Rangatiratanga and immigration: A deconstruction of the government as the sole host, 1987-2012

Abstract

This thesis examines public discourses on immigration and rangatiratanga through the lens of an immigrant. It analyses Māori viewpoints on immigration, how they are covered in media, and the reiteration of the government as the sole host. The analysis includes media publications, both mainstream and Māori, speeches, and press releases, and covers a timeframe from 1987, the year of the fundamental change from a race-based to a skill-based immigration policy, to 2012. The research is embedded in a poststructuralist framework, drawing on Derrida’s approach of hospitality as a deconstruction of the sovereign host, and his figure of the spectre, as a signpost for injustices of the past. The findings revealed fundamentally different viewpoints on immigration between Māori and non-Māori, both in the data and in immigration research literature. Tāngata whenua consider they are the first host and the Treaty of Waitangi is the first immigration policy for European settlers. The experience of colonial immigration, the usurpation of tikanga and the loss of rangatiratanga, is still haunting as a spectre evident in the fear of being outnumbered, and informs Māori views on immigration. Throughout the timespan covered, Māori leaders voiced their desire to be included in immigration policy decision-making. While the government refuses to share sovereignty and the hosting of immigrants, Māori practice manaakitanga towards immigrants and support the teaching of the Treaty of Waitangi to them. This is interpreted as an act of hosting and thus sovereignty. Mainstream media, however, largely ignore Māori claims, nor does the majority of coverage include a Māori perspective on immigration. The context of the colonial spectre is omitted, and Māori viewpoints are personalised, dramatized, and “bad news”, as coverage of three recent events demonstrate. The position of the government as sole host and sovereign is also reiterated in viewpoints of government agents, despite the recognition of colonial immigration. However, the acknowledgement of Māori as first host opens the possibility for a different view in the future. Overall, I argue that debates on immigration involve sovereignty issues and can be supportive in unblocking access to the colonial past of Aotearoa New Zealand.