Feminist Thought in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Connections and Differences

Edited by Rosemary Du Plessis and Lynne Alice,Oxford University Press

Sara Kindon
Institute of Geography
Victoria University of Wellington

I was pleased to receive a copy of this book to review because of my interests as a feminist geographer and community development practitioner. I attended its launch in Christchurch in May 1998. The editors, Rosemary Du Plessis and Lynne Alice, as well as various contributors from around the country, paid testimony to the enormous effort and commitment that went into creating this volume. These women also celebrated the productive and creative tensions that this collaborative endeavour had fostered in the contexts of their own lives and work. I was impressed with the integrity and practice of feminist politics which were demonstrated at this launch, and which had sought to reflect upon, and continue to effect, change through the writing and publication of this book.

On a more personal level, the opportunity to review this book also gave me time to reflect upon the life and work of one of my colleagues and a contributor who sadly is no longer with us: Nicola Armstrong. Nicola was a lecturer in Sociology at the time of the book’s launch last year and died shortly thereafter. She contributed a chapter with Rosemary Du Plessis on the complexities and practices of feminist research which reflected on her own work with the Society for Research on Women (SROW), and with self-employed women and men involved in home-based work using computers. Her writing demonstrated her rigour and clarity with respect to the practice of feminist research and a sensitivity for the importance of diverse life histories in sociological writing. She is missed.

As a collection of cross-disciplinary scholarship and political writing, Feminist Thought in Aotearoa/New Zealand: Connections and Differences is a remarkable achievement. It brings together forty-seven female contributors from around the country who are working mainly as lecturers and Ph.D. students in the social sciences and humanities, and also include a midwife, parliamentarian, public servant and community adviser. Four of these contributors identify as Māori and a range of others identify their ethnic and cultural heritage as an important element informing their personal experiences and professional engagements with feminist thought in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The authors provide strong contributions to the growing volume of feminist academic collections within this country.

The book is organised into an editors’ introduction and thirty-one chapters divided into four parts. In the introduction, the editors firmly ground the contributions within the context of Aotearoa/New Zealand. They argue that the issues of connection and difference which currently engage so many feminist theorists and activists have specific resonance within Aotearoa/New Zealand where there are similar debates concerning the nation state’s founding document, Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi), and the ongoing struggles to define the nature of relationships between Māori as tangata whenua (original inhabitants of the land) and the subsequent generations of immigrants from all over the world.

The volume’s four parts are arranged under the themes of: (1) Feminism, Colonialism, and the Politics of Difference; (2) Political Scholarship /Politicised Teaching; (3) Bodies, Sexualities, Identities; and (4) Politics and Policy. Each part begins with an editors’ introduction which outlines the main foci and arguments of the ensuing chapters’ presenters. These themes reflect important aspects of contemporary feminist thought and engagements with discourse analysis, post-structuralism, postcolonial and queer theory,  as well as feminist activism and reflections on the impacts of policy changes in recent years.

While the organisation of chapters into four parts appears to be a neat and orderly division, the editors are careful to point out that one of their aims is to subvert expectations of consistent style and format within, and across, these parts. Rather, they seek to "introduce the reader to alternative ways of presenting ideas, arguments, accounts of personal experience and political debate" (p.xviii) and to "disrupt assumptions about how knowledge should be presented" (p.xvii). Contributors exhibit a variety of writing styles to discuss academic theory, practical experiences, lived experiences, autobiographical accounts, research reports, and political activism. However, all remain firmly within the domain of the written word and we are not treated to any visual representations or engagements that might more effectively disrupt how academic knowledge should be presented.

The first part of the book consists of eight chapters (Laing and Coleman, McLeod arid Nola, Mohanram, Johnston, Jaber, Ip, Tupuola, and Wittmann) which focus on the complexity of connections and differences that arise out of colonialism, colonisation and immigration. In particular, the processes and implications of "othering"  for concepts and meanings associated with cultural identity, and the politics of land and language are explored by the contributors with respect to Māori and various immigrant women.

There are nine chapters in Part Two (Matahaere-Atariki, Middleton and Summers-Bremner, Carchidi, Pattison and Rosier, Tuhiwai-Smith, Armstrong and Du Plessis, Grace, Dupuis and Neale, and Court and Court) which explore feminist pedagogy and knowledge production. In particular, attention is paid to the importance of asking feminist questions and to the production of positioned narratives about research as a process, rather than to the identification of prescriptions of how to do research which might be labelled as feminist (p.67).

The third part engages with current debates about the need for multiple viewpoints rather than a common standpoint for an effective feminist vision, and the contradictory evidence that despite legislative and intellectual changes over the last decades, many women remain disadvantaged by structurally imposed discriminations (p.135). Through the course of seven chapters (Alice and friends, Ryan and Gavey, Longhurst and Johnston, Morton and Munford, Carryer and Rhodes, Tennant and Brookes, Star), contributors explore these tensions through the sites of differently abled and sized bodies, sexualities and media representations about identity.

The fourth and final part of seven chapters (Rei, Briar and Cheyne, Hyman, Wilson, Torrie and Jones, Bunkle, and Tully, Daellenbach and Guilliland) is perhaps the most relevant to readers of this journal. The contributors focus on political interventions, social and economic policy and the discourses surrounding equality and equity (p.l95). They explore the complex relationships between feminism as a political project and state structures and policies. Partnership is a key concept examined through the different lenses of Māori and non-Māori women as citizens of Aotearoa/New Zealand, equal employment opportunity (EEO) and welfare policies and through the relationships between midwives and the consumers of birthing services.

Interestingly and, I would argue, appropriately for a book of this kind, the editors offer no concluding chapter, final discussion, review of the book’s key themes or agenda for future research and practice. Such an editorial decision reflects their aim to reach "...an active, or interactive, reader who uses them [the essays] to spark their own ideas, read in certain fields, develop lines of argument, pose researchable questions, and pursue new pieces of information" (p.xviii). Consequently, the chapters stand independent of, yet related to, each other, and it is ultimately the reader who is left to decide upon the connections and differences (featured in the book’s title) most pertinent to their own interests.

With each chapter/essay being approximately seven pages in length, each contribution offers a potentially useful and manageable reading for students engaged in courses related to feminist studies, or busy bureaucrats with little time. There is no linear development of an argument to follow throughout the book, and no specific order or path of connections between the chapters themselves. The volume thus meets the editors’ aim of reaching an interactive reader, as it is the kind of book one can dip into and out of according to one’s time, energy and inclination.

Unfortunately, this strength is perhaps also the volume’s weakness. With an average of only seven pages per chapter/essay, there is little room for authors to fully develop some of their arguments and/or to provide richer details about their research and experiences. It is as if each contribution represents a tasty and well-crafted intellectual morsel reflecting considerable thought and commitment, but one that, ultimately, left me somewhat hungry for more. This may be particularly the case for other readers interested in the implications of feminist theory and research for policy and political change.

Putting my slight reservation aside and continuing the culinary metaphors, overall, the book presents a rich smorgasbord of feminist engagements with a wide range of issues and international debates in various arenas. Its exploration of the diversities among and between women is productive, and its focus on experiences intimately connected with Aotearoa/New Zealand is illuminating and useful. It will appeal particularly to academics and students involved in feminist and women’s studies teaching and research, but will also be of interest to those involved in policy and feminist activism beyond the academy.
 

References

Alice, L. and friends (1998) "Bodies, Sexualities, and Identities: A Conversation" in R. Du Plessis and L. Alice (eds.) Feminist Thought in Aotearoa New Zealand:
Connections and Differences, Oxford University Press, Auckland, pp.138—146.

Said, E. (1978) Orientalism, Random House, New York.

Young, I. (1992) "Together in difference: Transforming the logic of group political conflict" Political Theory Newsletter, 4:11—26.