E84: Everyday peacebuilding and refugee resettlement: Supporting a more peaceful Aotearoa New Zealand
Published: 28 January 2026
Anna Burgin discusses the perspectives of New Zealand European volunteers supporting Māori-led welcome (pōwhiri) aimed at creating peaceful connections with former refugees and migrants in Dunedin.
In this episode, recorded at the online UNESCO RIELA Spring School 2025, Anna Burgin shares her research into refugee resettlement in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Abstract:
Refugee resettlement, while offering refuge, is also what Pratt (1991) calls a “contact zone”, a space of contestation and unequal power dynamics. In Aotearoa New Zealand, resettlement is also dominated by the settler colonial government to the exclusion of Māori. This presentation will discuss the perspectives of NZ European volunteers supporting Māori-led welcome (pōwhiri) aimed at creating peaceful connections with former refugees and migrants in Dunedin. I discuss volunteers' reflections through the lens of Pratt’s contact zone and everyday peacebuilding as they discuss their positionalities in relation to the pōwhiri process and questions of belonging.
Please scroll down for the glossare the biography of the speaker.
Glossary:
Kai - food
Kaikōrero - skilled orator
Manaaki - hospitality
Māori - indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand
Pākehā - NZ European
Pōwhiri - a traditional Māori welcome ceremony
Ōtepoti - Dunedin
Tangata whenua - people of the land (Māori)
Te reo Māori - the Māori language
Te Tiriti o Waitangi – the te reo Māori version of the Treaty of Waitangi, with critical differences to the English version
Toitū te tiriti - honour the treaty (te Tiriti o Waitangi)
Waiata - songs
Names and organisations mentioned:
- University of Otago
- Refugees Welcome — https://www.refugees-welcome.net
- Institute for Economics & Peace — https://www.economicsandpeace.org
- Kukutai, Tahu and Arama Rata. 2017. ‘From Mainstream to Manaaki: Indigenising Our Approach to Immigration.’ In Fair Borders? Migration Policy in the Twenty-First Century, edited by David Hall. Bridget Williams Books — https://bwb.co.nz/books/fair-borders
- Rachel Rafferty.
- Vivienne Anderson.
- Burgin, Anna, Rachel Rafferty and Vivienne Anderson. 2020. ‘Do We Really Offer Refuge? Using Galtung’s Concept of Structural Violence to Interrogate Refugee Resettlement Support in Aotearoa New Zealand.’ In A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, 17(1), 115–139 —
- https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/esploro/outputs/journalArticle/DO-WE-REALLY-OFFER-REFUGE-Using/9926515014701891
- New Zealand refugee resettlement strategy — https://www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/our-strategies-and-programmes/supporting-refugees-and-asylum-seekers/refugee-resettlement-strategy/what-the-refugee-resettlement-strategy-covers/
- Vaittinen, Tiina, Amanda Donahoe, Rahel Kunz, Silja Bára Ómarsdóttir and Sanam Roohi. 2019. ‘Care as Everyday Peacebuilding.’ In Peacebuilding, 7(2), 194–209 — https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21647259.2019.1588453
- Lesley Rameka
- Rameka, Lesley, Ruth Ham and Linda Mitchell. 2023. ‘Pōwhiri: The Ritual of Encounter.’ In Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 24(3), 254–67 — https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1463949121995591
- Mary Louise Pratt. 1991. ‘Arts of the Contact Zone.’ In Profession, pp.33–40. Modern Language Association — https://www.jstor.org/stable/25595469
First published: 28 January 2026
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