Week 8: 13-17 September: Introduction to Assignment 2
Note: there was no week 7 – courses were suspended due to a COVID lockdown.
Task 1 (5 minutes)
REFLECT: Have a look at your responses to the independent study from week 6, how did this weeks class discussion deepen or help develop and expand your initial understanding? You could write about this in a sentence or two, or you could go back and add to your original notes.
We did not really discuss the concept of tokanga, which is what the independent study was about.
Task 2 (2 hours)
INDIVIDUAL WORK: Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Read both versions, and Hugh Kawharu's notes. Choose ONE of Kawharu's notes and reflect on its significance in your workbook, and the broader implications of this politically, socially, philosophically, economically, etc.
“Government”: “kawanatanga”. There could be no possibility of the Maori signatories having any understanding of government in the sense of “sovereignty” i.e. any understanding on the basis of experience or cultural precedent
Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Hugh Kawharu’s note #6
To me, this conclusion appears quite patronizing and I am unclear as to how Kāwharu (1927-2006) could have direct knowledge of what the signatories knew or did not know about the concept of sovereignty. I would imagine that he is basing this on the oral history coming down to him, so I must ask if the lack of knowledge of a subject would be something that could be passed down.
I well, however, set that aside and take at face value the premise that the Māori at the time knew little of the non-Māori concept of government. One fundamental question is, what form of government? I have to assume that, as the Treaty of Waitangi – and yes, I am specifically calling out the original English version, not the translation – came out of the British government of 1840, then that’s what Kāwharu is referring to when he writes of “government”.
The heart of the British Empire was the United Kingdom, the world’s largest and most industrialised economy in 1840. Lands in British possession were found around the world. Many were colonies – under direct rule from London – and others were in the hands of trading enterprises. The Atlantic empire included the sugar colonies of the British West Indies (whose slaves had recently been freed), Canada, Nova Scotia and others in British North America. The empire also included the strongholds of Gibraltar and Malta in the Mediterranean, slave-trade-related holdings on the West African coast and the fur-trading territories of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The eastern empire centred on British holdings in India, which were formally ruled by the British East India Company. There were colonies further afield – Cape Colony in Africa lay on the main British sea route to India and the Straits Settlements colony on the route to China. Australia, which had been annexed in 1788, was the site of three colonies – New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, both originally convict settlements, and South Australia. It was as part of New South Wales that New Zealand was first incorporated into the British Empire.
Taonga, New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu. The British Empire, 1840. https://teara.govt.nz/en/zoomify/35471/the-british-empire-1840. Accessed 21 Sept. 2021.
This is the government of the British Empire in its period of greatest power and expansion. Queen Victoria had been on the throne for less than three years, slavery had been abolished only two years prior, the industrial revolution was just getting started.
Socially, the Chartist movement was rising.
Chartism was a working class movement, which emerged in 1836 and was most active between 1838 and 1848. The aim of the Chartists was to gain political rights and influence for the working classes.
The National Archives Learning Curve | Power, Politics and Protest | The Chartists. https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/politics/g7/. Accessed 21 Sept. 2021.
It was in this era of expansion and social change that the Treaty was signed. When assessing modern interventions into to the Treaty and how it was established, the very different context of the British Empire of the time must surely be included as critical context for any analysis.
Task 3 (2 hours)
GROUP ACTIVITY: As a group divide the reading Ko Aotearoa Tēnei: Taonga Works and Intellectual Property amongst yourselves (approx. 6 pages each, if you're in a group of 5). Read and make notes individually in your workbook (approx. 1hr). Then share/discuss as a group, making sure that each of you has an understanding of the whole text (approx. 1hr).
(On a shared Google document – for later inclusion)
Task 4 (3 hours)
GROUP ACTIVITY: As a group finalise your topic (approx. 30m). Mind-map what you already know about the topic, and what you might need to find out (approx. 1hr). Identify and record what strengths you each bring to your group, and how your project can draw on the different fields of art and design you are each interested in (approx. 1hr). Identify and record your research abilities, and how you might support each other (approx. 30m).
(On a shared Google document – for later inclusion)