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KōtuituiNew Zealand Journal of Social Sciences OnlineBook reviewsDisputed Histories: Imagining New Zealand’s Pasts edited by Tony Ballantyne and Brian Moloughney. University of Otago Press, Dunedin. 2006. 283 p. NZ$49.95 (paperback). ISBN 1877276161. In recent years New Zealand’s “national” history has been progressively re-examined by historians keen to deploy current critical scholarly concepts. Two other edited collections of essays, The Gendered Kiwi (Daley & Montgomerie 1999) and Fragments (Dalley & Labrum 2000), are both examples of this type of exciting reconceptualisation of the national sphere. Here, Ballantyne and Moloughney are keen to assert the place of their volume within a still-growing “methodological diversification” of New Zealand historiography (p. 13). The introduction to this book is an engaging overview of the scholarly context for the essays it contains. By the 1980s, both the discipline and the content of “New Zealand history” was “constrained”, as Ballantyne and Moloughney point out (p. 9). In that atmosphere, social history—and with it, feminist history—became a beacon for new historians in universities. Significant bodies of work, particularly by feminist scholars, and new debates about the meanings of New Zealand society as witnessed by evidence from “the past”, began to shape a new historical content and set of approaches. At the same time, the new, critical interpretations of “race” relations influenced future decades of research and thinking about New Zealand history through bicultural frameworks. Ballantyne and Moloughney also bring together scholars who collectively reflect on the contribution of one historian, Erik Olssen. Their hope is that the essays set out to consciously interrogate the “limits of national history” (p. 22) and also consider new archives and “sites of historical enquiry” (p. 23). While the result is not a “disruptive” or particularly daring reconsideration of national history, as suggested in its introduction, the book does open up some areas of discussion about how such a reconsideration might unfold. The book’s chapters explore four discernible and interconnected themes, although these are not explicitly identified by the editors. Three chapters link pre-histories to post-colonial history by re-examining colonial sites for historical analysis: Anderson, Reilly, and Ballantyne and Moloughney offer accounts of worlds not so much “past” as newly retrieved. The essay by the editors, “Asia in Murihiku”, takes up the important recent work of scholars including Peter Gibbons in revisioning New Zealand’s past within a “world” economic and cultural context. The theme of “collisions” is expressed through chapters by Binney and Thomson on marriage and intermarriage, and the colonial frontier. Both chapters pattern the continuing interest in “private” life that social history pioneered, but also borrow from the insights of scholars of colonialism. Recent work by Angela Wanhalla and others (as the editors also note) should be read alongside the Binney piece. Thomson’s essay should be understood less as demographic history and more as an interesting reflection on the question of “frontier” histories. Two chapters then raise exciting questions about historical methodologies and theoretical frameworks. Dalley’s chapter, Chance Residues, which focuses on utilising photographic sources, is one of only a handful of scholarly pieces by historians in the international context on this important topic, despite the widespread use of visual sources among historians for decades. This chapter is already being devoured by graduate students because it positions and explores a reading method which is at once “usual” and under-examined. Dalley’s choice of photographic material is inspired, and raises questions not only about accessing “histories from below”, but also about examining material culture as source material. The essay also reflects on reading the self-conscious imagery of “nation”. Also “illustrated”, Barbara Brookes uses feminist historical methods, as well as the theoretical framework of gender, to introduce another reading of New Zealand’s engagement with international trends in political and social change. Again, as Dalley asserts, “looking alone will not suffice” (p. 189), and here Brookes unpacks both the visual and linguistic representations of Germaine Greer visiting Auckland in the 1970s. Language was important: Brookes concludes that women were no longer concerned to “be polite” or to censor themselves, and a change in social and gender relations ensued (p. 213). Finally, two of the most established, senior social historians in this gathering, Miles Fairburn and Olssen himself, comment on the state of New Zealand history: in Fairburn’s case, by examining the case for “exceptionalism”; and in Olssen’s, through an interview which reflects on a lifetime’s historical career. I found Olssen’s comments about post-structuralist history, and world history, somewhat at odds with my own conceptions of their importance and influences: in the case of world history, Olssen seems to suggest that students need “macro” perspectives, but it is also possible, as other authors here show, to explore histoire croisee from different vantage points and with rich results, particularly in the colonial setting. Overall, the different views in this collection of ideas about how “history” might be “imagined” offer stimulus and reflection. However, this is not, arguably, a “re-imagining” of historical work. The collection is home to established historians, not “new” and emerging scholars. The “disputed histories” in the title is provocative rather than controversial in its realisation. Ballantyne and Moloughney are right, then, to reflect on the “angles of vision” this collection offers its readers. It will be interesting to see how the forthcoming New Oxford History of New Zealand is received by 2010, after several years of attempts by academic historians to challenge the public, received wisdom about New Zealand’s history and its purpose through collections such as this one. REFERENCESDaley C, Montgomery D 1999. The gendered kiwi. Auckland, Auckland University Press. Dalley B, Labrum B 2000. Fragments: New Zealand social and cultural history. Auckland, Auckland University Press.
CATHARINE COLEBORNE Historical Frictions: Maori Claims and Reinvented Histories by Michael Belgrave. Auckland University Press, Auckland. 2005. 388 p. NZ$49.95 (paperback). ISBN 1869403207. Dr Michael Belgrave’s book Historical Frictions has, as its central thesis, the idea that Waitangi Tribunal inquiries should be placed in the context of previous commissions of inquiry and “settlements” of Maori claims. By defining the term “claim” to include Maori assertions of customary rights in land, he includes nineteenth-century inquiries like the Spain Commission and the Native Land Court as relevant fora in which history has been interpreted as evidence in a “court”. This enables a much wider analysis than if matters had been restricted to inquiries like the Smith-Nairn and Sim Commissions, which were investigations into grievances. As Treaty claims have come to focus more on the Crown’s treatment of customary rights as between Maori—choosing winners and losers, as it were—the Tribunal needs to be placed squarely in both title-award and grievance-investigation contexts. From this starting point, Belgrave develops a thesis that each generation recasts its history to achieve victory in the particular legal fora available to it. For the current generation, this means directing oral and written history to the task of demonstrating that Crown actions have breached the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. While acknowledging the contribution of historians, both as Tribunal members and witnesses, Belgrave accepts the positions of Bill Oliver and Giselle Byrnes that the end result is sometimes ahistorical, reading contemporary standards back into the past in order to achieve a political outcome today. The meat of this book comes with Dr Belgrave’s detailed analysis of the historical evidence presented to the Tribunal in four key inquiries, and an assessment of how the Tribunal dealt with that evidence in its reports. The result is an impressive work of scholarship. This is the first book to engage in so much detail with the practice of history in this particular “court” setting. Although the result could have been very dry, Dr Belgrave has written a readable and fascinating account of the cut-and-thrust of these historical debates. Underlying the discussion is a comparison of the historical narratives presented by previous generations to earlier inquiries. The resultant analysis of the Tribunal’s practice and reports ought to be a starting point for serious debate. In developing arguments about the “timelessness” of Treaty principles and the Tribunal’s jurisdiction, Belgrave pays too little attention to the requirement that the Tribunal consider what was reasonable in the circumstances of the time. It is here, in particular, that Tribunals rely heavily on historians and historical analysis. Belgrave argues, for example, that the Ngai Tahu Tribunal relied on modern understandings when it considered the tribe’s reserves (10 acres a head) to be obviously and unfairly deficient. Crown officials of the time, he notes, may not have considered their actions ungenerous. Considering this view in the context of the 1840s, however, the New Zealand Company had proposed to reserve one-tenth of Maori land. Governor FitzRoy adopted that standard when he waived pre-emption in 1844. Governor Grey himself sometimes made large reserves (compared to the tiny Ngai Tahu reserves) on the stated grounds that the nature of Maori farming and resource-use required it. It is arguable that by these standards of the time, the Ngai Tahu Tribunal’s findings are grounded in the historical context. As Belgrave points out, the value judgements of each generation will focus on whether the Crown made “good” or “bad” policy decisions. It may be counter-factual to argue the likely results of any path not taken, but Belgrave (in common with other historians) sets out the possibilities that were considered at the time. In doing so, he demonstrates a strong defence against ahistorical analysis. In the Taranaki case, Dr Belgrave suggests that the Tribunal has posited a counter-factual utopia in which the Crown could have recognised Maori autonomy, when such recognition was in fact impossible. This is a critical question for Treaty claims and also for historians, many of whom differ from Belgrave on this point. Authorities as diverse as Alan Ward (A Show of Justice), Vincent O’Malley (Agents of Autonomy) and Keith Sinclair (Kinds of Peace), show the possibilities considered in the nineteenth century for incorporating Maori runanga, and even the Kingitanga, as institutions with legal powers in the machinery of the State. Dr Belgrave’s strongly argued analysis of the Taranaki Report would repay detailed debate. Caution is required, however, in accepting his assessment of the Rekohu Report. He focuses entirely on the debate over customary interests, and the Crown’s treatment of those interests. This leads him to the conclusion that Ngati Mutunga’s claims have been rejected, and that in doing so the Tribunal mirrors the actions of previous “courts” by handing on a fresh grievance to new generations. There may be some truth to this, but Dr Belgrave’s account of the inquiry and report omits the evidence about the 10-owner rule, which he suggests had “little relationship to the issues on the Chathams” (p. 309). A significant part of the Rekohu Report is in fact devoted to Ngati Mutunga’s claim that the 10-owner rule and Maori title systems were in serious breach of the Treaty, and caused them serious prejudice—claims which the Tribunal has upheld. A more balanced assessment of this report would also show that aspects of both Moriori and Ngati Mutunga’s claims—about historical provision of services, for example, or conservation policies—were rejected by the Tribunal. But in making these points, I would not want to detract from the overall achievement and scholarship displayed in this important book. It raises vital issues about historiography in the Tribunal process that require further attention and debate.
GRANT PHILLIPSON New Zealand Identities: Departures and Destinations edited by James H Liu, Tim McCreanor, Tracey McIntosh, and Teresia Teaiwa. Victoria University Press, Wellington. 2005. 304 p. NZ$39.95 (paperback). ISBN 0864735170. Every once in a while a book comes along that dazzles as it informs. Add this edited volume on New Zealand identities to the list. Culled from submissions following a call for papers in 2004, I found most of the articles to be informative, insightful at times, and often provocative in challenging conventional notions about identity at individual, group, and national levels. According to the editors, the goal of the book is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary: multidisciplinary, because it intends to generate dialogue among social scientists from different disciplines in further exploring the direction of national and ethnic identities in New Zealand; interdisciplinary, because of a commitment to an interconnected series of conversations, each with its own voice that not only reflects discipline-specific knowledge but also advances a sharing of this knowledge with others (p. 11). The volume begins with a useful introductory chapter by the editors that theorises the dynamics of identity construction. Readers are also provided with an overview of the content to each of the chapters. The book concludes with a short but excellent afterword by the Race Relations Commissioner who emphasises what many suspect: while the concept of an inclusive national identity bodes well for improved race relations, the idea itself is not easily defined. It is complex and multilayered, undergoing change in response to an evolving environment; it can be wielded to perpetuate or challenge exclusion, and is inseparable from existing power relations and economic inequalities. In between, the book covers a broad range of topics, including ongoing debates over the relationship of biculturalism to multiculturalism; a package of Maori-based issues spanning the spectrum from new Maori identities in cities to the impact of the Waitangi Tribunal in advancing a blueprint for living together differently; changing demographics because of immigration, with corresponding shifts in immigrant identities; new thoughts on New Zealand history, this country’s place in the global scheme of things, and future scenarios; and a chapter on spirituality. To be sure, not all the articles directly addressed the issue of New Zealand identities, including those by Pearson, Levine, Barclay, and Teaiwa/Mallon with their own agendas but interesting in their own right. Others were tangentially linked to identity issues, namely McCreanor, Byrnes, and Zodkegar, yet added insights into the dimensions of identity. The majority of articles engaged directly with the micro-politics of identity (Ward/Lin, Borell) or the macro-politics of identity (Liu, Morris, Capie/McGhie), while others explored micro-macro-politics of group-based identities, primarily Maori, Pakeha, Pacific Islander, and Asian New Zealanders of Chinese background (McIntosh, Ip/Pang, Borell). Admittedly, the volume is not perfect—as one might imagine, since collected works tend to reflect a range of uneven material that can soar or sink. Some of the articles were largely descriptive or historical, whereas others advanced innovative and nuanced theorising about the dynamics and politics of identity making. Topics that I might have anticipated went missing, including reference to the concept of identity politics; “whiteness” as an identity; and the notion of transnational/translocal identities that are not rooted in one place. And I still continue to be perplexed by the framing of diversity discourses around the concept of “biculturalism vis-a-vis multiculturalism”, when clearly the discursive logic of a deeply divided and multilayered New Zealand points to that of “multiculturalism within a bi-national” framework. Despite my quibbling about what “ought” to be, a spot of perspective is necessary. Put bluntly, the strengths and value of this book greatly outweigh any weaknesses. Both the editors and authors deserve kudos for their efforts in crafting a volume not only timely and topical, but also relevant to many disciplines (sociology, political science, history) and across many courses (ethnicity, policy studies, political issues). If the consequences of this book enhance ever so modestly the goal of living together with differences in a multicultural and bi-national country, the collective effort will have been well worth it.
AUGIE FLERAS Revolution: The 1913 Great Strike in New Zealand, edited by Melanie Nolan. Canterbury University Press, Christchurch. 2006. 320 p. NZ$34.95 (paperback). ISBN 1877257400. In November 2003 the Trade Union History project held a conference to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the 1913 Great Strike. This book is a collection of the written versions of the presentations made at the conference. There is always the danger with the publication of conference proceedings that the chapters are of variable quality and length, and that there is only a tenuous common thread that links the book chapters together. This is certainly not the case with the book under review. Melanie Nolan does an excellent job in her brief introductory chapter to set out both the historical context of the 1913 Great Strike and to identify the ways different groups of historians have interpreted the events of 1913. There are two major strengths of this book: first is the way the book deals with aspects of the Great Strike that have been relatively under-explored—for example, the perspective from the ruling elite, the involvement of women, and the role of the media; second is the inclusion in the book of historians who adopt very different ideological positions in their interpretations of the Great Strike. In the first three chapters, there are interpretations provided by Erik Olssen and Richard Hill, and a critique of these “leftists” by Miles Fairburn. While I imagine most readers will have formed their own opinion as to “who is right”, it is nevertheless healthy for academia, and interesting for students of history, to read side-by-side such significantly different interpretations of the same event by three eminent New Zealand historians. The miners and watersiders unions were at the heart of the 1913 strike: what of other unions? Peter Franks looks at the complex response of three craft unions who largely ignored the appeal made to them by the UFL to join the strike. While this decision of craft unions to stay on the sidelines of the conflict may have been expected, the absence of the Federation of Seamen’s Union (FSU) at the centre of militant industrial activity was a surprise, which David Grant puts down to political and personal differences amongst the FSU leaders (p. 186). The politics of personality was also a theme of the chapter that looked at the influence of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) on the events of 1913. Mark Derby found that there was in fact very little overseas influence on the strike by the Wobblies, with the revolutionary syndicalist movement seeming to have little support in New Zealand. However, as Kerry Taylor points out, this is not to say that the experience of the 1913 strike led all militants to reject the idea of transforming society by using industrial action. Taylor argues that the Communist Party of New Zealand was a logical outcome of the 1913 strike (p. 210). The lessons some militants learnt from the strike were that the parliamentary road was not the only road to socialism—although those who believe this have remained a relatively small minority in New Zealand society. A central feature of many accounts of the 1913 strike has been the role played by the military and, in particular, by the mounted specials. As John Crawford points out, the role the military forces played in the conflict was significant, not least in regard to their providing the “personnel, equipment and expertise” for the special constables. But Crawford also highlights the misgivings that some military leaders had over the involvement of the military in “civilian disputes” and that great effort was made to try to conceal the full extent of the military in the conflict. Certainly, as Donald Anderson in his chapter makes clear, it was the specials who bore the brunt of the hostility of the strikers, as it was the specials, rather than the military (or police), who were used to protect strike-breakers and defend employers’ property. The role of the media during the strike is examined from the perspective of four publications—the Dominion, the New Zealand Free Lance, the Maoriland Worker, andthe New Zealand Truth. The Dominion and Free Lance were at times vehemently anti-strike in their news coverage. The Maoriland Worker, owned and operated by militant unionists, not surprisingly adopted an opposing political bias to the other two papers in its coverage. The Truth, as a rather populist, muck-raking publication, was chosen to provide a third “position”. What is interesting from James Taylor’s analysis of the newspapers was that even though both the Maoriland Worker and the Truth were sympathetic to strikers and their cause, the impact this had on public opinion and, in turn, on the authorities seemed limited. Possibly political leaders were more inured to public sentiment and the mass media than they are today. Melanie Nolan comments that the role of women in previous industrial disputes in 1890 and 1912, and in the lockout of 1951, have all been well documented. Little has, however, been written about the 1913 strike—which is surprising because, as Nolan shows, women were actively and noticeably involved in the 1913 strike. The chapter by Jim McAloon is one of the few chapters that explicitly tries to situate the 1913 conflict in terms of class conflict. McAloon describes how 1913 was the culmination of a long process of class realignment (p. 233), with small and large-scale property owners coalescing in opposition to wage earners. This is an interesting chapter as it raises questions as to what happened after the 1913 strike in terms of class alignments—how stable was the coalition between small and large-scale property owners? What was the impact of the depression years on this coalition? Overall, this book is to be highly recommended for those who want to know about this important event in New Zealand history. I do think, however, that the book’s title, Revolution, requires the addition of a question mark against it.
CHRIS RUDD Sexuality Down Under: Social And Historical Perspectives edited by Allison Kirkman and Pat Moloney. University of Otago Press, Dunedin. 2006. 301 p. NZ$39.95 (paperback). ISBN 1877372102. In my house, the degree to which a book is deemed visually provocative tends to be measured by the appearance of children’s stickers covering the image of the front jacket. That is, my children censor what they call the “rude bits” of my gender and sexuality texts. The front jacket cover of my 1994 copy of Volatile Bodies by Elizabeth Grosz, portraying the plastic cyborgified form of a naked woman complete with “Judy” tattoo and pudendum, and the 1997 edition of Annamarie Jagose’s Queer Theory depicting Noddy (by Geoffrey Boccalatte, 1995) orally pleasuring a Ken doll have both been censored in this way. Grosz’s “private parts” are now hidden by a pre-school sticker set of three farmyard chicks, and Jagose’s “Noddy and Ken” has been censored by a purple speech bubble. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my copy of Sexuality Down Under appears to have gone the same way. Courtesy of my eldest daughter, a sanitised drawing of rainbow, sun, and fluffy bunnies is cellotaped to the front cover. Under this drawing lies the risqué black and white photograph Wrestlers (2002) by Peter Peryer. Aptly, the editors of Sexuality Down Under, Allison Kirkman and Pat Moloney, begin the collection by stating that “sexuality is both a hot topic and a taboo subject—something obviously public, but also inescapably private” (p. 9). Evidently, my school age daughters agree. Sexuality Down Under is linked to the Grosz and Jagose texts by common themes of sex, bodies, and pleasures. However, these texts speak to different audiences. Grosz’s book sits neatly within gender studies and feminist theory, whereas Queer Theory best fits under the general rubric of sexuality studies. Although the subfields of sexuality studies and gender studies overlap, there are marked differences. Sexuality studies, as the name indicates, are primarily concerned with sexual object choice and desire. And, as the editors of Sexuality Down Under point out, sexuality concerns a wide range of sexual phenomena that have erotic significance (p. 9). In contrast, the main subject of gender studies has been upon sexed identities, particularly women’s positioning in society. The individual chapter essays in Sexuality Down Under bridge both sexuality and gender studies, discussing the ways social expectations and norms about sexed identities are constructed and simultaneously challenged by specific sexual practices, strategies, and acts. In so doing, the essays in this collection offer valuable teaching material for those working in this interdisciplinary field. As an added bonus for those teaching New Zealand sociology or history, as I do, the 12 chapters in the book draw on local studies, cases, and examples. While the text is not physically divided into parts, the editors thematically identify the essays in the collection as dealing with four core, but interconnected discourses in and around sexuality: biomedical, conservative, liberal, and feminist. I found this classification a useful way of framing each reading without feeling constrained by it: no doubt students will too. As the editors of this collection note, the sexuality landscape in New Zealand is invariably contested. Certainly, representations of sexual acts and explicit sexuality are often considered TMI (too much information) for children, as my eldest daughter has declared. Interestingly, however, Jenny Harper makes the point in her essay “Exhibiting Sexuality” that this may also be the case for the New Zealand public generally speaking. According to Harper, debates in New Zealand around sexual works of art point to a new cultural, political, and religious intolerance for artistic representations of sexuality in the public domain. What we are now seeing, suggests Harper, is a new brand of institutional self-censorship, which has its origins, at least in part, in an increasingly conservative public imagination. Harper’s essay, which discusses challenges to normative conceptions of sexual identity, directly engages the way contemporary art works install subversive thinking about gender and sexuality, and the reception of such work by the New Zealand public. Like Harper’s chapter, Rob Cover’s essay on “Sexuality and Advertising” also draws attention to the polysemic meanings embedded in certain kinds of texts. Cover’s essay is written with an audience new to media studies material in mind, and is therefore didactic in style. Nevertheless, the material this chapter engages is of political interest, addressing the politics of advertising designed to target the so-called pink dollar in order to lure a lesbian and gay niche market presumably flush with money. Viewer reception is also a key theme in Tina Vares’ essay on “Men’s Talk About Viagra”. Vares notes that the direct-to-the-consumer advertising that is used to promote the pharmaceutical sildenafil citrate (Viagra) in New Zealand makes the Viagra campaign a fascinating site for observing men’s understandings of masculine sexuality. Vares’ chapter, which is part of a larger research project on the socio-cultural implications of Viagra and its use, draws on a focus group discussion, revealing how men negotiate and challenge representations of Viagra and (hetero)sexuality in their talk with one another. Of particular note is how the men in the focus group question the significance of the coital imperative as basic in defining masculine sexualities. If the coital imperative is questioned in liberal discourse in and around sexuality, as it is by the men Vares talks to in her study, Jordan’s chapter on the disputed terrain between sex and rape, based on in-depth social science research, soberly demonstrates otherwise. Drawing on interview data with 12 police detectives and textual analysis of 164 police files of reported rape complaints, Jordan shows that the perception of “real” rape as defined by the act of -penetration, physical injury, and assault by a stranger remains culturally prevalent, thus invalidating the credibility of victims whose rape accounts do not fit this atypical pattern. Libby Plumridge’s chapter draws on research with 31 New Zealand sex workers. Like Jordan, Plumridge’s work draws attention to issues of consent and coercion. While Plumridge is clear that generalisations can not be made about commercial sex, the accounts from women Plumridge interviewed in her 3-year study of two New Zealand cities reveal the felt differences between street and non-street sex workers (i.e., women who work in parlours and escort services). Both Plumridge’s chapter and Jackson’s chapter on teenage pregnancy draw on in-depth interviews with their research participants. Jackson’s chapter discusses accounts from 18 young women, with the express intention of showing how the views of these women can impact on social policy implementation in the areas of sex education, health, and welfare. Allison Kirkman’s chapter on “Managing Gender, Sexual and Medical Identities” also draws on qualitative research, in this case to discuss the ways gender and sexual identity affect occupational choice for 10 female doctors. In this chapter, Kirkman’s research participants talk about how they negotiate, conceal, manage, and disclose their sexual identities as lesbian, and some of the difficulties associated with such identification when engaging in health care and medical encounters that necessitate intimate body work. The related issues of sexuality and health are also discussed in Cameron Pritchard’s chapter on “The Discourses of Homosexual Law Reform”. Pritchard’s essay, which fills in some gaps I had of this recent period in New Zealand history, examines the homosexual law reform through the various discourses—conservative, liberal, medical, legal, and gay rights—that framed the issues at the time. Pritchard picks up on several points Chris Brickell raises in his chapter, “The Emergence of a Gay Identity”, specifically how individuals locate themselves in terms of sexual narratives and scripts that are available at any one point in time. This chapter takes a historical look at some of the ways different discourses and social institutions have contributed to the construction of non-normative sexual categories and identities in New Zealand. Caroline Daley’s chapter on “Puritans and Pleasure Seekers” also takes a look at historical New Zealand, delving into non-conventional archival material to discuss the social and sexual histories of New Zealand pleasure-seekers from 1880 to 1940. As Daley points out, the stories of these New Zealanders have yet to be told by local historians. Perhaps the most unexpected chapter of this collection of essays on sexuality is Michael Hill’s discussion of the Christchurch Civic Crèche Case in the 1990s. Hill frames his discussion of the case using insights from sociology to shed light on discourses and debate around the moral panic phenomenon known as satanic ritual abuse, which has its origins in North America. One of the points Hill makes about the New Zealand case is the extent to which certain groups in society believe children need rescuing not only from sexual abuse but also from their own sexuality, and the lengths such groups will go to in order to “prove” this. At the centre of the moral panic, says Hill, is an ambivalence about constructions of childhood sexuality; it is uninhibited and perverse, yet natural and innocent. According to Moloney, this rendering of sexuality is similarly present in orientalist accounts of sexuality in the Pacific during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In Moloney’s elegant discussion of “Shameless Tahitians and Modest Maori”, he analyses the differing views and depictions the European colonialists had of Tahitian and Maori men and women at the time, explaining this characterisation of the historical accounts in terms of soft and hard primitivism. As a reviewer of an edited collection of essays, I may be expected to say something about edited volumes with contributing authors running the risk of failing to hang together as a coherent whole. However, I did not read this collection with a view to searching for coherence. Rather, I have read a number of chapters from this text, some several times in fact, since its publication earlier this year, citing and referencing many of the empirical examples, cases, and studies discussed by the authors in my lectures to undergraduate students. As a teaching tool, the text is informative and well written, and I commend the editors and authors on this. General readers will also find this collection an authoritative and enjoyable read. REFERENCESGrosz E 1994. Volatile bodies: toward a corporeal feminism. St Leonards, Australia, Allen & Unwin. Jagose A 1998. Queer theory. Carlton South, Australia, Melbourne University Press.
RHONDA SHAW Geographies of Globalization by Warwick E. Murray. Routledge, London and New York. 2006. 392 p. NZ$69.95 (paperback). ISBN 0415317991. This book is intended for students of geography, sociology, and development studies, and appears in the Routledge Contemporary Human Geography Series. As one might expect from the editor of Asia-Pacific Viewpoint, who teaches geography and development studies at Victoria University of Wellington, the analysis is not limited by the framing and examples that are often standard in discussions of globalization. Instead it ranges widely, incorporating insights about the newly industrialising and developing parts of the world, as well as drawing in research on and from New Zealand and Oceania. The book is also very well written, carrying the reader along with all the zest and enthusiasm that characterise a winner of one of the 2006 national tertiary teaching awards. Reading it often seems like being in a high-energy classroom. The book is in three parts of three chapters apiece. The first, “Transformed Geographies” explores different conceptualisations of globalization, and examines these both across space and time. The second, and largest, “Shifting Spheres”, has chapters on globalizing economic, political, and cultural geographies. The third, “Global Challenges”, looks into inequality and development; environment and sustainability; and new geographies. Although this is quite clearly a book written by a geographer, it does not draw on just geographical writing or concern itself only with geographical questions. For example, it makes good use not just of Harvey (1989) and Dicken (2003), but also of Held et al. (1999) and Waters (2001). It does, however, take issue with the perspective of the sociologist Waters that “The constraints of geography are shrinking and the world is becoming one place” (quoted on p. 57). In arguing that the “processes and agendas” of “a globalizing world” are “contradictory, dialectical, complex and heterogeneous”, it also concludes that “mapping the impacts is both a necessary and highly challenging task for geographers, and one which has only just begun” (p. 87). The sorts of mapping offered in this book are likely to be invaluable for both students and faculty. While the former may on occasion become confused by the insistence on establishing and critiquing different theoretical positions, the latter will find this very useful. For example, the purpose of the Hirst & Thompson (1999) thesis in countering what is called the “hyperglobalist” position is made clear, but in turn is criticised both from a theoretical and empirical perspective (“the depth and breadth of the interconnections are indeed unprecedented, although the roots of that interconnection can be traced back to the first European global empires” (p. 90)). There is some useful exploration of geographies of scale, and of the meanings of the terms “global” and “local”, and how to theorise these. “Glocalization”, however, while seemingly commended as a means of advancing such understanding (p. 54), is barely explained, and one is left needing more to understand the interpenetration of global with local in making meanings in everyday life. The geographer Flusty’s De-Coca-Colonization (2004) would have been a good reference at this point. Readers will be attracted by the clear and imaginative tables and figures, which all go some way to helping in the task of conceptual and empirical mapping. There are handy diagrams of the global economic triad (p. 111) and of Nike’s commodity circuit (p. 115), for example, and a fascinating table that lists the 80 largest nation states and transnational corporations (TNCs) by GDP or sales. From this one learns that, by these measures, 26 TNCs are larger than the New Zealand economy, with Ford and GM being twice the size and, in ascending order, ExxonMobil, BP, and Wal-Mart being three times as big (pp. 131–132). There are useful text boxes, exploring, for example, the globalization of the fruit industry; the EU; feminism and globalization; and a chronology of the anti-globalization movement. There are good maps and bad ones: one of “US interventions in twentieth century Latin America” (p. 192) says quite a lot; “The location of Niue in the South Pacific” (p. 245) says very little. An unusual feature of the book is the format of the last chapter. This does what academics often urge thesis students to do: it returns to the questions posed at the outset, attempting to summarise the contributions of geographers to these, and then sketching where the author thinks geographers should be making waves in the future. Broadly, these are the areas of conceptual and empirical mapping, including more acute understandings of relational space; “a decentred critical geography”, that is “a much less eurocentric geography” (p. 358); cross disciplinary interactions; a focus on big issues; and heightened moral geographies (“we need to be less reticent in saying what we feel the world should be like” (p. 359)). These are all areas towards which this stimulating book gives clear pointers, in ways that are likely to broaden, refresh, and revise the imaginations of all social scientists interested in a globalizing world. REFERENCESDicken P 2003. Global shift: reshaping the global economic map in the 21st century. 4th ed. London, Sage. Flusty S 2004. De-Coca-Colonization: making the globe from the inside out. New York, Routledge. Harvey D 1989. The condition of postmodernity: an enquiry into the origins of cultural change. Oxford, Blackwell. Held D, McGrew A, Goldblatt D, Perraton J 1999. Global transformations: politics, economics and culture. Cambridge, Polity Press. Hirst P, Thompson G 1999. Globalization in question: the international economy and the possibilities of governance. 2nd ed. Cambridge, Polity Press. Waters M 2001. Globalization. 2nd ed. London, Routledge.
ERIC PAWSON This year's abstracts | Journal home page | All abstracts | Publishing home page | Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, 2006, Vol. 1: 203–213 1177–083X/06/0102–0203 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2006
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