white settler assertions of native status

Abstract

The anthropology of postcolonialism has tended to neglect or homogenize the varied expressions of cultural and national identity of British settler descendants. Against the backdrop of research with white settler descendants who farm large Crown pastoral lease properties in the South Island high country of New Zealand, this article examines evidence they presented before the Waitangi Tribunal about their attachment to land as a politicized expression of belonging, of one set of Pakeha voices. It analyzes how high country runholders speak about and symbolically construct belonging and suggests that the high country landscape is a central metaphor in the conceptual systems of its inhabitants, providing them with a way of thinking about their cultural distinctiveness within the arena of contestations in the meanings of cultural identities defined by the Waitangi Tribunal. [postcolonial settler identity, New Zealand high country, land claims, sheep station life, anthropology of place]

Political Geographies of Lobbying: Canberra within Australian politics

“…Accordingly, a political geographic metis of Canberra formed an important part of the professional identity of lobbyists interviewed. Echoing the localised knowledges that, for example, farmers and farming interests often claim of their farms of soil, climate, relief, and so on (Dominy 1995), lobbyists likewise saw their political knowledge in terms of a spatialised expertise, localised in Canberra within Australia. It was through this expert political and spatial knowledge that lobbyists imagined that they were useful to their employers at an interest group, or a lobbying firm and its clients.…”

Diasporic and Transnational Social Practices in Central Asia

“…As noted by Akiner (2005, 54–60), parallels may be drawn between British colonial legacies and those of the Soviet Union. An important legacy shared by both is what Michelle Dominy (1995) calls ‘white settler assertions of native status.’ This relates to the Russian contribution to the development of the region. Andrew Burghardt contends that concepts of ‘autochthoneity’ and ‘indigeneity’ are bound up with principles of ‘priority’ and ‘duration’ (Burghardt 1973, 230).…”

“…As noted by Akiner (2005, 54-60), parallels may be drawn between British colonial legacies and those of the Soviet Union. An important legacy shared by both is what Michelle Dominy (1995) calls 'white settler assertions of native status.' This relates to the Russian contribution to the development of the region.…”

Maintaining Whiteness: The Fear of Others and Niceness

“…In this article I link two ways of maintaining whiteness and white privilege employed by gated communities residents in the surrounding suburbs of New York City and San Antonio, Texas. The first, the fear of others, is well documented in the anthropological literature but not as a strategy for maintaining whiteness in the built environment (Brodkin 2000; Dominy 1995; Fine et al 2004; Low 2003). The second, the desire for “niceness,” is a relatively new construct that focuses on the way people make moral and aesthetic judgments to control their social and physical environments and defend their white privilege (Duncan and Duncan 2004; Hartigan, 2009; Low 2003).…”