Performing ignorance of state violence in Aotearoa New Zealand

Author:

Stanley Elizabeth1ORCID,Gibson Zeni1,Craddock India1ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Institute of Criminology, School of Social and Cultural Studies, Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

In 2019, the New Zealand government established a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care to investigate the abuse and neglect of children, young people and vulnerable adults in Aotearoa/New Zealand between 1950 and 1999. The public hearings, witness statements and interim reports have charted horrific violence by state and faith-based workers including torture, sexual assaults, serious physical violence, and layers of neglect and discrimination. Māori have been especially targeted as victims of abuse and harms. This article considers the multiple layers of ignorance-making from state representatives. It shows how state agencies have navigated Commission hearings through 10 strategies that demonstrate some acknowledgement of their offending and trauma-making while simultaneously minimising their responsibility and resecuring their institutional legitimacy as protectors of the vulnerable and saviours of Te Tiriti (the Treaty of Waitangi), ethics and integrity. This careful performance stands at odds with the ongoing layers of violence and harms in state care.

Funder

Victoria University of Wellington Summer Research Scholarships

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Reference63 articles.

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3. Reckoning Schemes of Legitimation: On Commissions of Inquiry as Power/Knowledge Forms

4. Ignorance, Power and Harm

5. Agnotology and the Criminological Imagination

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