A room of one’s own
It seems that designating a room to its students for prayer doesn’t have to be as difficult as the HvA and UvA made it out to be. In fact, Wellington’s Victoria University boasts several as well as a space for women, an area especially for Maori students and a cafe reserved for its staff and post-graduates. Are these ‘safe spaces’ necessary for the university’s minorities, or just pigeonholes for a divided student body?
Victoria University’s halls and faculties are perched on steep hillsides. The city of Wellington, like many of New Zealand’s cities, was built on volcanoes only relatively recently extinguished and whose tremors can still be felt. This same volatility could, until not too long ago, also be said to characterise the country’s past. And so just as the island nation is regularly surprised by a rumble deep within the earth’s crust, so too, does conflict occasionally fire up along the fault lines between gender and ethnicity.
Up north, a wave of attacks on Asian students by groups of Maori and Pacific Islanders shocked Auckland University last month. This month the issue is abortion, with campus pavements chalked over with anti-abortion slogans and then replaced by the scribblings of the pro-choice women’s collective. Down south in Dunedin, the University of Otago’s student magazine Critic this week featured an extensive article on rape of female students and self defence classes on campus. In between lies Victoria University. Though well-loved and generally quieter than its neighbours, to many students, especially females and minorities, it can still be a challenging environment.
Undergraduates not allowed
And so, when perambulating Victoria’s campus slopes, a visitor might be surprised to see a corridor leading off a busy hall with a sign designating it as Maori and Pacific Islander space. Puzzled, he or she may wander the staircases of the extensive Student Association complex until another sign bars the former from continuing, while she might enter the university’s women’s space. Further up the hill, coming upon a sunny quad, the visitor might feel tempted to stop at the cosy Milk and Honey cafe bordering it and yet they cannot. A discreet A4 poster on the door reads: no undergraduates allowed.
Besides locales for chats among the like-minded, what are the designated rooms and halls for? And do these exclusive spaces perform a necessary function, or could the tactics of spatial divide-and-rule also perpetuate alienation and clashes between genders, ethnic and other student groups?
‘Student spaces like those are pretty well advertised by the university,’ says Hannah (19) a law, international politics and drama student revising in the Hub, a central student lounge that is open to all. Her study partner Ava (19, psychology and drama) agrees. ‘It’s like: “Girls, come study here, we’ve got a women’s space and a health support centre in case you’re not feeling well!” They offer everything you need in one place.’
Only Hannah has briefly visited the women’s space: ‘It comes in handy when the university’s packed with students for exams.’ She has also noted the off-limits Milk and Honey in passing: ‘Maybe they want to drink their coffee in peace?’ Ava: ‘We’re not allowed in there? I didn’t even know about it but now I do I feel a bit angry. I bet they have amazing coffee too. It’s one of those things - I don’t give a shit until I’m not allowed.’
Such unease about privilege of entry is not unusual, especially in the case of the Maori and women’s spaces (in the case of the postgrads, their space is commonly seen as a privilege that was academically earned). As is often the case with straightforward exclusion — especially of the white male, who is generally unused to the feeling — the safe spaces for Maori and women have received criticism in the past. So why are they there?
Women’s space
‘Well, as it says, it’s a space for women on campus,’ says Gloria Fraser (22), who comes to the room regularly. A psychology honours student at Victoria, she has long been an active feminist, serving as president of the women’s collective in her Bachelor days at Auckland University (which, incidentally, even boasted a drug space, though this questionable student commodity did not survive the 90s).
‘For lots of different reasons: it’s a place where women can do things like eat and talk together and nap without worrying about the repercussions. There are very practical sides to it, too; for instance, some of the Muslim women on campus are not actually allowed to eat in front of men, so for them a place like this is invaluable.’
She’s heard all the jibes and critiques: ‘Why is it here, why isn’t there a space for men, why do you need it?’ But Gloria remains a proponent of its necessity. ‘At one point this Facebook page appeared on which people would post whenever they saw someone good looking — usually men who saw women — and say who they were. They’d say things like, “It’s raining and a girl in a white t-shirt just walked onto the sixth floor of the library”. Things like this is exactly why the space is necessary.’
Still, she’s not blind to the downsides. ‘Some find the women’s space a bit sad. Shy girls tend to retreat there… It can be a hideaway even though it’s the university’s task to thrust students out into the world. But on the other hand it’s arguable the university hasn’t prioritised making its environment safe for minority groups. You can’t blame the necessity of these spaces on the university, it’s a problem rooted in society.’
Queer space
She concedes the existence of such a room is also likely to create undue mystery about what goes on inside. ‘A few years ago The Estuary, the students’ magazine, actually sent women into the room to stage a pillow fight. Then they had photographers positioned in the opposite building to take photos through the windows and make this fake exposé about “what really goes on in women’s space”. It was a spoof,’ she says with a grin, ‘but I think they actually put curtains in after that.’
The mystification of safe spaces in the minds of men is childish, however: anyone who’s curious need only ask politely if they can check out the room, as Jacinta Gulasekharam, Academic Vice President of the university’s Students’ Association kindly demonstrates. ‘There’s no one in at the moment,’ she concludes after sticking her head around the door. ‘You can come in.’ The room, as expected, is supremely anticlimactic, featuring a small fridge, three slightly frumpy couches and walls lined with an array of posters and messages, from the cheerily activist to aggressively exclusive.
‘We get requests from the LGBTQ community on campus for a queer space, but we’re overstretched for rooms as it is — and the university aims to double the number of Maori and postgrad students in the near future.’ The vice-president says. ‘The women’s collective was lucky that a room was free at the time they wanted to set up their own space.’
‘A women’s space does not address the fundamental problem that public spaces aren’t always safe for them,’ Jacinta contends. The same, of course, goes for the Maori space — it is, if anything, an indicator of social inequality, rather than a solution to it.
Maori society
The Te Whanake Maori Computer Suite, as it’s officially called, is up for exploration next. The role of Maori spaces like these on New Zealand’s campuses is significant and complex: although the country has been a rare example of a peaceful alternative to brutal colonisation, the Treaty between the Maori and Pakeha, hasn’t, unfortunately, stopped the disenfranchisement of the land’s older people. Many Maori face racism and structural poverty plagues many of its communities.
Respectfully but unabashedly, Jacinta strides from the somewhat sterile architecture of the main hall into its cosy, colourful rooms, greeting a few students clicking away on a row of computers. We are welcomed by Nicola Panapa, mentoring coordinator for Maori students.
‘How do you think a Maori student feels coming to university?’ Nicola asks rhetorically. She faced the barriers of the academic environment herself in her student days. ‘It’s all pretty beige and monotonous! A space like this celebrates diversity, difference. As a Maori student, it allows you to feel comfortable and to make the most use of the university’s technology and support services. After all, you’re paying good money for it.’
Maori students still form a regrettably small group on campus but the university’s affirmative action schemes and quota should change that in the near future. Until then, ‘We’re trying our best to brown the university up,’ Nicola says, smiling. ‘There is so much that can be done, it would be so easy for even the buildings on campus to incorporate Maori designs.’ The walls around her are a good start, a colourfully painted echo of the tattooed patterns adorning her arms.
But Jacinta has saved the best for last and leads the way outside. On a sunny side of the hill lies the university’s marae: a grassy clearing in front of a meeting house constructed of beautifully carved wood. A sacred space, central to Maori society, it is used for both social and ceremonial meetings. ‘The Maori graduation ceremony was started a few years ago and has been very successful’ Jacinta says. ‘A recent student report on the university found that the Maori community is really embracing the space.’ Many Maori students who attend the university, she explains, are the first in their families to enter this environment. ‘They bring their families down here, and it makes for a more comfortable setting for a graduation with a procession and songs.’
The marae’s dark red columns lend the space a reverential air; which is perhaps why there are no students lounging on the grass here even on a sunny afternoon, and even though the space is open to all. Any visitor would have to admit that the marae, like other safe spaces on campus, are not at all forbidding. ‘Students respect each other’s boundaries quite naturally,’ Jacinta says on leaving. ‘They have grown up learning about the Treaty. But it is no taboo to come in and say hello.’
