Construction and navigation of Asianisation in academia in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

Asians have im/migrated to Aotearoa since the nineteenth century. Despite this long history, Asians remain largely invisible and under-recognised in academia, and wider socio-political and policy discourses. Asians are not a ‘priority group’ for most equity-based policies in universities and beyond. In this chapter, we—three Asian scholars—engage in a collective reflection on our experiences of Asianisation, examining how our identities as Asian scholars are constructed, contested, and navigated within academic spaces. We draw on (Asian) critical race theory and racial triangulation to examine our racialised positioning as scholars of differing ethnolinguistic origins within the triangulated socio-political dynamics of ‘Pākehā (white settlers)-Asian-Māori’ in Aotearoa. Our critical reflections on the operation of Asianisation in Aotearoa academia are encapsulated into three interrelated themes: the presence of absence and representation challenges; epistemic racism and invisible Asian epistemology; and performing non-threatening Asianness.