Racializing the "Social Development" State: Investing in Children in Aotearoa/New Zealand

This paper focuses on the claim that the child is emerging asa key figure of social governance. International studies suggestthat as liberal welfare states increasingly draw on social investmentdiscourse, the child—particularly the child-as-worker-in-becoming—hasemerged as an iconic figure. This has resulted in the childbecoming the central subject of social policies and programsand the focus of new spending priorities. In Aotearoa/New Zealand,however, the figure of the child is much less prominent thanelsewhere. Moreover, in the policies and programs of the NewZealand "social development" state, the child is often racializedby virtue of its location within specific family groupings andgeographical communities. In turn, this has implications forthe positioning of women. As we show, the child/mother who standsto benefit from the "investments" of social development in Aotearoa/NewZealand is actually more likely to be a Pkeh child/mother, whereasthe child/mother requiring continued programmatic interventionis more likely to be Mori or Pacific. This finding points tothe need for feminist scholars to examine further the complexinterpenetration of gender and race/ethnicity in the shapingof contemporary socio-political landscapes.