Settler sport: Geena Carlisle, ‘”What’s it got to do with New Zealand?” Settler colonialism and the 1981 Springbok rugby tour to Aotearoa New Zealand’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler sport: Geena Carlisle, ‘”What’s it got to do with New Zealand?” Settler colonialism and the 1981 Springbok rugby tour to Aotearoa New Zealand’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2025

26Sep25

Abstract: In 1981 the South African Springbok rugby team toured Aotearoa New Zealand, bringing the nation head-to-head with apartheid sport and providing a catalyst for mass protests to break out. While the tour is remembered as having divided the nation and holds an important place in national memory, the anti-tour protests were far from homogenous and remain an under-researched topic in academia. The aim of this article is to reexamine the 1981 anti-tour protests from an intersectional feminist lens, building on literature that investigates the power dynamics of settler colonialism within the events of 1981. I focus on two under researched aspects of the anti-tour protests: the role of women, especially those active in feminist spaces; and the protests’ connection to Black activism, which peaked in the early 1980s in Aotearoa. The 1981 protests offer a critical site to interrogate national myths, identity, and notions of solidarity within a settler colonial context. I argue that while protest spaces often reproduced dominant settler colonial narratives and power dynamics, they also held the potential for forming decolonising solidarities when engaged with consciously and reflectively, and thus challenging entrenched power structures.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Closed