Performing manaaki and New Zealand refugee theatre

ABSTRACT

In September 2015, and in response to the Syrian refugee crisis, there were widespread calls in New Zealand urging the Government to raise its annual Refugee Quota. Māori Party co-leader Marama Fox argued that New Zealand could afford to take on more refugees as part of its global citizenship and suggested that New Zealand’s policy might be shaped by manaaki. The Māori concept of manaaki is most often translated as hospitality, care-giving, and compassion. This article draws on recent Māori scholarship that also situates manaaki as a social justice concept through its focus on enhancing the dignity and rights of others. This article explores the potential implications of manaaki and the reciprocal understandings underscoring this term through a brief and preliminary analysis of New Zealand refugee theatre. The article provides a context to this analysis by providing a brief survey of refugee theatre productions staged in New Zealand in recent years. To what extent has manaaki shaped the theatre staged in Aotearoa/New Zealand engaging with asylum seekers and refugees? In what ways might manaaki provide for a different ‘envisioning of asylum’?

KEYWORDS:

• Refugee theatre
• New Zealand
• Kaupapa Māori

Acknowledgements

The author’s research for this paper has been informed by readings sourced through the university library, and more importantly, through conversations and consultations with Māori colleagues. Here, he would like to acknowledge Dr Valance Smith (Ngāpuhi, Waikato, and Ngāti Mahuta), Lecturer in Te Ara Poutama, the Faculty of Māori Development, at Auckland University of Technology who kindly shared his own understandings and knowledge of the term. He would also like to acknowledge the generosity and expertise of two of his Massey colleagues; Margaret Kawharu (Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei), Senior Māori Advisor at Massey University, and Dr Krushil Watene (Ngāti Manu and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei), Lecturer in Philosophy at Massey University, who have both guided his understanding and his research for this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Rand Hazou is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre at Massey University in Aotearoa/New Zealand. His research primarily explores the theatre and performance engaging with issues of social justice. His research on Asylum Seeker and Refugee Theatre has been published in a series of international journal articles. He has a developing research profile related to Palestinian theatre. An example of his research, exploring the rehearsals of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Palestinian students of the Drama Academy in Ramallah, is published in Research in Drama Education, 20 (2), 2015.

ORCID

Rand T. Hazou http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8753-072X

Notes

1 Under this quota system, New Zealand accepts people from overseas who have been recognized and mandated as refugees by the UNHCR. These are usually people who have been languishing in refugee camps overseas and have applied to the UNHCR for protection. The UNHCR assesses their claim against the 1951 Convention, and then petitions countries like New Zealand to resettle those they find meet the refugee definition. As well as these ‘quota refugees’, New Zealand also accepts ‘convention refugees’. This second group of people is asylum seekers who have applied for protection usually within the country and whose refugee status is then recognised by domestic authorities within New Zealand. A third group of refugees that the government also accepts are known as ‘family reunion refugees’ who have been sponsored by refugee family members already residing in New Zealand (Mortensen 2008, 5–6).

2 In June 2016, the New Zealand National Coalition Government acquiesced to public pressure and announced that it would increase the size of its annual Refugee Quota from 750 to 1000 places per year from 2018 (Wong and Gower 2016).

3 Shaun Tan’s graphic novel was also the basis for a production by the West Australian company Spare Parts Puppet Theatre in 2006. It was also adapted into London production in 2013 by Tamasha Theatre, which co-created by Kristine Landon-Smith and Sita Brahmachari.

4 My research for this paper has been informed by readings sourced through the university library, and more importantly, through conversations and consultations with Māori colleagues. Please refer to the Section ‘Acknowledgements’.

5 Signed in 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi is a founding document of New Zealand representing an agreement between the British Crown and about 540 Māori chiefs. The Treaty provided the basis for British governance while guaranteeing Māori rights and sovereignty. The principles of the Treaty are an attempt to address the historical abrogation of the Crown’s responsibility to Māori and allow the application of the Treaty in a contemporary context through enacting principles of partnership, reciprocity, autonomy, and active protection. See the Waitangi Tribunal website: www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz

6 Elsewhere I have explored examples of refugee theatre staged in New Zealand by theorising the notions ‘precarity’ and ‘the denizen’. See Hazou (2017).

7 Waitangi Tribunal website: https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/

8 Later this same year, Iti was among at least 17 people arrested by police under the Terrorism Suppression Act on 15 October 2007 in a series of controversial raids associated with a property near his home in the Ureweras, which the New Zealand police suspected was being used for paramilitary training.

9 Red Leap Website: http://redleaptheatre.co.nz/productions/the-arrival/

10 See the UNHCR website: http://www.unhcr.org/