Análisis Modal Experimental

The employment of a development discourse when offering 'solutions' to the 'Maori problem' has been another means by which the state has pursued national cohesion and effectively depoliticised calls for Maori self-determination. It has already been highlighted that a focus on needs resulted in 'catch up' programmes aiming to assist Maori in achieving a socio-economic status similar to that of their non-Maori peers. A particularly good example of the assimilatory nature of such 'solutions' is the development model, which has played a significant role in Maori Affairs policy since the 1 970s. Aiming to build Maori labour market skills and participation, this model has been concerned with a distributive understanding of social justice. It has also encouraged Maori to conform to western liberal notions of civilisation, progress and modernisation and more strongly identify with a state-framed conception of 'national culture', consequently defusing Maori claims to nationhood. The notion of development has become more of a contested site since the 1 980s, as Maori have adopted the term to describe some of their own aspirations. However, as discussion in Chapter Three will demonstrate, the self-determined development promoted by Maori has quite different characteristics than the more traditional understandings of development explored here.

In exploring the limitations of government-defined Maori development models, it is important to consider the domination of development as an academic activity by economists, for this has structured the way in which development questions have been approached (Hall and Midgley 1988: 1 -9). Poverty, once again, has been the central focus. Aiming to increase material wealth and outweigh the disadvantages of the material world, development programmes have thus been in line with a reliance on the distributive paradigm of justice and state desires to build legitimacy through national cohesion (Young 1995: 1 ) . In the Aotearoa New Zealand context, Maori development

policies have emphasised a jobs and income' approach at the expense of social and

cultural factors (see Cornell and Kalt 1998:5). Priority has been placed on making Maori more employable, by 'taming' Maori and injecting them with a work ethic through training so as to eliminate the 'deficit' of both their poverty and their culture (see Bowring 2000:308) .

In the last two decades, however, Aotearoa New Zealand governments have placed increasing emphasis on 'Maori development', defmed in terms of monetary profit-making, business development, fmancing, management education and technical assistance. Underwritten by western and commercial values, this kind of development has prioritised a 'corporate governance' aiming to improve the capabilities of Maori as entrepreneurs and service providers for the purpose of 'closing' the economic and social 'gaps' between Maori and non-Maori. That these foci have been central to Maori development is not surprising considering five contextual factors: the traditional social policy emphasis on economic growth and employment (Cheyne, O Brien and Belgrave 2000:45); the priority placed on the socio-economic 'gaps' between Maori and non­ Maori, which focused on issues of economic distribution (see Love 1998b:7); the managerial imperatives of cost-cutting, main streaming and strict accountability on expenditure of government monies (Young 1995: 10; 1 19); and, finally, the state's need to protect its legitimacy by encouraging Maori to identify with, rather than challenge, the dominant 'national culture'.

This latter point is particularly significant, because the dichotomous thinking that development discourse promotes -between Maori and non-Maori; rich and poor - .

has failed to take into account the diversity and cultural uniqueness of those peoples involved. Prioritisation of individual rights and an emphasis on rational organisation and technological efficiency, for example, have been used as standards of 'progress', in practice turning development into a euphemism for assimilation to the values that western liberalism privileges (see Verhelst 1990:62; Sardar 1 999:49) .

In comparing the 'backward' cultures of indigenous peoples to western understandings of 'civilisation', the concept of development is clearly not ideologically,

nor politically, neutral, but has the effect of concealing the politics of domination behind a facade of neutral science (Hughes 1996: 186). As a result, Maori development initiatives have been accused of encouraging Maori to mimick the colonisers and lower their aspirations, succeeding only in adding a bicultural flavour to development policy that has continued to be determined by the state (see Mikaere 2000: 17). Although often promoted as a means to 'self-determination', government-defined Maori development models have not only ignored the need for culturally appropriate measures of development, but also marginalised Maori calls for a self-determined

development that places priority on developing Maori as leaders of self-governance in the political sphere (Loomis 2000b:9- 1 O; see Chapter Three).

While development discourse portrays itself as a necessary and desirable process, development is in fact a set of practices and beliefs woven into the fabric of western culture and specific to it. Myths about its universal validity help to socially

reproduce and legitimise development and at the same time continue the assimilation

of Maori into the mainstream system through skills training, information services and business advice. It is argued, therefore, that the development models adopted in Maori Affairs policy have been part of the 'problem', not the 'solution'. This is because they have continued a well-established process of domination involving the

commodification, objectification and incorporation of Maori peoples in a state-framed 'national culture' that denies their own national aspirations (see Tucker 1999:2).