How do we eliminate violence from our communities without re-enforcing patriarchy or State power?
Thanks to a Fulbright New Zealand Scholar award, Kim McBreen (Anglem/Pōtiki whānau) and family will travel to the United States in July for five months so that Kim can investigate how communities there have approached this question. She outlines her plans below.
Fulbright New Zealand offers a range of exchange awards to promote mutual understanding between NZ and the US. I will be hosted by the University of California Riverside, working with Andrea Smith, an indigenous anti-violence organiser and academic. I will also be visiting and talking with communities, organisers and academics about violence and colonisation.
Working with Andrea Smith is an incredible opportunity. Her organising has focused on effective responses to violence among indigenous communities and communities of colour. She was a founder of INCITE (http://www.incite-national.org/), who have produced several books and conferences discussing community responses to violence (for example, ‘Color of Violence’ and ‘The Revolution Starts at Home’). Her academic work has looked at how patriarchy is used as a tool of colonisation to give indigenous men a stake in the game, and to disrupt indigenous community structure.
This project is driven by two terrible statistics that show the effect of that disruption – 40% of Māori men have been imprisoned or served a community sentence, and 58% of Māori women have experienced physical or sexual violence. The situation is similar for other indigenous peoples living under settler colonialism.
How can we stop this attack on our women, without adding to the criminalising of our men? How do we simultaneously undermine patriarchy and state control of our lives? What has worked for communities in North America, and how did they get buy in?
By the end of this year, I hope to have some answers to these questions. My focus will then shift to locating and producing resources that support our communities as ūkaipō, sources of strength and safety that our tūpuna enjoyed. Nā Kim McBreen.
Te Whēariki, Kirsty and Kim.