Comfort in discomfort: Alison Jones on This Pākehā Life: An Unsettled Memoir

Alison Jones.

Eleanor Black talks with Alison Jones, a professor in Te Puna Wānanga, the School of Māori and Indigenous Education, at the University of Auckland and author of the newly released memoir and her insight on Māori-Pākehā relations.

Why did you want to write the book?

The book is a story about how I came to the point of making Māori-Pākehā relations a real interest of mine, not just in terms of academic work but in terms of my whole life.
Friends said, 'I find your approach really useful, because you're not really angsty and uptight about [Māori-Pākehā relationships].' I wanted to speak to Pākehā who were interested in those relationships but not quite sure how to think about them.

Do you think many Pākehā fear making mistakes when engaging with Māori? With different world views, there can be communication issues.

Pākehā are really hung up on the idea that we're making mistakes and we don't want to be wrong. We have this terrible anxiety, which is a kind of guilt. I think that's really an unhelpful way to look at it. Once you've done some good reading, once you have a real sense of your history in this place and manage to sit with that and accept it as it has been and as it is – without having to excuse it, or feel paralysed by it – that gives you a confidence to be in decent relationships with Māori without feeling, 'I am going to make a mistake.' That comes out of almost a self-pity: 'Oh, I'm never going to get this right, it's not possible to get this right.' Well, we just have to be our own real selves, informed by our history and our ability to face that history and not carry it around like some ghastly burden. I think a lot of Pākehā look to Māori for their approval or their education – teach me, love me, so I can get it right and be a good Pākehā. All that stuff is putting the burden back on Māori yet again. It's up to us to grow up and get a grip on who we are, what we're doing here, and to do it consciously by thinking about those relationships. It requires an openness, a curiosity of who Māori are, what they want, their way of being in the world, instead of constantly being anxious about our mistakes. I guess I want a relaxed, alert openness to Māori politics, Māori history, Māori desires and Māori being. If you want a relationship with somebody, you have to be open.

As British immigrants, did your parents ever feel interested in New Zealand's history or their part in it?

They absolutely loved New Zealand but they could not get their head around race relations. They just thought we were the luckiest people and that Māori had it good and any Māori who were complaining were just complaining. I don't think they had that eye as to what was going on – they were very typical in that sense. And even now, we have gross inequalities in New Zealand and I don't get a sense of middle-class Pākehā people noticing, it's just like background wallpaper to them. The majority of Pākehā still are completely ignorant of the Māori world and not that interested, and find Māori politics a bit outrageous, don't really understand it, say the past is the past and we need to get on with the future.

Don't you think this is a time when more people are talking about that inequity? It's smacking us in the face.

Maybe for this generation, it's a very powerful moment. It's been brought to our attention though the United States and United Kingdom in a way but are we really facing what's happening to us here? These disparities are brought onto our plates here in Aotearoa New Zealand because of what's happening elsewhere. We have our own stories which are a little more difficult to hear.

You often tell your students, 'This isn't about finding solutions.' It's a natural response for people when they see a problem, to want to come up with a plan. So how can we address inequity in the relational way that you talk about in the book?

That's the big question – how does it work – and it's never simple and it's never quick. Once you accept that there is no overall solution, it becomes easier for us to think of ways forward. We love to jump on a solution, a pill. What can I do on Monday, where's the list to make all this better? Well, it's been 200 years in the making, it's not going to change overnight. But it is changing incrementally and we all can do that by being more open about relationships, more curious about our history, less willing to judge, less willing to be anxious and thereby withdrawn. That has all kinds of effects that we can't really predict. I notice that when I am talking to Māori students I am extra alert to their needs, their desires, their point of view. For me, there is a politics of social justice that runs through it. I am extremely interested in making the path clearer for these Māori students. I find their points of view fascinating, really different from other points of view, and I want those views to find the light of day, to find their place, and I have the power as a professor to enable that to happen.

At various points you have been called out for being a Pākehā working in Māori education.

Yes, I have been called out by a number of Māori and Pākehā but I think that goes with the territory. If you do this kind of work in this space you're going to get criticism from all directions. I think because I have such long standing and good Māori friends and good Māori collegial relationships I feel okay because I never ever do this off my own bat. I always, always – and it's really important to me – do it within the context of my relationships with Māori, whether they're my friends or colleagues or people I have made contact with through my research. I am constantly open to their comments, I am alert to their reaction. I am very much guided by my Māori friends. If I were a Pākehā who didn't have those relationships but had a really strong sense of social justice and just was riding my horse out into battle by myself, I don't think that would work because the whole nature of the work is about relationships, that is the beginning, middle and end of it. So I can't talk about relationships if I am not deeply embedded in those relationships, and if those relationships broke down I couldn't do the work I'm doing. I'd probably go off and study ducks or something like I did way back in the day.

This Pākehā Life: An Unsettled Memoir (BWB, $40).