'OTHER' AUTHOR in AOTEAROA by MICHALIA ARATHIMOS a Thesis
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FRACTURE: THE RECEPTION OF THE ‘OTHER’ AUTHOR IN AOTEAROA BY MICHALIA ARATHIMOS A thesis submitted to the Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Victoria University of Wellington (2013) 2 ABSTRACT The fracturing of cultural identity is a common trope in postcolonial literatures. Traditional binaries of „self‟ and „other‟ are now complicated by cultural hybridities that reflect the intersectionality of migrant identities, indigeneity and the postcolonial national „self‟. Where the binaries „self‟ and „other‟ do not hold, creative forms like the novel can go some way towards exploring hybrid and „other‟ experiences, both as a reinscribing and reimagining of the centre, and as a complex „writing back‟. This thesis investigates the complex positioning of the hybrid or double-cultured individual in Aotearoa in the last forty years. While postcolonial models have been used to expose the exoticisation of the „other‟ in fictional texts, Part One of this thesis goes a step further by applying these models to real authors and interrogating their representations as static objects/products in the collective „text‟ of media items written about them. Shifts in „our‟ national literary identity can be traced in changes in responses to „other‟ authors over time. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the first part of this thesis proves that there are differences in the media‟s portrayal of six Māori and „other‟ ethnic authors: Witi Ihimaera, Keri Hulme, Kapka Kassabova, Tusiata Avia, Karlo Mila and Cliff Fell, beginning with the 1972 publication of Ihimaera‟s Pounamu Pounamu and ending in 2009 with Tusiata Avia‟s Bloodclot. Part One of this thesis mixes media studies, postcolonial literary analysis, and cultural theory, and references the work of Ghassan Hage, Graham Huggan, Margery Fee, Patrick Evans, Mark Williams, and Simone Drichel. Part Two of this thesis is comprised of a novel, Fracture. While Part One constitutes an investigation of the positioning of the „other‟ author, Part Two is a creative exploration of two double-cultured and dispossessed indigenous characters‟ lived experience. The novel follows a Greek-New Zealand woman and a Māori man who go to a rural pā to protest fracking, or hydraulic fracturing. While the first part of the thesis explores the positioning of the „other‟ outside of the white self, the novel aims to portray the effects of such „othering,‟ on the individual and demonstrate how the historical/political event can be a real experiential locale for the „other‟. 3 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To Bill Manhire, for his extensive reading, support, and suggestions. It has been a great honour to work with you. To Mark Williams, for all his reading and critique with great attention to detail, and for reassuring me half way through that my doubt and questioning were positive and to be expected. And to Bill and Mark both: thank you for not wavering in your support when I had my first baby in the middle of this PhD! To Damien Wilkins, whose astute novelist‟s eye and apt critique have been a great asset in the last chapter of this work. To Dalice Sim, for checking my statistics. To Katie Hardwick-Smith and Clare Moleta at the International Institute of Modern Letters, for their invaluable practical support. To my classmates from 2009-2013, especially Pip Adam, Lawrence Patchett, Tina Makereti, Laurence Fearnley, Maxine Alterio, Marian Evans, Lynn Jenner, Christine Leunens, Stephanie de Montalk, and more recently Airini Beautrais, Hannah McKie, Gigi Fenster, Sue Orr, David Fleming, Angela Andrews and the rest of the class of 2013, for being patient and supportive when this thesis was less formed, and positive and helpful when it was. To Pip Desmond, Sarah Jane Barnett, Therese Lloyd, Rebecca Lancashire, Amanda Samuel and Nick Stanley for continuing to encourage me way beyond our creative writing class in 2006, and to that creative writing MA year in general, for being so inspirational. To the Greek community of Wellington, for forming an unwitting backdrop for part of the novel. To my partner‟s family, for being my family. To friends who read and informed parts of this work: Jack Trolove and especially Wai Ho. To the people all over Aotearoa who were raided under the „Terror Act‟ in 2007, my acknowledgements and sympathies. The novel that comprises a part of this thesis is set at an imaginary pā. The atmosphere of that pā owes a debt to the rural Māori communities of both Ruātoki and Parihaka, though my fictional account differs greatly from historical events. To Gary, who influenced the mad Irishman character, my apologies. Lastly to my son, Niko Pandelis Te Atāpo, for being the greatest inspiration and joy, and my partner, Ira, without whom, for many reasons, this work would not have come to fruition. Arohanui and αγαπη, Ira. This thesis has been made possible by the generous financial support of the Victoria University of Wellington Victoria Doctoral Assistantship from 2009- 2013 and a Victoria Doctoral Completion Scholarship in 2013. I am also indebted to Paul and Diane Beatson, for the use of the Foxton Writer‟s Cottage, in 2013. Parts of the novel were first conceived at the Robert Lord Writer‟s Cottage in Dunedin in 2008, where I was granted a residency. 5 6 CONTENTS Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 5 Introduction 9 Part One: The Reception of the ‘Other’ Author in Aotearoa Chapter One: Introduction to the Critical Component 23 Introduction to Subjects: Witi Ihimaera, Keri Hulme, Kapka Kassabova, 29 Tusiata Avia, Karlo Mila, Clif Fell Research Methodology 33 Research Strategy 35 Limitations 36 Considerations in Interpretation 37 Chapter Two: The Real Bi/multicultural ‘Self’ 43 General Interpretation and Conclusions 45 Answers to Research Questions 45 Emergent Themes 47 Chapter Three: ‘Othering’ the Centre: How Māori Authors fit into a White Discourse of Bicultural Nationalism 49 Witi Ihimaera: Welcoming the Host 50 Keri Hulme: Becoming „Us‟ 55 Chapter Four: Courting the Exotic: The Valorisation of ‘Otherness’ in White Narratives of Multicultural Nationalism 61 Karlo Mila: A Pearl in the „Rough‟ 64 7 Tusiata Avia: From the Centre, into the Margins 72 Chapter Five: Are Some ‘Others’ Superior to Other ‘Others’? 79 Kapka Kassabova: An „Exotic Bird‟ 82 Cliff Fell: The Invisible Migrant 89 Chapter Six: What Does the White ‘Self’ Look Like? 97 Discriminations Within Whiteness: A Continuum of „Otherness‟ 98 Employment of Māori Spirituality 102 Differentiations in Prepared Space 104 Chapter Seven: Authenticity and the Performance of Indigeneity 107 Marketing the „Other‟ 111 How to write as „Other‟: Implications for „Other‟ Authors 112 Chapter Eight: Conclusion. The Evolution of a White Assimilationist National ‘Self’ 115 Appendix 121 Works Cited: 131 Primary Sources 131 Critical Sources 146 Part Two: Creative Component: Fracture, a novel 155 8 INTRODUCTION „Ko wai koe?‟ Who are you? „Nā wai koe?‟ From whom are you? And „Nō hea koe?‟ From where do you come? Patricia Grace, Ned and Katina You never find yourself in a book unless you write it yourself. Hanif Kureishi, Something to Tell You This PhD thesis is both a creative and a critical exploration of „otherness‟ in Aotearoa. What does it mean to write as an ethnic „other‟ today? Who is „exotic‟ and who is central in a white discourse of multicultural nationalism? Is it possible to write as „other‟ without conforming to dominant culture‟s prescriptions and expectations? The question at the centre of this thesis has two parts. Firstly, the critical thesis asks if the Māori or ethnically „other‟ author has been exoticised by their media receptions in the last forty years, and if so, how has this „othering‟ changed over time? What does this mean in relation to an evolving myth of national identity? Secondly, the creative part of the thesis seeks to represent the experiences of characters of „other‟ ethnicities. This part goes beyond academic objectivity to answer the more complex question: what does it feel like on the other side of the gaze? The central concern of both parts is the fracturing of cultural identity. But while Part One examines how Māori and „other‟ are positioned in discourses of national identity, Part Two explores, through fiction, the lived experience of the positioned other, for whom culture and ethnicity are not abstract concepts, but a lived reality. This thesis conforms to the increasingly common practice in universities of offering doctorates that involve both critical and creative writing. The International Institute of Modern Letters defines the expectations for the fulfilment of a PhD thesis in Creative Writing as a creative component that is a full-length work for the page, or the text of a full-length work for stage or screen. The critical component should be an academic/scholarly study 9 contextualising this component (Letters 2013). The IIML website also states that „The primary value of the PhD is for those who wish to write creatively, and at the same time to think in focussed and original ways about the contexts of their writing‟ (ibid.). My thesis constitutes a novel and, in Part One, an accompanying academic investigation of the cultural literary moment it is writing into. Part One of this thesis is an analysis of the media receptions of six authors of varied ethnic identities. These authors are Witi Ihimaera, Keri Hulme, Kapka Kassabova, Tusiata Avia, Karlo Mila, and Cliff Fell. Fell functions as the „control‟ part of this study. He is an English migrant, from the original colonial “home”. By collecting and reviewing all available media items about these authors‟ first two works, we may compare how each author‟s ethnic identity is constructed by the media. By beginning with the publication of Ihimaera‟s first book, Pounamu, Pounamu, in 1972 and ending with recent New Zealand Pacific Island authors Karlo Mila and Tusiata Avia in 2009, we may trace changes in dominant culture‟s response to Māori and „other‟ ethnic voices.