title: New Zealand regions, 1986 – 2001: Hospitalisation and some related health facts

authors: Pool, Ian

subjects: health

abstract: Once age and gender composition is controlled for, regional health differentials are a function of problems of health service delivery, of socio-economic variance, and overall Māori Pakeha health differences. They indicate relative levels of exclusion and of inequality. This paper shows that these differentials follow in general the patterns seen in other papers in this series.

text: New Zealand regions, 1986 – 2001: Hospitalisation and some related health facts Once age and gender composition is controlled for, regional health differentials are a function of problems of health service delivery, of socio-economic variance, and overall Māori Pakeha health differences. They indicate relative levels of exclusion and of inequality. This paper shows that these differentials follow in general the patterns seen in other papers in this series.

year: 2006-03

title: Processes of Pakeha change in response to the Treaty of Waitangi

authors: Huygens, Ingrid Louise Maria

subjects: Pakeha change

abstract: The sense of crisis that marks our times may be seen as a crisis for dominant groups whose once-secure hegemony is being challenged by marginalised others. It is in theorising the reply from the dominant group to the voices of the oppressed that existing Western conceptions of social change fall silent. The dominant Pakeha group in Aotearoa New Zealand has used discourses of benign colonisation and harmonious race relations to resist 165 years of communication from indigenous Māori about their oppression and a dishonoured treaty for settlement. My research documents the appearance of the Treaty of Waitangi into the Pakeha consciousness, and the now 30 year-long response by a Pakeha antiracism movement to educate their own cultural group about its agreements. Targeting government, community and social services organisations, activist educators used Freire's (1975) approach of conscientising dialogue to present a more critical view of colonisation, and to encourage participants to consider the complicity of their organisations in ongoing structural and cultural racism.

Based on my membership of local and national networks of activist educators, I was able to organise and facilitate data gathering from three sources to investigate processes of Pakeha change in: (i) unpublished material describing the antiracism and Treaty movement's historical theorising and strategies over 30 years, (ii) a country-wide process of co-theorising among contemporary Treaty educator groups about their work and perceived influence, and (iii) a collection of organisational accounts of Treaty-focused change. The collected records confirmed that a coherent anti-colonial discourse, which I have termed 'Pakeha honouring the Treaty', was in use to construct institutional and constitutional changes in non-government organisations. My interpretation of key elements in a local theory of transforming action included emotional responses to counter-cultural information, collective work for cultural and institutional change and practising a mutually agreed relationship with Māori. I concluded that these emotional, collective and relationship processes in dominant group change were crucial in helping to construct the new conceptual resources of 'affirming Māori authority' and 'striving towards a right relationship with Māori'. These counter-colonial constructions allowed Pakeha a non-resistant and facilitative response to Māori challenge, and enabled a dialogue with Māori about decolonisation. 

By examining in one research programme the genealogy and interdependencies of a new discourse, my research contributes to theorising about the production of new, counter-hegemonic discourses, and confirms the crucial part played by social movements in developing new, liberatory constructions of the social order.

My research calls for further theory-building on (i) emotional and spiritual aspects of transformational learning, (ii) processes involved in consciously-undertaken cultural change by dominant/coloniser groups, and (iii) practising of mutually agreed relationships with indigenous peoples by dominant/coloniser groups. 

My research has implications for theorising how coloniser and dominant groups generally may participate in liberatory social change and decolonisation work, and  the part played by the Western states in the global struggles by indigenous people for recognition of their world-views and aspirations.  

It remains to be seen whether counter-colonial discourses and organisational changes aimed at 'honouring the Treaty' with indigenous peoples will be sufficiently widely adopted to help transform Western dominating cultures and colonial projects. In the meantime, acknowledging and documenting these counter-colonial discourses and their constructions opens up increasing possibilities for constructing, from a history of colonisation, a different future.

text: Processes of Pakeha change in response to the Treaty of Waitangi The sense of crisis that marks our times may be seen as a crisis for dominant groups whose once-secure hegemony is being challenged by marginalised others. It is in theorising the reply from the dominant group to the voices of the oppressed that existing Western conceptions of social change fall silent. The dominant Pakeha group in Aotearoa New Zealand has used discourses of benign colonisation and harmonious race relations to resist 165 years of communication from indigenous Māori about their oppression and a dishonoured treaty for settlement. My research documents the appearance of the Treaty of Waitangi into the Pakeha consciousness, and the now 30 year-long response by a Pakeha antiracism movement to educate their own cultural group about its agreements. Targeting government, community and social services organisations, activist educators used Freire's (1975) approach of conscientising dialogue to present a more critical view of colonisation, and to encourage participants to consider the complicity of their organisations in ongoing structural and cultural racism.

Based on my membership of local and national networks of activist educators, I was able to organise and facilitate data gathering from three sources to investigate processes of Pakeha change in: (i) unpublished material describing the antiracism and Treaty movement's historical theorising and strategies over 30 years, (ii) a country-wide process of co-theorising among contemporary Treaty educator groups about their work and perceived influence, and (iii) a collection of organisational accounts of Treaty-focused change. The collected records confirmed that a coherent anti-colonial discourse, which I have termed 'Pakeha honouring the Treaty', was in use to construct institutional and constitutional changes in non-government organisations. My interpretation of key elements in a local theory of transforming action included emotional responses to counter-cultural information, collective work for cultural and institutional change and practising a mutually agreed relationship with Māori. I concluded that these emotional, collective and relationship processes in dominant group change were crucial in helping to construct the new conceptual resources of 'affirming Māori authority' and 'striving towards a right relationship with Māori'. These counter-colonial constructions allowed Pakeha a non-resistant and facilitative response to Māori challenge, and enabled a dialogue with Māori about decolonisation. 

By examining in one research programme the genealogy and interdependencies of a new discourse, my research contributes to theorising about the production of new, counter-hegemonic discourses, and confirms the crucial part played by social movements in developing new, liberatory constructions of the social order.

My research calls for further theory-building on (i) emotional and spiritual aspects of transformational learning, (ii) processes involved in consciously-undertaken cultural change by dominant/coloniser groups, and (iii) practising of mutually agreed relationships with indigenous peoples by dominant/coloniser groups. 

My research has implications for theorising how coloniser and dominant groups generally may participate in liberatory social change and decolonisation work, and  the part played by the Western states in the global struggles by indigenous people for recognition of their world-views and aspirations.  

It remains to be seen whether counter-colonial discourses and organisational changes aimed at 'honouring the Treaty' with indigenous peoples will be sufficiently widely adopted to help transform Western dominating cultures and colonial projects. In the meantime, acknowledging and documenting these counter-colonial discourses and their constructions opens up increasing possibilities for constructing, from a history of colonisation, a different future.

year: 2007

title: Gender identity change efforts faced by trans and nonbinary people in New Zealand: Associations with demographics, family rejection, internalized transphobia, and mental health.

authors: Veale, Jaimie

abstract: Based on their transphobic assumption that being transgender or nonbinary is pathological or otherwise undesirable, gender identity change efforts (GICE) attempt to make a person’s gender conform with their sex assigned at birth. While many professional bodies have noted that GICE practices are unethical, there has been little empirical research into the prevalence and correlates of GICE exposure. Counting Ourselves: The Aotearoa New Zealand Trans and Nonbinary Health Survey is a community-based study, which participants completed mostly online. Out of 610 participants who had ever spoken to a health professional about their gender, 19.7%, 95% CI [16.6%, 23.1%], reported GICE exposure, and a further 9.3% [7.2%, 11.9%] did not know. GICE exposure was higher among younger participants. Participants with GICE exposure were more likely than those without such exposure to report psychological distress, nonsuicidal self-injury, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts (e.g., suicidal ideation OR = 2.39). GICE partially mediated the effect of family rejection on mental health, and internalized transphobia partially mediated the effect of GICE on mental health. These correlates between GICE and mental health replicate recent findings from the U.S. Trans Survey, and the mediation analyses help to understand potential causal mechanisms underlying these correlations. Although our findings are limited by being a convenience sample, they are consistent with the hypothesis that GICE exposure is harmful to transgender or nonbinary people’s mental health. Moreover, these findings support moves by many professional bodies to emphasize that GICE is unethical and the legal steps taken by a growing number of jurisdictions to ban such practices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

text: Gender identity change efforts faced by trans and nonbinary people in New Zealand: Associations with demographics, family rejection, internalized transphobia, and mental health. Based on their transphobic assumption that being transgender or nonbinary is pathological or otherwise undesirable, gender identity change efforts (GICE) attempt to make a person’s gender conform with their sex assigned at birth. While many professional bodies have noted that GICE practices are unethical, there has been little empirical research into the prevalence and correlates of GICE exposure. Counting Ourselves: The Aotearoa New Zealand Trans and Nonbinary Health Survey is a community-based study, which participants completed mostly online. Out of 610 participants who had ever spoken to a health professional about their gender, 19.7%, 95% CI [16.6%, 23.1%], reported GICE exposure, and a further 9.3% [7.2%, 11.9%] did not know. GICE exposure was higher among younger participants. Participants with GICE exposure were more likely than those without such exposure to report psychological distress, nonsuicidal self-injury, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts (e.g., suicidal ideation OR = 2.39). GICE partially mediated the effect of family rejection on mental health, and internalized transphobia partially mediated the effect of GICE on mental health. These correlates between GICE and mental health replicate recent findings from the U.S. Trans Survey, and the mediation analyses help to understand potential causal mechanisms underlying these correlations. Although our findings are limited by being a convenience sample, they are consistent with the hypothesis that GICE exposure is harmful to transgender or nonbinary people’s mental health. Moreover, these findings support moves by many professional bodies to emphasize that GICE is unethical and the legal steps taken by a growing number of jurisdictions to ban such practices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

year: 2021