Racializing the "Social Development" State: Investing in Children in Aotearoa/New Zealand
- 6 February 2009
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Social Politics
- Vol. 16 (1), 132-158
- https://doi.org/10.1093/sp/jxp001
Abstract
This paper focuses on the claim that the child is emerging as a key figure of social governance. International studies suggest that as liberal welfare states increasingly draw on social investment discourse, the child—particularly the child-as-worker-in-becoming—has emerged as an iconic figure. This has resulted in the child becoming the central subject of social policies and programs and the focus of new spending priorities. In Aotearoa/New Zealand, however, the figure of the child is much less prominent than elsewhere. Moreover, in the policies and programs of the New Zealand “social development” state, the child is often racialized by virtue of its location within specific family groupings and geographical communities. In turn, this has implications for the positioning of women. As we show, the child/mother who stands to benefit from the “investments” of social development in Aotearoa/New Zealand is actually more likely to be a Pākehā child/mother, whereas the child/mother requiring continued programmatic intervention is more likely to be Māori or Pacific. This finding points to the need for feminist scholars to examine further the complex interpenetration of gender and race/ethnicity in the shaping of contemporary socio-political landscapes.Keywords
This publication has 15 references indexed in Scilit:
- Children (but not women) first: New Labour, child welfare and genderCritical Social Policy, 2006
- An ‘inclusive’ society: a ‘leap forward’ for M?ori in New Zealand?Critical Social Policy, 2006
- After Neoliberalism? Community Activism and Local Partnerships in Aotearoa New ZealandAntipode, 2005
- Agency, actors and change in a child-focused future: ‘Path dependency’ problematisedCommonwealth & Comparative Politics, 2005
- Shifting Representations of Citizenship: Canadian Politics of "Women" and "Children"Social Politics, 2004
- The third way and the third world: poverty reduction and social inclusion in the rise of ‘inclusive’ liberalismReview of International Political Economy, 2004
- Investing in the Citizen‐workers of the Future: Transformations in Citizenship and the State under New LabourSocial Policy & Administration, 2003
- Rhetoric versus Reality: The Figure of the Child and New Labour’s Strategic “Social Investment State”Studies in Political Economy, 2002
- Feminism and the Third WayFeminist Review, 2000
- From equality to social inclusion: New Labour and the welfare stateCritical Social Policy, 1998