Official Statements and Open Letters published by ASAA/NZ

Statement on the abolition of Marsden Fund Humanities and Social Science panels (6 December 2024)

Open Letter to the Coalition Government of Aotearoa New Zealand (22 August 2024)

Open Letter to Aotearoa New Zealand Political Leaders in Solidarity with Palestine (29 October 2023)

Declaration of Climate Emergency (December 2020)

The Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa/New Zealand (ASAA/NZ) is dismayed by the government’s decision to abolish the Marsden Fund’s Social Sciences and Humanities panels. We are deeply concerned by the extent this will set back the affected disciplines and New Zealand’s research environment as a whole. We ask that this arbitrary decision be reversed with immediate effect.

It is particularly alarming that the decision was taken in total absence of public consultation, with no evidence to support the implication that social science and humanities research does not contribute to “enhancing New Zealand's quality of life” (Collins, 4 Dec 2024).

The sweeping measures will have multiple, rippling effects. They eliminate the principal source of contestable research funding for a vast array of disciplines crucial to the betterment of our society. Social sciences and humanities research illuminates human behaviour, cultural diversity, history, demographics, politics, social cohesion and much more. It contributes to policy decision making at all levels and stimulates informed, intelligent public debate.

Many thousands of articles and hundreds of books accessible to the public have been researched, written and published with support from Marsden Fund humanities and social science grants. For example, over the past few years these include titles on biological economies, truth and reconciliation processes in the Pacific, and new Chinese immigrants in New Zealand. These are by researchers “who are looking to create a better country for us all” (Collins, 4 Dec, 2024). To stem the flow of such work is a disservice to our nation.

For decades, the Marsden Fund has been the gold standard of research funding in the social sciences and humanities, involving multiple levels of peer review to ensure that research proposals meet rigorous local and global academic standards. The threat to this funding source will seriously jeopardise New Zealand’s standing and competitiveness in the international research community. It will also lead to a decline in research-led teaching, impacting the quality of education that tertiary students receive. This is not only a disservice to our national student body but will also have consequences for the attractiveness of New Zealand universities to international students. In addition, many graduate students in the social sciences and humanities have benefited from scholarships derived from Marsden grants. To close off this mentoring and supervisory pathway stifles the next generation of scholars.

ASAA/NZ is especially concerned about the impact of the changes on Māori research and the reframing of research value as one attuned solely to economic growth and scientific pragmatism. The core issues we face as a society – from ensuring an effectively running health system to addressing climate change – are complex and require diverse disciplinary perspectives. Technological fixes alone cannot solve societal problems. Understanding human behaviours, systems, cultures, norms and actions is essential. Indeed, to prioritise a purely economic or scientific disciplinary approach, is to misunderstand how contemporary research and researchers operate as well as to misconstrue the modern world and human experience.

We implore the government to rethink and reverse its decision.

(View the pdf of the open letter here)

22 August 2024

Since the new coalition government gained power in November 2023, we have witnessed a relentless assault on Māori institutions, culture, Te Tiriti o Waitangi rights, aspirations for sovereignty, co-governance arrangements, and people. As an organisation representing academics and students in Anthropology in Aotearoa New Zealand, we cannot remain silent while this attack on Indigenous peoples continues. ASAA/NZ unequivocally: 1) condemns the reactionary approach to Māori people adopted by the current coalition government; 2) affirms its support for the right of academics, students, and other citizens to oppose this regression; and 3) calls for the government to urgently halt its threat to Tangata Whenua and marginalised communities in Aotearoa New Zealand.

ASAA/NZ notes with apprehension the current coalition government’s appeals to populism –  an international reactionary politics focused on blaming migrants and marginalised communities for policy failures. In Aotearoa, this trend is most explicit in attacks on Māori, attempts to undermine the Waitangi Tribunal, and criticisms of the competency and functioning of the judiciary. It is also apparent in cabinet ministers’ pronouncements that “we are all Kiwis,” a standardisation that denies cultural diversity and the violence of colonial histories. We note that the Waitangi Tribunal has international recognition, and that its work over the last half century is strongly implicated in Aotearoa New Zealand’s reputation as progressive in its advancement of Indigenous reparations and rights. The current government’s turn towards populism damages this global standing by appealing to race-based politics and by repeating colonial patterns of discrimination.

ASAA/NZ is concerned with this government’s move to dismantle hard won aspects of social welfare provision, health initiatives, educational policies, and the revitalization of Māori language and culture. We are also concerned with the move to negate hard won environmental regulations, policies and protections in a misguided attempt to generate economic growth in an era of environmental demise. We note that these assaults are particularly devastating to Māori whose collective action over decades has afforded many of the progressive environmental and social policies New Zealanders enjoy.

As scholars and students of Anthropology, we know that governance regimes which target Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups in lieu of progressive policies, exacerbate lines of inequality, undermine democracy, and generate social unrest. While the voice of ASAA/NZ may be a small one, we raise our concerns here in the interests of upholding the ethos of equality, fairness and generosity that Aotearoa New Zealand, at its best, represents.

Signed,
The Executive Committee, on behalf of the Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa New Zealand

(View the pdf of the open letter here)

29 October 2023

AN OPEN LETTER TO AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND POLITICAL LEADERS

The Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa/New Zealand, as a community of researchers, academics, educators, and students, call on New Zealand political leaders to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to Israel’s military assault on the peoples of Palestine.

As a discipline that is intellectually and politically concerned with settler colonialism, structural violence, racism and apartheid, we oppose in the strongest terms the state of Israel’s brutal oppression of Palestinian peoples and its unlawful occupation of Palestinian lands. As people trained to understand the workings of occupation, land theft, and power, we recognise the current conflict as part of a much more enduring series of injustices against Palestinians. 

We also recognise that framing the violent decimation of Palestinian families as Israel’s “right to defend itself” obscures this history of colonial occupation and conflict, and denies the escalating severity of Israel’s military force on Gazans this past fortnight. The language selected to describe violence enables different possibilities for action and care. We call on our political leaders and media to address what is happening in clear and accurate terms.   

The world is witnessing an internationally sanctioned genocide. We stand in solidarity with Palestinians, and we ask our leaders to do the same. Over and above the ‘humanitarian pause’ already called for, we urge you to demand an immediate ceasefire, and commit long term to supporting the liberation of Palestinian people. Locally, we also wish to add volume to the calls for support and security that Islamic and Jewish communities have made, in relation to threats that these communities have received in Aotearoa. 

We encourage others in our communities in Aotearoa to continue to educate themselves about the historic and current violent consequences of Israel’s expansive occupation of Palestine, to communicate with their local representatives, and to attend events that are accessible to them where these concerns are vocalised. 

Signed,
The Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa New Zealand

December 2020

We, the members of ASAA/NZ, recognise the importance of human beings throughout history coming together in times of crisis to confront threats to their societies, their wellbeing and their environment. Today the greatest existential threat confronting humans everywhere is the climate crisis, which we ourselves are largely responsible for creating. In order to envision and attain a sustainable future, we must acknowledge the need for collective action. To that end, we as an organisation join others in declaring a climate emergency. In so doing, we pledge individually and collectively to work towards addressing the grave crisis confronting the climate and humans globally.

We see this as particularly important in this present moment as we imagine a post-COVID world. It is crucial that post-COVID recovery is grounded in a politics of sustainability and that any progress made ensures climate action stays front and centre.

As Anthropologists we know well the interdependencies between the environment, livelihoods, culture (variously understood), politics, and everyday life. To ignore the increasingly dire conditions under which we are living and to which our institutions and we as individuals are contributing, is no longer an option. The time for urgent action is now.

Through this declaration, we thus hope to highlight the mutually exacerbating effects of:

• extractive economic practices, their contribution to climate change and adverse impacts on livelihoods;

• people being made climate refugees;

• intensifying inequality;

• the threat to women’s reproductive rights and wellbeing in light of ‘overpopulation’ discourses and policies;

• the loss of homes, coastal communities and farms that are threatened by drought, flooding or sea level rise;

• the material and existential threat to children, childhood and young people;

• the threat to food systems;

• the loss of biological diversity;

• the threat to marine and freshwater environments and life; and

• local economies struggling to adapt to climate impacts.

In particular, while drafting this declaration from Aotearoa New Zealand, we recognise the role of Indigenous knowledge and ownership of land, sea and other natural resources in protecting biodiversity and mitigating species decline. We are also keenly aware of human wellbeing through our own trans-Pacific connections and local experiences of the climate crisis.

As social scientists, we recognise that the climate crisis is the outcome of institutional as well as individual behaviour, and that we cannot continue with ‘business as usual.’ We believe that actions to avoid threatened catastrophe must come from institutions, corporations, politicians as well as adaptations in lifestyles.

At the 2019 annual conference of Aotearoa’s anthropologists in Whāingaroa (Raglan), Waikato, we agreed that, as an organisation, we needed to respond to the climate crisis. A formal declaration of a climate emergency was unanimously ratified and approved by the ASAA/NZ membership at its November 2020 AGM.

The call for Climate Emergency by ASAA/NZ was drafted by (in alphabetical order):

Courtney Addison
Nayantara Sheoran Appleton (Media Liaison)
Lyn Carter
Pauline Herbst
Jane Horan
Terrence Loomis (Co-Chair)
Sally McAra
Fiona McCormack (Co-Chair)