This course uses anthropology as a core discipline to examine “whiteness” as a social construct within the framework of “settler-colonial countries,” of which Aotearoa - New Zealand is one. Whiteness plays a pivotal role in the construction of kinship, identity and power relations both within local communities and the international sphere in the post-colonial world. Using anthropology and anthropological theories as frameworks, this course will draw on literature from New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada to interrogate the construction of Whiteness and the role that it has played in the past and contemporary world.
A goal of this course is to enable students to use anthropological tools to engage with and better understand relational models of power, the role of turning anthropology inward to spheres of power and how critical anthropology can operate in spaces of social activism and change.
This course draws substantially from work within Anthropology but also outside, which could include work such as that of Ahmed, Fanon, hooks, Kendi, Lee-Morgan, Lourde, Meghji, Oluo, Ormond, Pihama, Smith and others.