Brian Easton

Listener 28 May 1990.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

The University of Sussex in Brighton, England, where I first taught, was deeply committed to the whole of the social sciences. In teaching, research and policy applications the staff believed in the importance of social sciences to social and personal understanding, and their contribution to building a better society. They partly summed this up in the phrase, “We are all marxists now.”

Listener 14 May 1990.

Keywords: Environment & Resources; Maori; Political Economy & History;

THE PAKEHA asked the Maori, “Do you claim all the airspace?”

“We claim rangatiratanga of all the space between Papa and Rangi,”

“Even that which the Russian sputniks go through?”

“Yes, The Maori recognise no boundaries. Even for the realm of Tangaroa. Perhaps if the Maori had been negotiating the Law of the Sea, the outcome would have been different.”

The Pakeha looked at the Maori with amazement, concluding if I judge his expression right, that the rangatira – despite his American PhD – was not quite with it. The claim over expanses over which the Maori had no statutory authority and no means of policing seemed ludicrous.

The very same week the New Zealand Government signed an international declaration which prohibited driftnet fishing in waters well outside our 320km limit and far beyond any realm our navy could plausibly police, Yet no one, Pakeha or Maori, concluded the agreement was ludicrous or the Prime Minister who sponsored it – and also has an American doctorate – was not quite with it.