Developing a Decolonisation Practice for Settler Colonisers: A Case Study from Aotearoa New Zealand

Lorenzo Veracini suggests that the coloniser does not yet know 'how settler decolonisation should appear'. I offer in response an account of how settler decolonisation has appeared in Aotearoa New Zealand and developed over the past three decades, particularly within the field of what I call 'education work'. This article reports a case study of how Pakeha and other non-indigenous groups began to contribute their own stream of decolonisation work to the efforts of indigenous Maori. Pakeha decolonisation practice has developed through continual adjustments in theorising the local situation in response to Maori analysis, and through undertaking interventions co-intentionally with Maori. Specific features of a Pakeha decolonisation practice, as I have experienced it, include (i) revisiting history, (ii) responding emotionally, (iii) undertaking collective cultural work, and (iv) working toward mutually agreed relationships with Maori. Framing each of these as types of decolonisation 'work' - ideological, emotional, cultural and constitutional work - I suggest how a decolonisation practice for settler colonisers could appear.