A Conversation through History: Towards Postcolonial Coexistence

This paper takes the form of a three-part exploration of the uses and limitations of the Hegelian Master–Slave for the analysis of colonial and post-colonising subjectivities in Aotearoa New Zealand. In Hegel, the subjectivities of Master and Slave are socially constituted via a struggle for recognition that one ‘wins’ and the other ‘loses’. Subsequently their relations are mediated through Things. The first part of this paper demonstrates how struggles over colonial history (here the Hegelian Thing) constitute ‘Pākehā’ and ‘Māori’ as Master and Slave. This is not the end of Hegel's difficult story however. The second section explores the resulting dissatisfactions of the colonising subject and the possibilities for autonomy of the colonised. Finally, I outline the ultimate limitations of the Hegelian framework, identifying a number of significant ways in which ‘Pākehā’, ‘Māori’ and ‘History’ all escape the confines of the Master–Slave–Thing triad, suggesting possibilities for a reconceived postcolonial relationship.