Introduction

Imagine if across the country our history was passed down not just by kaumātua on the taumata but by our teachers in our classrooms. Jacinda Ardern, September 2019.

The Prime Minister’s statement above was made as part of the announcement for the prescribed teaching of Aotearoa New Zealand histories. It was a statement that acknowledged the power of memory activism, in which iwi and hapū histories are passed on to successive generations to challenge state and popular silences about the past (Kidman & O’Malley, 2020). Regardless of what is happening in classrooms, the statement suggests, the “true” history is being learnt outside of schools and government influence. Whether or not picturing New Zealand history being taught in New Zealand classrooms does require a feat of imagination, the Prime Minister’s statement provides a productive entry point to examine the introduction of the Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories (ANZH) curriculum content as the capture of radical history education by the state education assemblage.

The ANZH curriculum content has been introduced for English-medium schools in what Kidman and O’Malley (2022) have described as “a time of radical historical reappraisal” (p. 8). Through this reappraisal, historical knowledge has not just been passed on by kaumātua on the taumata, but in social movements such land disputes over Ihumātao, debates over public statues and place names, media productions such as Radio New Zealand’s Stories of the New Zealand Wars and the success of publications concerning decolonisation (Kiddle et al., 2020) and Pākehā identity (Jones, 2020). Collectively, these movements illustrate an engagement with, and desire for, knowledge that may challenge dominant understandings of the nation-state, trouble the position of settler subjects, and elevate the status of Indigenous knowledges.

The ANZH curriculum content formally connects this historical reappraisal with New Zealand schools. However, many of the most transformative aspects of the draft version of the curriculum document were diluted or removed from the final version. The changes to the draft reveal some uncertainty in engagements with the past that challenge Pākehā national hegemony and a desire to hold on to harmonious narratives the ANZH curriculum content was seen to replace (Bell & Russell, 2022). This article employs Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) concepts of the assemblage and deterritorialization to examine the ways in which the state education assemblage works to maintain coherency and determine the appropriate level of change. Analysing the changes to the draft curriculum document as the product of a state education assemblage can provide insight into the forces that may shape how the content is enacted in teaching and learning. It highlights how limited notions of national belonging, particularly Pākehā belonging, and conceptions of historical balance obstruct more relational and transformative engagements with the past.

“A New Phase in Narrating the Nation” (Bell & Russell, 2020, p. 21)

Through the centring of Māori perspectives and explicit engagement with colonialism and power, the ANZH content challenges dominant nation-building narratives. In response to the draft, Bell and Russell (2022) claimed the curriculum content “inaugurates a new phase in narrating the nation”, replacing earlier narratives that “depended on the past being ‘forgotten’” (p. 21). While early twentieth century national storytelling reaffirmed the legitimacy of the settler state and “narratively resolved” (Bell & Russell, 2022, p. 28) nineteenth century conflict, many Māori were raised with memories of this violence and injustice. The second half of the twentieth century saw the development of bicultural national narratives. However, rather than drawing greater public attention to colonial violence and iwi perspectives, dominant narratives were constructed around “‘lovely’ bicultural knowledge” (Kidman, 2018, p. 105) that perpetuated myths of a harmonious Māori-Pākehā partnership. In spaces like schools and museums, Māori and Pākehā histories continue to be narrated separately or present a nation formed through the partnership of two peoples (Kidman, 2018). These narratives form a “pedagogy of forgetting” (Kidman, 2018, p. 105) that silences the violent processes through which colonial institutions gained hegemony in Aotearoa.

Features of the ANZH content, such as the assertion that Māori history is “foundational and continuous” (Ministry of Education, 2022a) and the recognition of multiple histories, demonstrate an attempt to connect bifurcated histories. Bell and Russell (2022) argue it is in this way “an opportunity for encounter” (p. 10), in contrast with the settler colonial characteristic for the interdependencies with Indigenous communities to be denied. The curriculum content can encourage history education that faces the past in its complexity to “interrogate the nation (and the nation state) as a question and process-in-the-making, rather than a settled achievement” (Bell & Russell, 2022, p. 32). However, the commitment to confront complex and contentious aspects of the past has faced significant scrutiny and is likely to continue to do so as the curriculum works through the bureaucratic processes of state education and day-to-day teaching and learning.

While Bell & Russell (2022) applauded the broad focus of the curriculum content, it was also subject to significant critique. Two themes of criticism were evident in the summary of findings from public engagement with the draft curriculum content (Ministry of Education, 2021b; NZCER,2021). The first was requests for the content to include a broader range of topics and experiences to “reflect the multicultural, multi-ethnic communities of Aotearoa” (Ministry of Education, 2021b, p. 13) and the nation’s relationships with the wider world. This was the main concern expressed by the independent Royal Society Expert Advisory Panel, formed to provide feedback on the draft (Royal Society, 2021). The panel expressed their concerns about the “brevity” and “fragmentation” (p. 5) of the draft. Along with other commentators (Neill, 2022), the Royal Society (2021) report also argued certain topics— particularly Māori history prior to European arrival, women’s history, economic history, and international relations—were given inadequate or no specific attention in the draft content. There was additional criticism that the narrow interpretation of biculturalism prompted a focus on Māori and Pākehā to the exclusion of other ethnic groups (Neill, 2022: Ministry of Education, 2021b).

A second theme was opposition to content related to “power, colonisation and Māori history” (Ministry of Education, 2021b, p. 10). In their analysis of the public submissions, New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER, 2021) suggested “this concern may be based on resistance to sharing space or power, and/or a conviction that different historical accounts cannot be told differently by different peoples” (p. 12). This opposition was often informed by a belief that historical accounts must be neutral, a refusal to accept Māori accounts of the past as reliable, and fears about “Pākehā being blamed for the negative impacts of colonisation” (NZCER, 2021, p. 12). At the extreme end were “disturbing and hateful anti-Māori and anti-Māori language sentiments” (NZCER, 2021, p. 13). Related criticisms were voiced in public, particularly by opposition political parties, who claimed the draft had too much emphasis on colonisation and would be divisive (Baillie, 2021; Goldsmith, 2021).

Following the consultation and feedback process, the draft version of the curriculum document was revised and the final version was released in March 2022. This article examines the different ways the revised curriculum document responds to these two strands of criticism. The Ministry of Education (2021b) clearly indicated their intention to “widen the breadth of content” (p. 10) to better reflect New Zealand’s diversity and connections with the wider world. Upon the release of the final version, the Ministry of Education (2022d) stated that changes focused on “providing a wider range of histories contexts and concepts” and “ensuring visibility of diverse histories” (p. 7). There was less clarity, however, in the response to concerns over content related to power and colonisation. The Ministry of Education (2021b) noted this criticism and stated any changes would focus would on “enhancing the features people liked” and that there “would not be any radical changes to the content” (p10). In particular, it was stated that “suggested changes that would contradict the aims of the New Zealand education system and the Crown’s obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi will not be acted upon” (Ministry of Education, 2021b, p. 10). Neill et al (2022), claim criticism of content concerning power and colonisation “did not gain a high profile in mainstream media, or in the NZCER report” (p. 132); however, a comparison of the draft and final version reveals a pattern of changes to this content. The purpose of this article is to analyse these changes and consider the state education assemblage that would be required to produce them.

Deleuzo-Guattarian Policy Assemblages

Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts of the assemblage and deterritorialization are valuable for analysing the process of state engagement with historical reassessment. The assemblage provides a means to analyse how forms of content and expression operate in a working arrangement to create new ways of functioning. Central to the concept of the assemblage is Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) assertion that desire is productive, challenging Lacanian conceptions of desire as a lack of something. Desire animates the assemblage, and it is through the assemblage that desire is made productive. The assemblage provides a productive focus for analysis of how the desire for a greater understanding of New Zealand history has produced the ANZH curriculum content through a working arrangement of content (actions, bodies and things) and expression (affects, words and ideas), and the principles of selection that determine the nature of this arrangement (Buchanan, 2017). Deterritorialization refers to the process through which assemblages transform and reproduce themselves (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). Movements such as the campaign for prescribed history content, or historical reassessment more generally, can be seen as a deterritorializing forces, or “lines of flight” that transform the state education assemblage.

The model of assemblage theory used for this article has significant differences to Hughson’s (2022) “assemblage approach to policy analysis” (p. 53) of the draft ANZH curriculum content and the “refresh” of the New Zealand Curriculum announced in 2021. As Hughson states, there are many different approaches to assemblage analysis. Hughson’s work fits within a strand of assemblage theory does not directly engage with Deleuze and Guattari’s original work (see Buchanan, 2017). Perhaps the most significant consequence of this approach concerns the use of the word “assemblage” itself. The term assemblage is used in English translations of Deleuze and Guattari’s work in place of agencement from the original French. As Nail (2017) illustrates, while in English, and conventional French, an assemblage is “a gathering together of things into unities”, agencement refers to an “arrangement or layout of heterogenous elements” (p. 22). This understanding of the assemblage as an ongoing process of arrangement with principles of exclusion and inclusion, rather than a unity, is central to how it is used within this article. The everyday usage of the term assemblage as a “gathering together” is evident in descriptions of the assemblage as a thing, often through metaphors such as “patchwork” (Hughson, 2022, p. 59), rather than as a tool to analyse things.

Hughson’s (2022) description of the government as “engaging in a selective and calculated process of assemblage” (p.64) demonstrates the effect of adopting the everyday usage of “assemblage”. Following Savage (2020) in replacing Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) concepts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization with processes of “dis/re/assembly” (Savage, 2020, p. 326), Hughson (2022) refers to the “political labour of making policy assemblages cohere” (p. 65), positioning politicians as transcendent to an assemblage that they have “assembled” or “gathered together”. This presents a radically different view of the assemblage, and human agency, from that proposed by Deleuze and Guattari. As Deleuze states, “the machine operator is present in the machine” (Deleuze & Parnett, 2007, p. 104) and immanent to the assemblage. From a Deleuzo-Guattarian perspective, the tendency towards coherence is an essential function of the assemblage itself, rather than something laboured over from an outside (Buchanan, 2017).

Hughson’s (2022) article provides a perceptive explanation of the development of ideas that influenced in the curriculum “refresh”. However, as Deleuze argues, “in a multiplicity, what counts are not the terms or elements, but what there is ‘between’ them” (Deleuze & Parnet, 2007, p. viii). A central function of the policy assemblage is to make coherent the flows of desire that animate the assemblage. Therefore, a Deleuzo-Guattarian analysis is informed by Guattari’s (2011) claim "we are constantly brought back to the same interrogation: what holds the assemblages and their heterogenous components together?" (p.146). Rather than describe the components of the assemblage, this article analyses how the assemblage itself puts these elements into relation with each other and what is produced through this arrangement. In doing so, it follows Jackson and Mazzei (2023) by attempting “to ask the Deleuzo-Guattarian question: how does it work, and who is it working for?” (p. 119).

Part of the power of Deleuze and Guattari’s work is that it invites original and creative applications of their ideas, an approach that aligns with their own opposition to “ready-made thought” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994, p. 51). The incomplete, and incompletable, nature of their wider project of schizoanalysis encourages readers to engage in further development and modification of the central concepts (Buchanan, 2013). It also means any application of their concepts will be incomplete and open to further revision and critique. Deleuze and Guattari’s original work, however, continues to provide the most productive starting point for employing the concept of the assemblage. Understanding “assemblage” cautiously, as an imperfect translation of “agencement”, and exploring the associated concepts, provides an effective toolbox to ensure the concept is not used adjectively to describe the parts a complex system, but as a tool to analyse how these parts function in relation with each other, for what purpose and to what effect. Employed this way, the assemblage can provide insight into the working arrangements and flows of desire required to produce the changes to the draft version of the ANZH curriculum content.

Structure of the ANZH Curriculum Content

Both the draft and final ANZH curriculum content documents are structured with a staged progression model and “Understand”, “Know” and “Do” learning elements. The progression model establishes age brackets—years 1–3, 4–6, 7–8 and 9–10—with progress outcome statements outlining what learning should take place by the end of each bracket. The “Understand”, “Know”, “Do” elements are a departure from the Achievement Outcomes of the New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) that is presented as necessary to introduce prescribed knowledge (Ministry of Education, 2022b). “Understand” refers to four “Big Ideas” that students are expected to understand in greater depth over the course of their study. “Know” covers the contexts learning is expected to cover. There are four national contexts and schools are directed to develop further contexts with local iwi and hapū, communities and students. Content is prescribed through the “Know” element with stated “Key Knowledge” and “Key Questions” that are expected to be covered at each progression. “Do” explains the historical inquiry practices that students are expected to develop, such as recognising multiple perspectives and sourcing reliable information Fig. 1.

Fig. 1
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ANZH curriculum content learning elements (Ministry of Education, 2022b)

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Changes to the Draft Version

Widening the Breadth of Content

Changes to the draft version of the curriculum document clearly reflect the Ministry of Education’s (2021b) intention to “widen the breadth of content” (p. 10) to reflect New Zealand’s diversity and connections with the wider world. This is achieved through additional content within newly created themes and sections. The draft version contained three “Big Ideas”: the first established Māori history as “the foundational and continuous history of Aotearoa”; the second highlighted the centrality of colonisation to New Zealand history; the third explored how the nation’s history “has been shaped by the exercise and effects of power” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p. 2). These three “Big Ideas” remain in the final version, with the addition of a fourth “Big Idea”, stating: “Relationships and connections between people and across boundaries have shaped the course of Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories” (Ministry of Education, 2022a, p. 2). A similar “fourth idea” was proposed by the Royal Society Expert Advisory Group (2021).

In addition to a fourth “Big Idea”, the final version adds a fourth national context within the “Know” learning element. The draft version contained three national contexts: Whakapapa me te whanaungatanga | Culture and Identity; Tino rangatiratanga me to kāwanatanga | Government and organisation; and Tūrangawaewae me te kaitiakitanga | Place and Environment.Footnote 1 A fourth national context Kōwhiringa ohaoha me te whai oranga |Economic Activity was added to the final version (Ministry of Education, 2022a). The need to focus on economic activity was emphasised in both the Royal Society feedback and the findings from the public engagement with the draft content (NZCER, 2021).

The final document also adds examples of possible “Learning experiences” to support the “Key Knowledge” and “Key Questions” in the “Know” learning element. The examples of learning experiences include particular attention to the experiences of women, Pacific peoples, refugee communities, disabled people, Chinese New Zealanders, and Māori prior to the arrival of Europeans. In addition to this, is a greater emphasis on New Zealanders’ connection with the natural world and popular entertainment. These are topics that were deemed to be absent from the draft version (Neill, 2022). Including them as possible learning experiences demonstrates how this material can be incorporated into teaching and learning and supports the Ministry’s goal of showing how schools can develop “local curricula, so that learners of all ethnicities and cultural backgrounds can see themselves in the curriculum” (Ministry of Education, 2021b, p. 13).

The intention to widen the breadth of content was signalled by the Ministry of Education, emphasized upon the release of the final version and clearly signposted in the final version. The changes to content concerning power, colonisation and Māori history, however, were much more subtle.

Power, colonization and Māori history

The Ministry of Education did not state publicly that they would act on the criticism of “power, colonisation and Māori history” elements of the draft curriculum. However, analysis of the differences between the draft and the final document reveals subtle rewriting and edits to make content concerning the operation of power, colonisation and interpretations of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi less prescriptive and allow more flexibility in interpretation. In the process, many of the aspects of the draft that were seen to signal a “new phase in narrating the nation” (Bell & Russell, 2022, p. 21) were diluted or removed. The revised document provides more space to reassert previous historical narratives that have served state and Pākehā interests.

The final version of the curriculum document retains topics focused on the marginalisation of certain groups. However, revisions to the draft minimize or obscure the active and deliberate ways power is exerted and the role the state and dominant groups have played in the oppression of others. For example, one progress outcome for the end of year 8 in the draft stated: “Different stereotypes of a ‘New Zealand’ identity have been purposefully constructed at different times to define who is included and who is excluded” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p. 10). The Royal Society’s (2021) response referred to this section, suggesting it should provide an “indication of who or what is purposefully ‘constructing New Zealand’” (p. 14). However, in the final version, the construction of national identity is removed altogether, replaced with a section focused on the broad range of cultures and communities who have “participated in and contributed to Aotearoa New Zealand”. The section concludes by noting “some have met barriers” (Ministry of Education, 2022a, p. 17). As another example, in the progress outcome for the end of year 10, the draft stated that “Nineteenth century immigration schemes were designed to create a British colony and consequently shifted the balance of power from Māori to settlers” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p. 11). While the colonising effect of these laws is described as “designed” in the draft, in the final version they are based on “cultural ideals” that were “experienced as colonising and assimilating” by tangata whenua (Ministry of Education, 2022a, p. 25). The accumulative effect of these sorts of changes is that there is little prescribed content that connects marginalisation to the deliberate exercise of power and demonstrates how groups benefit from the marginalisation of others.

Further changes to the end of year 10 progress outcome present a subtly different relationship between Māori and the state. The draft stated that “New Zealand’s settler government and the Crown were determined to undermine mana Māori, especially by acquiring Māori territories” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p. 11). In the final version a similar section reads “The Crown asserted its power to establish a colonial state that in consequence diminished mana Māori” (Ministry of Education, 2022a, p. 25). While both versions connect the hegemony of the colonial government with oppression of Māori communities, the changes provide opportunities to suggest governments were unaware of the consequences for Māori. The draft also stated that Te Tiriti o Waitangi “underpinned iwi attempts to remedy injustice by working inside, alongside and outside the Crown system” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p. 11). The final version states “Māori have worked inside, outside, and alongside the Crown to renegotiate the colonial relationship with the Crown and to affirm tino rangatiratanga” (Ministry of Education, 2022a, p. 25). While the draft clearly showed the “attempts to remedy injustice” are an ongoing process, the final version could be interpreted as suggesting the “colonial relationship” has successfully been renegotiated and colonial oppression can be left in the past.

Alongside the revisions to content in the “Know” learning element, similar changes are made to the explanation of colonisation in the “Understand” element. The second “Big Idea” in the document directly addresses colonisation. In the draft it read: “Colonisation and its consequences have been central to our history for the past 200 years and continue to influence all aspects of New Zealand society” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p. 2). This is changed to “Colonisation and settlement have been central to Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories for the past 200 years” (Ministry of Education, 2022a, p. 2). The inclusion of “settlement” can be seen as part of the effort widen the breadth of content, but the removal of the reference to the ongoing effect of colonisation reflects a broader trend of revising contested statements and obscuring the connection between historical processes and present-day inequity. In unpacking the concept, both the draft and final versions present colonisation “as part of a worldwide imperial project” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p, 2; Ministry of Education, 2022a, p. 2). However, the draft elaborated this point by claiming that in “Aotearoa New Zealand, it sought to assimilate Māori through dislocation from their lands and replacement of their institutions, economy, and tikanga with European equivalents” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p. 2). This sentence was removed from the final version, as was the claim that colonisation “continues to evolve” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p, 2). Through the removal of a clear explanation of what constitutes colonisation in Aotearoa and its evolution, the changes to the draft can be seen to appease those who have rejected categorisations of colonisation as a wholly negative structure that continues in the present day.

Alongside the avoidance of contested aspects of colonisation, was the removal of content that stated rangatira were assured their mana and authority would not be compromised by signing Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The draft progress outcome for the end of year 6 stated that rangatira who signed “were given assurances that [Te Tiriti o Waitangi] guaranteed their chiefly authority” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p. 9). This is removed from the final version. This trend continues in the end of year 8 progress outcome, where the draft stated: “it is clear that Māori did not cede their mana to the Crown, and that they signed in the belief that it would give them power to govern in partnership with the Governor” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p. 10). This is replaced with a statement that the signing “emerged from a long period of complex interactions between hapū/iwi and newcomers” (Ministry of Education, 2022a, p. 17). Finally, the progress outcome for the end of year 10 in the draft stated that: “In 1840, the Treaty promised to protect tribal rangatiratanga. By 1900, it had become the means of regaining what it had promised–rangatiratanga, mana motuhake, self-determination” (Ministry of Education, 2021a, p. 11). This section is also removed. The accumulative effect of these revisions is that there is no clear content outlining the content of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the ways rangatira understood the agreement.

Seen together, these changes represent a movement away from the third period of New Zealand history narration Bell & Russell (2022) identified and provide opportunities for a partial return to what Kidman (2018) describes as “‘lovely’ bicultural knowledge”. Kidman draws on Britzman’s (1998) distinction between “difficult knowledge” that “induces a sense of shame, discomfort or anger” (Kidman, 2018, p. 98) and its opposite “lovely knowledge” that reaffirms how groups and individuals view themselves and the world. Kidman (2018) argues that in Aotearoa “‘lovely’ bicultural knowledge” supports a vision of the nation as “benign, altruistic and at times, even heroic” (p. 105) in its partnership with Māori. However, this knowledge “proves difficult to sustain because ‘difficult’ knowledge persistently intrudes on these comfortable, ‘safe’ or noble renditions of ‘race’ relations” (Kidman, 2018, p. 105). By obscuring the role of dominant groups in the oppression of others and the connection between that oppression and present-day injustice, the most “difficult” knowledge is marginalised. Moreover, clearly stating the ongoing and wholly destructive effect of colonisation is essential for understanding its centrality to the nation’s history. In avoiding or minimising these ideas, along with the removal of statements that Māori did not cede their mana in signing Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the revisions can be seen to accommodate opposition to content concerning power, colonisation and Māori history. Hughson (2022) indicated the potential for “anti-woke” discourses to become part of the policy assemblage. The changes to the draft suggest that this has occurred.

The Working of the State Education Assemblage

Deleuze and Guattari’s work provides a means for understanding the changes to the ANZH curriculum content as the product of a state education policy assemblage. Through this assemblage, the desire to reassess the past is made both productive and manageable, within the existing structure for state education. Through the assemblage, this desire for knowledge comes into relation with the strata, or accepted ideas of what school and education should look like. Here, established ideas such as the value of school autonomy and student-led learning, as well as the ways people should feel about national history, are brought into potentially uneasy arrangements with the desire for students to acquire specific knowledge.

Relative deterritorialization defines processes of change that remain within an existing assemblage. Relative deterritorialization may be categorised as negative when it is “overlaid by a compensatory reterritorialization obstructing the line of flight” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 508) and produces forms of change that ensure things essentially stay the same. However, relative positive deterritorialization describes more ambiguous changes as the line of flight partially escapes reterritorialization and contains both the potential for co-optation within the existing assemblage and the creation of a new assemblage (Nail, 2017). This ambiguity is evident in the ways the flows of desire for new forms of engagement with the past are worked into the state education assemblage through the ANZH curriculum content. While Bell and Russell (2022) emphasise the transformative potential of the draft document, the changes to the draft illustrate the ways the lines of flight are contained and made to cohere with existing understandings of the past.

For Deleuze and Guattari (1987), a key question is the degree to which lines of flight or deterritorializing forces can be tolerated before the assemblage is transformed or a new assemblage is formed. They distinguish between the “limit” and the “threshold” of the assemblage. The limit refers to the point in which a “necessary rebeginning” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 438) or transformation of the assemblage is required for it to continue to function. However, beyond that point is the threshold. Going beyond the threshold prompts the entering or creation of a new assemblage. A limit of the education policy assemblage is evident in the influential 2015 Ōtorohanga students’ petition that called for the New Zealand Wars to be taught in all schools. The students embodied the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum’s stated vision for young people as “confident, connected, actively involved, and lifelong learners” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 8). However, the Secretary of Education stated that demands for prescribed content were “contrary to the spirit and underlying principles of the National Curriculum” (Hughes, 2016). The Secretary of Education’s comments reveal the competing and contradictory desires that animate the policy assemblage. The students’ desire for specific knowledge to be prescribed can then be identified as a limit of the assemblage where the existing arrangements no longer work as a tool for coordination. Sustained action at this limit unravels the ability of the policy assemblage to manage competing desires and prompts a transformation of the assemblage.

The Prime Minister’s reference to history education occurring solely outside of schools points towards a possible threshold of the education policy assemblage in which history education is not recognised as the responsibility of a state determined national curriculum. Such a movement could designate a form of absolute deterritorialization that creates a new assemblage, signalling “a real that is yet to come, a new type of reality” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 142). The refresh at the limit point of the assemblage enables the state capture of the flows of desire for new forms of historical knowledge and provides some insight into how the government education assemblage works to manage historical reassessment. The government education assemblage functions to ensure dominant historical discussion remains within the control of the state and can determine what learning is and is not “left to chance” (Ardern & Hipkins, 2019). Content that invites critique of the legitimacy of the settler state and connects historical injustice to present-day inequity may be deemed politically unpopular and is marginalised in the revised curriculum document.

While the state capture of historical reassessment provides some explanation for the changes made to the draft version of the ANZH curriculum content, it does not answer the question of how the state education assemblage works to maintain coherency. Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of the refrain (ritournelle) is a key concept for understanding how the assemblage manages the complexity of policy change and implementation. Deleuze and Guattari (1987) define the refrain as “any aggregate of matters of expression that draws a territory and develops into territorial motifs and landscapes” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 323, emphasis in original). A refrain, then, is a “mechanism of association” that “brings together forces, ideas, memories, powers” (Buchanan, 2013, p. 179) to establish the territory desire can be expressed through. This territory is established through the “rhythmic regularity” of the refrain “that brings a minimum liveable order to a situation in which chaos beckons” (Grosz, 2008, p. 52). Refrains related to school autonomy, localized content and student-led inquiry have “harmonized” to establish a territory of education that previously resisted the prescription of New Zealand history content. However, the meaning associated with a refrain is malleable as it is worked within different arrangements. Events such as the Ōtorohanga students’ petition unsettled the existing territory and repeated claims, such as certain knowledge should not be “left to chance” (Ardern & Hipkins, 2019, para 5), opened space for new understandings of the function of state education in Aotearoa and what it means to have learners at the centre of teaching and learning.

As part of the introduction of the curriculum content, historian Nēpia Mahuika, one of the curriculum writers, stated the writing team focussed on “belonging in Aotearoa, which has been a common sort of refrain in narratives around New Zealand history” (Ministry of Education, 2022c). While Mahuika is not necessarily employing a Deleuzo-Guattarian understanding of the refrain, exploring how curriculum content supports different notions of belonging is an effective means to consider the logics of inclusion and exclusion that provide coherency for the education assemblage. Mahuika emphasises how centring iwi and Māori narratives provides a foundation to explore how other groups have sought ways to belong in Aotearoa in relation to Māori (Ministry of Education, 2022c). The changes to the draft show more clearly how a diverse range of topics and communities can be incorporated into the curriculum content through an examination of how people “learnt to live with iwi and Māori on their lands” (Mahuika, 2020, p. 24).

Criticism of the draft content, however, reveals the enduring influence of notions of national belonging that require unblemished pride in the actions of one’s ancestors and the nation. Such an approach requires a degree of structural forgetting about the reality of European settlement (MacDonald et al., 2022). The Ministry of Education (2022e) has emphasised the need to engage the emotional responses of all learners, but the responses of Pākehā have received particular attention in work that highlights the emotional discomfort and defensive behaviours that may accompany engagement with iwi and Māori narratives that challenge nationalist myths (MacDonald et al., 2021; Russell, 2022). These defensive behaviours were evident in a strand of criticism most vocally expressed by the conservative ACT Party in their claim that the emphasis on colonisation paints New Zealanders as “victims and villains” and ignores “things that New Zealand can be proud of in our history” (Baillie, 2021). Similarly, the education spokesperson for the centre-right National Party claimed it established a “division between oppressors and victims” (Goldsmith, 2021). These sentiments demonstrate how, for some, movements to account for and acknowledge complicity with ongoing colonialism and discrimination may undermine a sense of belonging for those New Zealanders who may be inheritors of historical privilege.

Expressions of discomfort in teaching and learning about colonial oppression underscores the significance of efforts to redefine and expand what it might mean for non-Māori to “belong” in Aotearoa. Relational notions of belonging can be expressed in invitations for “non-Māori to understand their own identities in relation to Māori, to history, to this whenua, and to Te Tiriti o Waitangi” (Hoskins & Jones, 2022, p. 311). In addressing the past, Bell and Russell (2022) propose a stance of critical mourning that “grieves the shortcomings and mistakes of history as a means to reflect on how we might move forward differently” (pp. 31–312) with a commitment to “stay in relation with each other” (p. 33). The need for teachers to be supported in delivering informed and ethical history education was evident in responses to the draft curriculum document by both Māori and teachers themselves. Both groups voiced their concerns about teachers’ lack of in-depth historical knowledge and ability to manage their biases in teaching New Zealand history (NZCER, 2021). However, the changes to the draft provide more opportunities for this work to be avoided and continue the problematic pattern of “flexible” curriculum frameworks leading to the marginalisation of Māori historical experiences and perspectives (Manning, 2018).

A second refrain was evident in the claim that “the idea of ‘getting the balance right’ emerged as a clear theme” (NCER, 2021, p. 13) in the analysis of the public engagement with the draft content. This was expressed in terms of balance between “Māori and Pākehā histories” with one submission stating, “both cultures should receive equal time for their stories to be told and learnt” (NCER, 2021, p. 13). However, this notion of “balance” reasserts a narrow focus on Māori and Pākehā to the exclusion of other groups, is in opposition to notions of relational belonging, and threatens to reinforce the bifurcated Māori and Pākehā histories that uphold “‘lovely’ bicultural knowledge” (Kidman, 2018, p. 105). The first “Big Idea” in the curriculum document, which presents Māori history as the foundational and continuous history of Aotearoa, supports an understanding that, as Mahuika (2015) claims, “all New Zealand history is relevant to Māori and that Māori are relevant to all New Zealand history” (p. 6). A focus on “balance” obscures this “Big Idea” and limits the opportunities that were recognised in the draft for Pākehā to acknowledge their interdependencies with Māori (Bell & Russell, 2022). Furthermore, ignoring this relational view undermines meaningful understanding of the significance of colonisation in Aotearoa, the curriculum document’s second “Big Idea”. Relational notions of belonging provide a productive orientation that eschews the balancing of separate histories or re-centring nationalist narratives. Māori histories can provide a foundation for a whole curriculum that both reinforces the special status of tangata whenua and supports a continuous exploration of the different connections communities have to place and each other.

Conclusion

Returning to the Deleuzo-Guattarian questions “how does it work, and who is it working for?”, the changes made to the draft version of the ANZH curriculum content illustrate the ways in which the education assemblage can work to maintain opportunities to continue the marginalisation Māori narratives and knowledge. The changes to content that may be unsettling for those who are inheritors of state privilege also illustrates the ways in which the emotional responses of Pākehā can come to dominate. Māori respondents to the draft emphasised that centring Māori and iwi narratives and philosophies can “instil pride about identity and culture” and “challenge negative beliefs and stereotypes about Māori” (NZCER, 2021, p. 50). Movements towards more “flexible” interpretations of the curriculum content can present a serious threat to those aspirations. Analysing the process of curriculum development gives some insight into the forces that may shape how the ANZH curriculum content is enacted in day-to-day teaching and learning. The concept of the refrain illustrates the effect of limited conceptions of belonging that are built on colonising myths. A continued emphasis on balance also maintains the bifurcation of Māori and Pākehā histories, limits space for other groups, and ignores the foundational and continuous status of Māori history. Finally, an understanding of the limit and threshold of the state education assemblage illustrates the ways history education that operates outside of the purview of the state can resist state capture and promote more radical forms of historical reassessment.

Despite the changes to the draft, plenty remains in the final curriculum document to suggest it may still prompt a dramatic transformation in how New Zealand history is taught in schools and understood by the public at large. The “Big Ideas” still require students to recognise Māori history as the foundational and continuous history of Aotearoa and critically engage with how colonialism and the operation of power have shaped New Zealand society. Moreover, the explicit promotion of multiple histories provides a clear corrective to earlier uncritical narratives celebrating the development of a singular (Pākehā) national identity. Deleuze and Guattari (1987) warn one must not deterritorialize too quickly and “retain a minimum of strata […] from which to extract materials, affects, and assemblages” (p. 270). With this in mind, the ANZH curriculum content is perhaps best understood as a tensor that “simultaneously holds the assemblage together and puts it into variation” (Lea et al., 2022, p. 349). The curriculum content both coordinates the flows of desire that have prompted this reassessment and signals potential lines of flight that may be taken up in classrooms across the country. Considering the role teachers and students have played in campaigning for new ways of engaging with the past, there is reason for optimism that it may still prompt a movement away from “lovely” bicultural knowledge and signal the “new phase of narrating the nation” that Bell and Russell (2022) saw in the draft.