When Pākehā Feminism Met the Movement for Māori Sovereignty, 1975–1990

Abstract

This thesis explores significant but little-known alliances between Pākehā (settler/New Zealand European) and Māori (Indigenous) women around the Māori sovereignty movement in Aotearoa New Zealand. It focuses on the febrile 1980s, a period marked by the Māori Renaissance (an enduring era of Indigenous revitalisation), nationwide anti-racist protest, and ill-fated experiments with neoliberalism. Given the fissures exposed within the women’s movement from the late 1970s, this period is said to have been one of increasing feminist insularity or disintegration. Revealing how and why different Pākehā feminists allied with the Māori sovereignty movement, this thesis explores an untold history of Aotearoa through case studies of women working together to produce a range of texts. These groups and their publications aimed to unsettle New Zealand history through a decolonial feminist lens. In the process, they transformed one another, as well as broader socio-political structures. Geographically, this thesis focuses on feminist collectives based in the urban centres of Auckland and Wellington. From the nationally roving imprint of Spiral (1975–present) to the promotion of Māori women’s literature at the inaugural International Feminist Book Fair in London (1984), this thesis also analyses Māori-Pākehā collaborative work further afield. Beyond these places, this thesis is primarily organised around writing and publishing as spaces of feminist praxis. From periodicals to comics, feminist publishing has provided one of the most productive spaces for Māori women to exercise intellectual and political sovereignty. However, the extent and variety of Pākehā feminist support for Māori sovereignty is not well understood. Māori and Pākehā women did work together, often, and with significant results. In the world of print, close readings of a few salient examples suggest the counter-narrative: first, the radical feminist periodical, bitches, witches, & dykes (1980–1982), which held space for the articulation of the Black women’s movement; second, the concealed role of Pākehā Marxist feminists in the publication of Donna Awatere’s landmark manifesto, Maori Sovereignty (1984); third, the award-winning publications of the Spiral Collective and its sister collectives; and finally, Kia Mataara (1989–1990), graphic novels produced by the Kia Mōhio Kia Mārama Trust to share a Māori account of New Zealand history. Drawing on oral history interviews with core activist-intellectuals, their personal papers, archival research, and a wide range of publications, this thesis offers a history of feminist publishing that acknowledges the generative power of both interpersonal relationships and ‘bad feelings’. Each chapter shows Pākehā and Māori women working together to shape versions of feminism and political engagement appropriate to this place. By tracing these patterns of call and response—the karanga (ceremonial calling) between women in Māori custom—this thesis observes the dialogical formation of Pākehā feminism. Complicating the narrative of doomed intersectionality within the women’s movement, these case studies illuminate reciprocity, showing both the significant impact of Māori women on the Pākehā feminist movement and the extent of Pākehā women’s solidarity with Māori feminisms.