Te Papa’s foundations reflect a complex mix of political, cultural and economic revisions encompassing biculturalism, the Treaty of Waitangi, civic forum, customer satisfaction and commercial profitability. Similarly, the proposed galleries for the National Museum of Australia, influenced by the Pigott Report, broke from disciplinary divisions to project government concerns of the day: self determination for Aboriginal people, an inclusive multicultural history of the nation and an increasing environmental concern. These
48 Project Developm ent Board, "A Concept for the Museum o f N ew Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa," (Wellington: Museum o f N ew Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Project O ffice, 1989). p .l.
49 "The N ew Dom inion Museum," Evening Post, July 31 1936. p.6.
50 w w w .tepapa.govt.nz/T ePapa/E nglish/A boutT ePapa/A boutU s/W hatW eD o/T he+M ission.htm 51 Jenny Chamberlain, "Cheryll Sotheran," North <&South, no. June (1997).p.75.
52 w w w .tepapa.govt.nz/T ePapa/E nglish/A boutT ePapa/A b outU s/W h atW eD o/C orp orate+Principles.htm
foundations reflect a fundamental shift in the museum’s role from conveyor of knowledge to representation of a political construction of national identity. This repositioning revisits the intentions of the International Exhibitions some hundred years earlier, where content was guided by constructions of colonial and national identity rather than knowledge.
In the case o f the National Museum of Australia and Te Papa, an apparently similar tri partite thematic was adopted as the guiding structure for the museums, despite their differing national identities of multiculturalism and biculturalism. Closer examination, however, reveals different constructions o f biculturalism and multiculturalism
underpinning these themes, as well as a shared emphasis on ‘environment’ considered integral for ‘naturalising’ the politically devised national identities. This new role for environment is reflective of how the modem nation-state creates its identity through imagining that its people are bound to the same territory, or as Tony Bennett writes ‘occupants of a territory that has been historicised and subjects o f a history that has been territorialised.’5^ An unresolved tension clouds these revised postcolomal constructions, namely that land is not so much shared by indigenous and non-indigenous people, but more the focus o f ongoing processes o f dispute.
Connections between nationalism and landscape are o f course not specific to a postcolonial nationalism. As proposed earlier, the mountain and desert landscapes of Tongariro and Ayers Rock were transformed into iconic landscapes symbolic o f the nation, while in the museum, knowledge of the indigenous environment emerged as an important government strategy for naturalizing its citizens, especially children. These earlier constructions,
however, assimilated indigenous people into the broader construction of the nation. In contrast, a postcolonial construction o f nation as framed by the tri-partite thematic acknowledges indigenous people as traditional owners, thereby creating tension with the ‘naturalising’ of the settler society in a landscape acquired through colonial processes of dispossession. This tension is particularly acute in Australia where no Treaty was signed between Aboriginal people and the Crown. As historian Mark McKenna notes, assertion of settler belonging in Australia occurs at the ‘site o f the greatest moral dilemma in Australian history — the land that was taken without negotiation, treaty or consent from Aboriginal people.’54
53 Bennett, The Birth o f the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, p. 141. 54 McKenna, "Poetics of Place." pp.190-191.
The fact of the Treaty of Waitangi provides a point of legitimacy for colonial setdement of New Zealand. Te Papa’s tripartite thematic reflects the structure o f the Treaty, establishing the intellectual and nationalistic foundations for the bicultural museum. Tangata Whenua ‘those who belong to the land’ and Tangata Tiriti or ‘belonging to the land by the right of treaty’ present the binaries of biculturalism, while Papatuanuku, a Maori term for Earth mother, encompasses the physical environment they share. Bicultural New Zealand as represented within Te Papa therefore recognises Maori ‘cultural sovereignty,’ while providing a sense of belonging for non-Maori. 53 However, as Paul Williams observes,
implicated in this structure are the ‘colonial social and political structures and the
antagonisms between them. ’36 Absent, for example, is any sense o f cultural hybridity, and
instead categories are premised on cultural bifurcation.
This delineation was not replicated in the National Museum o f Australia’s tripartite
framework. Instead Aboriginal people are recognised twice: once within their own political and cultural space that operates as a vehicle for cultural development and self
determination; and again through the non-ethnocentric terminology of multiculturalism. 3
Within this second category, ethnicity is suppressed and is replaced by concepts of diversity and cultural pluralism, and indigenous people are provided with no specific claim as
traditional owners. Their position is further erased in the reduction of the tripartite thematic into ‘People, Land and Nation’ assumed as the major ‘intellectual framework for its stories. ’58
Therefore, while appearing similar, the tripartite framings present two differing versions of nation. Te Papa reverts back to the historical moment of the Treaty to construct the new ‘bicultural’ nation, whereas the National Museum o f Australia fluctuates between
acknowledging indigenous people as separate from multiculturalism, to absorbing them into the generalities of ‘People, Land and Nation.’ The third element of the tripartite framing described variously as ‘Land’ ‘environment’ and ‘Papatuanuku’ serves to naturalise these political constructions of nation. In her analysis of Te Papa, Avril Bell highlights the influence of a sedentarist theory of culture that assumes that ‘authentic’ culture develops
55 Conal McCarthy, "From Curio to Taonga : A Genealogy of Display at New Zealand's National Museum 1865-2001" (PhD, Victoria University of Wellington, 2004). p.278.
56 Williams, "New Zealand's Identity Complex: A Critique of Cultural Practices at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa". p.230.
57 Castles et al., Mistaken Identity : Multiculturalism and the Demise of Nationalism in Australia, p.13. 58 www.nma.gov.au/newmuseum 3/8/2002
through ‘the interaction between a people and their geographical environment.’^ Bell argues that in the case o f New Zealand, Pakeha nationalism ‘depends more centrally on assertions of attachment to place than on narrations of history or o f cultural distinction/’"
Bell’s observations are not specific to Te Papa and apply equally to the National Museum o f Australia. Connections between setder culture and land serve to ‘naturalise’ non- indigenous culture, by alleviating anxieties concerning cultural ‘authenticity.’ This
construction is central to the intellectual frameworks of both museums. The natural world is no longer positioned in relation to science and displayed according to the disciplinary delineations and scientific parameters of geology, anthropology and biology, but is instead adopted as the unifying principle to construct and naturalise politically-constructed nations. This differs significandy from the coincidence of earlier twentieth century nationalism, ecology and education where knowledge of environment sought to naturalise the citizen. This later construction adopts interactions with the environment as a means for presenting a unified nation inclusive o f both indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. This revision has not only had a major impact on the intellectual structure o f the museum, but, when combined with the approaches of the ‘new museum,’ significantly altered display practices within the museums.