In her book Decolonizing Methodologies, Linda Tuhiwai Smith describes how “theories about research are underpinned by a cultural system of classification and representation” that has commodified non-European forms of knowledge into the cultural archive and body of knowledge of the West. Today, the role of the West as a globally authorising culture has come into crisis; and with it the ideal of a consensual, anti-dialectical “human stock of knowledge” in the Popperian sense. Accepting the contention of feminist theorist Patti Lather that it is precisely in the aporia between paradigms that methodological inquiry lies, this paper proposes that practice-based research methods are uniquely equipped to develop our collective understanding of the urgent tensions and contradictions structuring postcolonial life.

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Over the last four years, and with the support of numerous people including many in the Aotearoa Digital Arts network, I have been writing articles, giving talks, editing books, producing creative works and organising events that ask what it means for new media to consider the implications of indigenous knowledge, culture, and ways of being. This article summarises the theoretical learning from that work, with a view toward bringing an end to what Guillermo Gómez-Peña suggests is a necessary “hyperintensification” of certain cultural problematics that I have been engaging in over the last few years.

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Introduction to panel on Tauiwi and Tino Rangatiratanga Parihaka International Peace Festival, January 6 2007 Danny Butt – https://dannybutt.net Tena koutou katoa and welcome to the panel “Pakeha/Tauiwi and Tino Rangatiratanga: A possibility for peace or a contradiction in terms?” I’d like to give thanks to Te Miringa Hohaia for inviting me to speak at […]

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Comment piece for Media International Australia, June 2006. http://www.emsah.uq.edu.au/mia/ Danny Butt, Suma Media Consulting The concept of “Network Neutrality” has received a great deal of attention in the press recently, mostly due to so-far unsuccessful US telecommunications legislation proposals that required Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to carry any and all Internet traffic equally, rather than […]

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I grew up selling Local Knowledge, though I didn’t think much about it at the time. Local Knowledge was the brand name for the surfboards made by my stepfather’s surf shop on Australia’s Gold Coast. Surfers – compared to most other white settlers who aren’t farmers – have detailed relationships with physical places and locations. […]

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