Submission by 5pm, Tue 26th October, 2021
Tasks for this assignment
Section A
Write a 200 word reflection on your group’s tool. You may wish to consider the following: What did you learn/begin to understand differently? If you were going to produce your tool commercially what ethical concerns might you address? Who benefits? What benefits are there? Who is your audience? Who might be included/excluded? What further research might be necessary if you were going to continue developing the tool? What changes would you make, having completed your prototype?
Section B
Write a 1000 word formal piece of writing that unpacks the key ideas of the topic your group has chosen, using course resources, and your own further research. You must include at least 3 resources appropriate to this level of study (i.e. from the Massey library, Google Scholar, etc.). In your discussion include 1-3 art/design examples related to your topic, with images, correctly captioned.
Notes
This may take the form of an essay, however you may wish to engage with other forms of writing appropriate to your topic (i.e. a report, a reflection, a poetic, or experimental response, and so on). Whatever form you choose, you must clearly engage with your resources, and correctly cite/reference these in MLA style.
Response
Section A
Our group chose Asian Aotearoa Histories as its topic. We narrowed this down to a more explicable subject, the early history of Chinese people in New Zealand, specifically the Otago gold rush period in the 19th century.
The tool our group developed is a zine incorporating each team member’s personal reinterpretation of a vintage photograph, specifically this one:
Alongside this, we briefly described the history of the Chinese diaspora, the consequent immigration into Aotearoa New Zealand, and the lives of those early immigrants.
Initially, I was unaware of the history of Chinese people in New Zealand. Their history has been interesting to consider alongside what I knew of European, principally British, immigration. Chinese people have gone through periods of state-sponsored discrimination in Aotearoa, in contrast to Europeans.
The concept of this tool – allowing each member of a group to bring their own practice to a single origin work – is something that could be reused elsewhere. It’s similar to a group exhibition in zine form. I feel it would work better if the group had more of a common story to tell, and formed as a result of that. I feel this would bring more coherence to the final product, and would also provide assurance that the group were all of like mind in terms of ethical presentation of their story.
Section B
Chinese people have been immigrating to Aotearoa New Zealand for over 150 years, with the first major influx occurring in the 1860s as labour for the newly discovered Otago gold fields.
From 1866 the goldfields of central Otago and Southland drew Chinese workers, with as many as 5,000 Chinese mining there for gold by the 1880s. Nearly all were from Guangdong province. Some came straight from China; others had been mining in Australia. They also had links with Chinese populations in North and South America and the Pacific Islands.
Taonga, New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu. Early Contacts with Asia. https://teara.govt.nz/en/asia-and-new-zealand/page-1. Accessed 13 Oct. 2021.
http://www.osca.org.nz/osca-supported-events-and-activities/local-chinese-history-heritage/guangdong-documentary-tv-film-crew-in-dunedin
https://natlib.govt.nz/items?i[collection_any_id]=520744&i[-category]=Groups
To be removed:
Write a 1000 word formal piece of writing that unpacks the key ideas of the topic your group has chosen, using course resources, and your own further research. You must include at least 3 resources appropriate to this level of study (i.e. from the Massey library, Google Scholar, etc.). In your discussion include 1-3 art/design examples related to your topic, with images, correctly captioned.