Events
Monday, Feb. 18th, 2008
Ilana Gershon from Indiana University
Assistant Professor of Communication and Culture
"Being Explicit about Culture: Maori in the Neoliberal New Zealand Parliament"
4-5:15 p.m.
Sills 117
Open to the public
How do law makers use the concept of "culture" to understand the people they legislate for and about? In this talk, Professor Ilana Gershon will focus on recent debates within the New Zealand parliament about whether the indigenous Maori are a "cultural" group or a "racial group." A Westminister-style parliament, and legislators' neoliberal assumptions about identity, enable debates in which political parties argue that Maori are either cultural or racial but not both. For the ruling Labour Party and its allies, the Maori are a cultural group. For their opposition, the National Party and its allies, Maori are a racial group. Māori MPs currently belong to parties from all parts of the political spectrum, and their effectiveness as culture-bearers in a parliamentary context can disrupt the terms of this debate and complicate these political divisions.
The visit is co-sponsored by the departments of Sociology and Anthropology and Government