by extension, senior officials at MoJ) to ensure that the list of invitees represented a cross-section of the 'community'.  Te Puni Kokiri (the Ministry of Maori Development) was one of those agencies, and attempted to have added to the list myself and other 'critical Maori commentators', and current and past gang members who worked with this particular community to deliver social services.  Officials from the Minister's office and MoJ attempted to block our inclusion on the list and if not for Te Puni Kokiri officials standing their ground and persuading the then Minister for Maori Affairs (firmly supported by Dame Tariana Turia) were we eventually invited, thus ensuring a range of Maori voices were heard on the day.  But it would be wrong to think that 'we' won: when MoJ summary of the main points of discussion was released some weeks later the vast majority of issues raised by the critical Maori caucus was excluded; including repeated concerns expressed about the lack of Maori input into the development of crime control policy, racist/biased policing, overuse of imprisonment, and other significant, structural failures on the part of the formal justice system.

Since then a number of other similar incidents have been experienced by Indigenous scholars residing in Settler-Colonial jurisdictions with whom I am in regular contact.  These individuals have discussed a number of incidents, some historical, some more recent, that mirror my own experiences.  Our common experience of the white privileged, arrogant conduct of some members of the Policy Industry and criminology, has made me realise that in all our critical analysis of the many and varied Colonial Projects that are deployed in Settler-Colonial contexts to subjugate Indigenous peoples, one that requires our urgent empirical attention on our part, is the criminal justice/criminology nexus.  The rationale for this claim, this empirical call to arms, so to speak, is quite straightforward: it is essential that we expose the nefarious effects of the parasitic relationship between members of Western, Authoritarian Criminology and members of the Policy Industry, given the hegemony this nexus has on the development of empirical knowledge about Indigenous crime.

The Provocations

• The parasitic relationship between Eurocentric Criminology and the Policy Industry is one of the most affective, ‘subtle’ colonial projects deployed in settler-colonial contexts to subjugate Indigenous peoples.

And

• We must become more aggressive in our critique of, and challenge to, this relationship if we are to decrease the damage it does to our communities.

What follows represents the tentative explorations of two questions that are of increasing concern to Indigenous scholars (and our critical, non-Indigenous colleagues), namely:

• What role, if any, does the Criminal Justice-Criminology nexus (or relationship) play in the Settler Colonial subjugation of Indigenous peoples?

And

• What should we do about it?

Part of the rationale for privileging empirical analysis of the nexus between white criminology and the policy industry, is historical – the historical relationship between a) coloniality, b) criminal justice and c) the academy.  Biko Agozino has effectively exposed that the discipline of criminology developed significantly under colonialism, and was an essential player in the colonial states subjugation of Indigenes.  You cannot explain the contemporary moment; the ways in which peoples are subjugated, without reference to the past.  In the words of Hayden (2004):

"Rather than distance ourselves from the past, as the centrist amnesiacs would counsel, perhaps we should finally peel back the scabs and take a closer look at why all the wounds haven’t healed". 

Colonial Projects in the Neo-Colonial Context
As the Nigerian criminologist Biko Agozino has demonstrated, criminal justice is one of the most potent Colonial Projects the Settler Colonial state utilises in its ongoing subjugation of Indigenous peoples.  One of its key functions is in assisting the state to ‘control’ what it defines as significant wicked problems, i.e., Indigenous over-representation, which is invariable portrayed in governmental discourse as a ‘fact of criminal justice life’.  It is a ‘social fact’ so significant that that it poses a threat to social order that requires meaningful, authoritative, indeed at times violent, intervention in relation to the practice of crime control.

And if you think my use of the term ‘violent’ is perhaps overstating things a little, all I need say in response is ‘the Tuhoe raids’. 

In New Zealand the ‘Maori problem’ is described in governmental and media discourse as being so significant that our crime problem would disappear if we could significantly reduce it, because, according to an ACT party member quoted in the Otago Daily Times in 2012, we are “full of crime”. 

If I may I would like to interrupt the flow of my analysis to divert to an interesting argument I heard posited by a young Maori scholar at an International Indigenous law conference held in Brisbane in June last year: Kiritapu Allen made what I think is a highly provocative, but accurate statement that given the violence and disfuntionality that permeates criminal justice in New Zealand, perhaps including the term ‘system’ in its title is somewhat misleading.  Instead, we should view it as a series of inter-linked incidents of violence, coated in the stink of colonialism. 

Much of the criminal justice system response to the ‘wicked problem’ of Maori over-representation comes in the form of structural violence, including, but not exclusively

• militaristic-style policing strategies;

• biased application of public disorder offences and discretionary powers;

• the criminal justice-led large-scale removal of Indigenous children and youth to detention centres; and

• and of Indigenous adults to the prison system – a form of displacement and confinement that O’Connor calls the ‘New Removals’ and Chris Cunneen ‘the new stolen generation’, with reference to the Australian context. 

I consider these ‘strategies’ as examples of overt violence perpetrated by the criminal justice sector against Indigenous peoples. 

Then we have a range of subtle, insidious strategies of containment and control, including:

• the aforementioned strategy of blocking Maori participation in forums that impact the design of policy;

• reliance on in-house Maori ‘experts’ to direct the development of policies for Maori, in place of meaningful engagement with Maori communities and Maori ‘experts’

• meaningless consultation exercises undertaken after policies and interventions have been designed and signed off by a CE, Minister or Cabinet;

• reliance on Maori/Aboriginal strategies that have no impact on an agencies bottom-line, and that make little or no reference to the socio-economic marginalisation of Indigenous peoples and used by agencies to market themselves as ‘culturally aware’;

• restricting or blocking access to sites of justice and undertaking independent, empirical research, and blocking research on criminal justice issues of importance to Maori, including bias, experiences of policing and imprisonment;

• arrogant dismissal of Maori knowledge and programmatic response to social harm in preference for importing theories, policies, legislation and interventions from western, high crime contexts;

• privileging academic literature and research on Indigenous issues and peoples carried out by white, western, administrative/authoritarian criminologists, whilst ignoring the Indigenous research lexicon; and

• indigenisation, or the inappropriate utilisation of Indigenous symbols, language and cultural artifacts to ‘sex up’ imported, ineffective crime control policies, like boot camps or Multi-Systemic Therapy, that are then forced upon our communities, and which do little to alleviate our over-representation in the criminal justice system. 

The white privileged criminological academy isn’t much better.  The range of disempowering behaviours perpetrated by its members is just as extensive, including:

• confine their critical criminological gaze to issues relating to state-defined problem populations, more often than not people of colour and working class youth, without significant engagement with individuals or communities from these populations – in other words they privilege the use of non-engaging methodologies; a reliance on statistical analysis and restrictive surveys at the expense of actually talking with brown people;

• confine their uncritical criminological gaze to state-run justice processes, policies, legislation and issues that the state deems important, for which they receive generous remuneration via the establishment of parasitic contractual relations;

• limit their ‘critical analysis’ of state systems and policies on programme effectiveness and evaluation largely devoid of historical context and the wider political economy of the state’s dominance of ‘justice’ in the neo-liberal moment – in other words their research and analysis is devoid of critical consideration of minor issues like genocide, coloniality, land grabs, destruction of key social and political institutions, biological and cultural warfare, etc; and

• empower themselves through the veil of scientism, an ideological construct that privileges the Eurocentric, supposedly ‘enlightened’ approach to measuring the Indigenous life-world, whilst denigrating Indigenous (and other) forms of knowledge that seek to explain the social world from the perspective of the Other.

Doing Imperialism Quietly?  The Criminal Justice-Criminology Nexus as Structural Violence

No longer able to attain political legitimacy by deploying overtly racist, assimilationist strategies such as the forced removal of our children in militaristic fashion, least it results in international condemnation, or banning our language and cultural practices through legislation, or replicating the physical genocide of the Indian Wars carried out in Canada and the U.S, or the killing times in Australia, the neo-liberal settler state and its supporting institutions of the body politic, in particular the white privileged academy, nevertheless continues to deploy structural violence against Indigenous peoples.  This comes in the form of  the development and application of racist criminological knowledge and interventions, made possible via collusion between white privileged academics and the policy sector.

This brings me full circle, to the stories I told at the beginning of the presentation.  How is it that policy workers and white privileged criminologists continue to produce bullshit about Maori and other Indigenous peoples?  More importantly, how is it that this bullshit still holds sway with the policy sector?  Answering these questions in full would require a whole presentation of its own.  So I’ll restrict myself to just 2 key reasons: a) because of their arrogance, related to a) because we are too nice. 

Doing Things for Ourselves

There are a number of practical, administrative responses either underway or that should be considered, including:

Research Project – Racism in the Academy;

International Journal of Indigenous Justice (IJIJ);

International Congress of Indigenous Justice (ICIJ);

All of these activities were discussed in the Indigenous Criminologist blog released on 31/7/2014.  

We urgently require a major change in our approach to the trash the Policy Industry and its parasitic partner, Authoritarian Criminology, produce about Indigenous peoples.  We need to become more aggressive in our approach to exposing the racism and white, colonial privilege that underpins their approach to the ‘Indigenous problem’.  Only by challenging the criminal justice-criminology nexus in an aggressive manner, and through the development and application of a Critical Indigenous Criminology, will we challenge the hegemony the members of this 'axis of bullshit' hold over the development of supposedly ‘legitimate’ knowledge about 'the Indigenous experience'.  Perhaps then we might finally have a say in the development of policies, legislation and interventions that reflect our approaches to dealing with social harm and our lived experiences, rather than the exotic fantasies of white privileged policy workers and academics. 

Racism, White Privilege and Scary Brown Boys... and the Development of a Critical Indigenous Justice Studies

Hi all

Below is a link to an interesting commentary on racism, white privilege and the demonisation of brown boys - enjoy:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/01/27/there-problem-discerning-racism-white-privilege-southwest-airlines-flight-30000-feet

Research Project - Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Scholars Experience of the Academy

As reported previously there have been a number of positive developments within the Indigenous Academy, some of which will be discussed below.  I want to take this opportunity to provide background detail on a research project that I am involved with at present, focused on Maori, Pacific and Indigenous scholars experiences of the academy.

The project was developed by, and led by Dr David Mayeda, a researcher and lecturer at the University of Auckland in the Department of Sociology.  The aim of this study is to explore Māori, Pacific and Indigenous experiences of the Academy, with a significant focus on the role of Indigenous academics as leaders, both in the academy and their communities development.small group or individual interviews with Māori, Pacific and international Indigenous academicians. The research project aims to identify the factors that assist Māori, Pacific and Indigenous academicians in their professional development. Some of these factors may include relationships with colleagues, balancing research, service and teaching responsibilities, family support, and professional mentoring.  The research also aims to identify the barriers Indigenous academics face in advancing their careers, and carrying out the research that they and their communities believe is essential to enhancing the social well being of Indigenous peoples.  

If you would like more information on the project, or wish to participate, please contact Dr Mayeda via his email address d.mayeda@auckland.ac.nz, or the author of this blog, Juan Tauri, on marcellos2006@hotmail.com - we will happily forward a detailed information sheet to you.

Advancing Critical Indigenous Justice Studies

A key highlight of the last 12 months was evidence of an increasing number of Indigenous and non-Indigenous colleagues publishing critical material that privileges the Indigenous perspective on social justice issues.  I had the privilege last year of collaborating with many of these individuals while developing of a special edition of a journal on counter-colonial perspectives (see below for information on the edition).  The work of Stolo academic Dr Wenona Victor on the inequities of the Canadian criminal justice and child care and protection systems and Dr Tamari Kitossa on the policing of black youth, augers well for critical Indigenous scholarship in that particular jurisdiction.  There has also been an increase in critical Maori/non-Maori scholarship in New Zealand, driven by the likes of  University of Auckland academics Dr Robert Webb, Dr Khylie Quince and Assoc. Professor Tracey McIntosh, and Dr Antje Deckert of AUT University.  

Tracey's ground breaking work on Maori experiences of the borstal system of the 1960s/1970s and imprisonment generally, is especially important given the paucity of research on this issue. In the Australian context the rise of Dr Thalia Anthony has given me hope that the golden age of critical Indigenous-inspired research in Australia, is not yet over.  Her recent publications and presentations on the history of colonial, racist policing on Palm Island, and the criminalisation of Aboriginal peoples through social policy in the Northern Territory, are as good as critical, engaging research gets in the contemporary context.  What is also pleasing (and important) is the support we are receiving from the 'old guard' (no disrespect intended), including Professors Chris Cunneen, Harry Blagg and Gillian Cowlishaw in Australia, the esteemed Maori lawyer, Moana Jackson in New Zealand, and the Nigerian criminologist Biko Agozino.

It seems to me the that recent increase in scholarship coincided with a parallel increase in the number of Indigenous academic journals in the last 10 to 15 years.  In the past we relied on the A and B journals of the Western academy for publication of our work.  However, as Dr Antje Deckert's recent research has demonstrated, these so-called 'top shelf' journals rarely publish Indigenous-centred, critical work that privilege the experiences of Indigenous peoples.  It is obvious that we are increasingly turning to Indigenous journals to publish our work, such as the New Zealand-based journals Mai Review and AlterNative, the African Journal of Criminal Justice, and North American based publications such as International Indigenous Policy Journal and Indigenous Policy Journal.  There is a definite trend in the increase of critical Indigenous justice scholarship, namely that we are increasingly turning away from the journals of the Western academy, and choosing to publish in our own.

There are a number of projects on the go for 2014 and out-years that are designed to support the increase in activity in the area of critical Indigenous justice studies, including:

Publication of a Special Edition on Counter-Colonial Criminologies and Indigenous Perspectives

As stated in an earlier blog, a special edition on 'Counter Colonial Perspectives on Indigenous Justice' is currently being developed for publication in the African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies. Right now, Dr Antje Deckert, my co-guest editor and I are in the process of completing the peer review process.  We hope to have the edition formally published in the next few months.  The contributors to the special edition include:

Professor Biko Agozino - Virginia Tech

Dr Tamari Kitossa - Brock University

Dr Andrea Smith - University of California

Associate Professor Tracey McIntosh - University of Auckland

Dr Robert Webb - University of Auckland

Dr Antje Deckert - AUT University

Juan Tauri - University of Wollongong

Professor Harry Blagg - University of Western Australia

Dr Thalia Anthony - University of Technology Sydney

Dr Wenona Victor - University of Fraser Valley

Joey Lywak - University of Winnipeg.

Dr Deckert and I are extremely grateful to Professor Biko Agozino for organising the transfer of the special edition to the AJCJS.  We can think of no better home for critical Indigenous/non-Indigenous scholarship like this.

The International Journal of Indigenous Justice (IJIJ)

Given the experiences of myself and other contributors to the above special edition, we have decided to develop a new journal, tentatively titled The International Journal of Indigenous Justice.  We have found a home for the journal at the University of Wollongong (Australia).  A big thanks to Associate Professor Evan Poata-Smith for making this happen.  The new journal will focus on publishing critical commentaries on the Indigenous experience of criminal justice.  Professor Poata-Smith, Dr Robert Webb, Dr Antje Deckert and I will be developing the journal throughout 2014, with a view to launching the first edition in 2015.  Watch this space for further information.

An International Conference on Aboriginal and Maori Social Science

Lastly, Assoc. Professor Evan Poata-Smith and I are currently organising a conference on Aboriginal and Maori social science, to be held at the University of Wollongong in late 2016.  Further information on the conference will be made available through this blog and my Face Book page Indigenous Criminologists, over the coming months.

Cheers

Juan Tauri