Colonization and the Importation of Ideologies of Race, Gender, and Class in Aotearoa

Abstract

The chapter provides a brief discussion of underpinning belief systems of race, gender, and class ideologies that provided the rationale for colonization within Aotearoa. She argues that these belief systems were embedded in the dogma of colonial supremacy, which provided justification for colonial invasion globally. The imposition of colonial structures of race, gender, and class served to validate acts of oppression and subjugation of Indigenous peoples, for the dispossession of Indigenous lands and for the subjugation of the position of women within Indigenous societies. These systems of classification, all constructed and imposed by colonial forces, were in essence ways through which colonizers self-legitimized their tyranny over and domination of Indigenous peoples.