Ashley Rea

Dr. Graban
ENG 5933
4.12.16
Research Network Forum: Listening to the Cross-Cultural Archive
Hello everyone, Im Ashley Rea, a first year MA in rhetoric and composition. My
presentation today is entitled Listening to the Cross-Cultural Archive; in it, I explore the
archival practices of the Mori and Pkeh communities of New Zealand and using their work as
a case study, suggest a cross-cultural archival methodology guided by a metaphor of listening.
I will argue that this methodology of listening facilitates rhetorical sovereignty and rhetorical
restraint and has the potential to move us beyond standpoint theory. For this presentation, Ill
begin by first introducing the problem and exigence of my research; then introduce Mori
archival practices. Next, Ill use these practices to theorize a methodology of listening, and
consider the affordances and constraints of this methodology. My research is both
historiographical AND methodologicalarchives function as sites where histories are
constructed and the methodologies of archival work are intrinsically tied with historiography.
This presentation arises from one specific challenge of doing cross-cultural workthe
tendency for archives to colonize. Evelyn Wareham, digital archivist and LDC New Zealand
Fellow, writes Like the glass cases of museums, the archives of colonial regimes and their
independent successor states have often been described as prisons for the identities of the
oppressed (27). Many scholars have noted that archives, museums, and libraries cannot be
separated from their colonial pastsin these archival institutions, the material artifacts and
cultural heritage of indigenous communities are divorced from their original social context in
the care of individuals outside the indigenous community. In New Zealand, this is particularly
true. The Maori iwi (tribes) of New Zealand have had a contested relationship with the Pkeh
(New Zealanders of European descent), contributing to their current archival practices.
But first, some historical context. European colonization of New Zealand began in 1642
with Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, but really took off in 1840 when Great Britain signed the

Treaty of Waitangi with native New Zealanders, the chiefs of Northern Mori iwi. This treaty is
significant for several reasons: in it, these Mori ceded New Zealand to Queen Victoria and the
British empire in exchange for the rights of British citizens and the sole ownership of their lands
and property, including their cultural and historical artifacts. Like many treaties made in times
of colonization, the Treaty of Waitangi was essentially ignored for much of the following century.
However, beginning in the 1960s and 70s, the treaty was used as a rallying point for Mori
protest movementsincluding those centered around the ownership of their archival materials.
Implicated in this struggle are issues of access, representation, and rhetorical sovereignty.
Ultimately, in late 1980s, the Treaty of Waitangi was reinterpreted and used by Mori
communities to exert their rhetorical sovereignty and ownership of their material artifacts and
lived history. Today, archival institutions acknowledge this Mori ownership, and the practices
of Mori and Pkeh communities present an approach to archival work grounded in an
ideology of biculturalism.
In New Zealand archives, biculturalism as a movement has emerged from the dialogue
between Mori and Pkeh archival practices. Biculturalism often is defined as having or
combining the cultural attitudes and customs of two nations, peoples, or ethnic groups
(Webster). For New Zealand archival institutions, biculturalism is an organisational strategy
based on the spirit and intent of the Treaty...an acknowledgement of the primacy of the tangata
whenua, the indigenous people of the land...and aims to include Mori values and perspectives
in the polices, practices and procedures of the organisation (Grace in Garraway & Szekely 1994,
p.6) (Hayes). New Zealand Archives hold aspirations to become a truly bicultural organization
where collection and service development and delivery are approached from a shared Mori
and Pkeh world view (National Library of New Zealand 2010, p.5). Archival practices then
become synergistic collaboration between Western/European and Mori worldviews.
Mori archival practices are guided by Kaupapa Mori, a set of eight principles: (1) Tino
Rangatiratanga (the principle of self determination: Mori control over their own culture), (2)

Tangoa Tuku Iho (the principle of cultural aspiration: asserting that Mori ways of knowing,
doing, and understanding are valid), (3) Ako Mau (the principle of culturally preferred
pedagogy: teaching practices that are inherent and unique to Mori), (4) Kia Piki Ake I Ng
Raruraru O Te Kainga (the principle of socio-economic mediation: need to address
socioeconomic issues), (5) Whnuau (the principle of extended family structure: the
responsibility and obligations of the researcher to nurture and care for [the] relationships
[between Mori and world] and also the intrinsic connection between the researcher, the
researched and the research), (6) Kaupapa (the principle of collective philosophy: connected to
the aspirations of the community), (7) Te Tiriti of Waitangi (the principle of the treaty of
waitangi: allows Mori to critically analyze relationships, the status quo, and their own rights),
(8) Ata (the principle of growing respectful relationships: guide to understanding relationships
and wellbeing of Mori). Hayes notes that Kaupapa Mori as theory is an evolving set of
concepts which should be understood as multiple rather than a singular, universal way of
being (IRI 2000, p.4), reflecting the diverse nature of Mori iwi and hap (n.p.). These
concepts shape how archives function in New Zealand.
The Mori iwi view curators of archives as kaitiaki (guardians) of their collectively owned
artifacts. These archival materials include tikanga (customs and values) as well as taonga
(ancestral treasures). McCarthy et al argue mana taonga effectively reverses the universal
European assumption of possession, the idea that museums hold the taonga, and deal with
communities who are on the outside through professionals who are on the inside (1).
Numerous examples of Mori practice exist: a 1985 Te Taonga exhibit was the first curated
entirely by Moriwith its global tour, Mori artifacts were shown in a manner consistent with
their tikanga. McCarthy et al share another example from the Te Papa Tongarewa museum
where permissions must be granted from iwi leaders before images and texts can be reproduced.
Tikao shares one more example from her work as an archivist in the Alexander Turnbull Library
where she attempted to classify the Atkinson Collection of Mori Letters from Taranakiearly

letters from Mori ancestors to each otherwhen sharing her work at a conference, Tikoa was
challenged by representatives from local iwithey settled on a collaborative approach that
respected the agency of the artifacts and sovereignty of the Mori.
From a Western perspective, one archival approach might be to open access by
considering Mori artifacts as in the public domainbut, as Wareham notes, a commonly held
understanding of the public good as being equivalent to unabridged access to public domain
materials often blinds collecting institutions to non-Western systems of information
management and circulation that work from and mobilize different understandings of public,
private, and the like (189). The Mori archival practices contradict thisthey view taonga as
imbuedo with mauri (spiritual energy). Tikao and Frean note, In Mori society, there is an onus
on the descendants of the ancestors to protect their taonga in a spiritual sense, and also to do
whatever they can to enhance the mana (power) of their iwi (8). Mori and Pkeh archivists,
scholars, and community members must negotiate how to protect sacred heritage while sharing
their taonga with their larger community. Interestingly, McCarthy notes that this practice of
taonga has spread to non- Mori archives as a means of respectfully engaging with artifacts and
cultural productions.
Considering the archival practices of Mori communities in New Zealand institutions can
be used to promote a transnational (cross-cultural) archival methodology that works from the
ground up. This methodology is intended to avoid cultural hegemonic interpretations of
indigenous artifacts. I suggest that the archival practices of the Mori and Pkeh could be
characterized by a metaphor of listening. Why listening? Listening, particularly rhetorical
listening, has been used as a means to understanding cultural logics. When we listen, we engage
in a recursive renegotiation of meaning and understanding. Listening begins in a place of
receptiveness: Krista Ratcliffe famously argued that, as a trope for interpretive
invention, rhetorical listening signifies a stance of openness that a person may choose to
assume in relation to any person, text, or culture (her emphasis 17). Listening as an archival

methodology is characterized by collaboration within a bicultural institution, a practice of

rhetorical restraint from Western scholars, and rhetorical sovereignty by indigenous scholars
and communities, and a self-reflexivity on both parts.
For Western scholars studying indigenous archives, grounding their research in listening
can be seen as what Gries refers to as rhetorical restraint: refraining from making
deterministic analyses and respecting the rhetorical sovereignty of indigenous artifacts and
cultures. Listening more readily conveys the fragmented, ephemeral nature of research and
meaning. Because Gries uses the metaphor of listening to guide her methods, she more naturally
engages in rhetorical restraint, in situating her own voice against the voices of her objects of
study. Gries claim that cultural artifacts speak through visual display and act rhetorically as
they emphasize some meanings even as they diminish or conceal others (108) could be viewed
as a means of placing texts, as Shome advocates for, against a larger backdrop of
neocolonialism and racism (41). Contextualizing archival materials, engaging in rhetorical
restraint, and viewing the archival research process as collaborations between outside
researcher and indigenous community are all aspects of a methodology of listening.
For indigenous scholars and owners of archival materials, listening functions slightly
differently. Here, listening facilitates a space for the assertion of ownership and the authority to
speak on behalf of cultural treasures. Listening as archival practice allow the possessors of
taonga to continually rewrite their histories, reclaim their artifacts, and decide what is
representative of their culture. In the examples mentioned earlier, the Mori were able to share
the agency and significance of their taonga with a global audience, and in some instances,
challenge the Western ideologies of the New Zealand Archives in an expression of rhetorical
sovereignty. Archivists Schorch and Hakiwai note, consequently, culturecan be seen not as
linear, normative prescriptions but instead as dynamic, hermeneutic negotiations (193).
Listening as archival practice might better represent these dynamic negotiations and make
apparent discursive tensions between Mori and Pkeh.

I posit that this metaphor of listening practiced by the Mori moves beyond Ratcliffes
rhetorical listening, which is predicated on standpoint theory. Rather than rhetorical listening as
a means to identify with another by the acknowledgement of cultural logics, listening in Mori
archival practices doesnt seek this identification. Instead of attempting to see the
world/situation/archive from the standpoint of the indigenous community, listening allows for a
synthesis, a third place called by McKemmish as the in between of biculturalism. Listening
facilitates Schorch et als view of dialogue which does not involve a gestural accommodation
of a subaltern part for its eventual assimilation within the dominant whole, but refers to an
interpretive engagement which requires that these two places the I and the You be
mobilised in the passage through a Third Space (Bhabha, 1994:136) (Schorch et al 192). I think
this third space is created by listening as archival methodology. Naturally, one cannot truly
escape their own standpoint. Nor is the biculturalism in New Zealand Archives a perfect practice
in a 2013 study, Luqman Hayes found scant evidence of bicultural practices in small and
medium librariesinstead, these archives merely paid lip service to Indigenous epistemologies,
and bicultural practice stopped a bilingual signage (n.p.). However, the interplay of Mori and
Pkeh archival practices suggests a fruitful collaboration that attempts to decolonize
traditionally colonized spaces and reclaim indigenous taonga.

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