‘A comparative analysis of the effect of settler colonialism on Aboriginal women and children in Canada and New Zealand.’

The ongoing targeting of Aboriginal Children and Women is a significant impediment to Indigenous development in Canada and the wider world. In this essay I will critically interpret government-led development initiatives in Canada with a comparative analysis of New Zealand. I will address development interventions throughout Canada’s history with a focus on Indigenous women and children with specific reference to Indigenous womens maternities. First I will look at the progression of development interventions by the Canadian state throughout history. Then, I will observe how these systems of oppression have manifested throughout history looking at violence against Aboriginal women and over representation of Indigenous children in foster care in Canada. I will situate the struggles of both gendered and ethnic bodies away from dominant discourses in the international context by drawing on state led development initiatives in New Zealand, looking at Mana Wahine (Womens Power) to deconstruct the effect of colonialism on Maori women’s maternities. Then, I suggest that in order to achieve the goals of Indigenous development, we must decolonize development initiatives. I argue, that this is acheiveable by centreing Indigenous development initiaives in Indigenous knowledge and viewpoints. Following this, I will analyse the legitimacy of current development policy through a postcolonial lens. Then, I will suggest the need of a grassroots, participatory approach to development to government led development initiatives to gain the best possible outcome of equality for gendered and ethnic bodies in settler colonial states of Canada and New Zealand. To achieve this successfully, I argue the overarching principles of development policy must be...

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...p in Maori communities in New Zealand – particuarly in diplomatic and conflict reconciliation roles. However, this is not to paint a picture of Indigenous society with harmonious, egalitarian social structures. Rather this is to illustrate the way colonialism has impacted gender relations throughout the history of settler colonial states.

Indeed a colonial settler society, which can only exist through the dissolution of indigenous peoples and the establishment of a new social body on the expropriated landmass (Wolfe 2006), must have at its core an obsession with indigenous reproduction. For this reason, a colonial settler society is inherently eliminatory in that the dominant culture must “destroy to replace” (Wolfe 2006:390). The mere existence, let alone reproduction, of the indigenous population is counterproductive to the colonial project (Landertinger: 2011).