Kōtuitui
New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online
Pavlova and pineapple pie: selected identity influences on
Samoan-Pakeha people in Aotearoa/New Zealand
Emily Keddell
Department of Social Work and Community Development
University of Otago
PO Box 56
Dunedin, New Zealand
Abstract This paper examines influences on the
increasing numbers of those with one Pakeha parent and one Samoan
parent in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It is based on a small, qualitative
study and utilises a narrative approach. It describes selected
influences at macro, meso, and micro levels of social structure as a
framework for examining how this population view themselves and
construct their identities. At the macro level, post-colonial dynamics
of requiring “authenticity” from minority groups is explored, as it
demands high standards of legitimacy from those of both Samoan and
Pakeha ancestry. Essentialist and one drop rule theories of ethnic
identity tend to classify this population as belonging solely to the
Samoan category. At the meso level, these people as children are
uncritically treated as if they are only Samoan. At the micro level,
the influences of their nuclear and extended families tended to
encourage a Samoan identity in most participants. There was a marked
variation in the ways the participants interpreted their lives, despite
some similarities of experience.
Keywords ethnic identity; Samoan; Pakeha;
Aotearoa/New Zealand; multiple ethnicities
INTRODUCTION
In 2003, 22% of live births were recorded as having “multiple
ethnicities”. In the same year, 47% of newborns of Pacific ethnicities
were recorded as also having other ethnicities, as were 27% of newborn
Pakeha babies (Statistics New Zealand 2004a). Samoan populations,
similar to other Pacific people, are comparatively youthful,
increasingly New Zealand-born (58% in 1996), and have high rates of
intermarriage (Macpherson 1999; Gray 2001). Some have argued that this
has resulted in a fragmentation, or at least a diversification, of what
it means to be Samoan in Aotearoa/New Zealand (Fleras & Spoonley
1999; Macpherson 2001). Others have argued for both the persistence of
a unified or singular Samoan identity based on “traditional” aspects of
Fa’asamoa, and the essential value of such persistence as a method of
maintaining a “true” Samoan identity (Mailei 1999; Anae 2001). The
impacts of intermarriage between Pakeha and Samoans on Pakeha identity
have been unacknowledged beyond popular comment. Any discussion in this
area needs to recognise the lack of homogeneity in either group, and
the ways in which both Samoan and Pakeha cultures have been constructed
over time and have had some degree of reciprocal influence in
Aotearoa/New Zealand.
The idea of being able to have “multiple ethnicities” is an attempt
by Statistics New Zealand in the face of public pressure to move beyond
simplistic ideas of “race” or ancestry as being the sole definer of
ethnicity, particularly the automatic assignment to a minority group of
a person with any ancestry from a minority group (Statistics New
Zealand 2004b). This signals a move away from the construction of
ethnicity as essentially a descent-based reification, to a definition
of ethnicity that emphasises cultural practices and values. These
changes in defining ethnicity are congruent with a strong global move
to individualistic human-rights ideology that includes the right of
people to self-define their ethnicity, including being able to claim
more than one (Niezen 2004). These changes recognise that ethnicity is
socially constructed, situational, unstable, and changes over time and
place. For example, Callister (2004) traces the official statistical
changes in definitions of ethnicity in New Zealand, noting the
sociological construction of ethnic classification slowly changing from
an externally defined “race” to a self-defined “ethnicity” or
ethnicities. He also notes, for example, with regard to Maori identity,
the phenomena of changing ethnicity over time, whereby people in recent
years have moved both in and out of the “Maori” category. The
conflation of once geographically separate gene and culture pools is
exposing the inadequacy of cultural identity theories that rest solely
on race or descent. The study of this “mixing” is itself a vehicle to
deconstruct ideas about “race” that compartmentalise and define people
in a manner often contradictory to their lived experience (Root 1992;
Niezen 2004).
What do all these factors mean for the identity constructions of
those in Aotearoa/New Zealand with one Samoan parent and one Pakeha
parent? How are the identity options, the “available menu” of
possibilities, shaped by social, political, and familial constraints?
Some contributors to the literature regarding people of multiple ethnic
ancestries emphasise the positive possibilities of choice and access to
all ancestral connections. However, these choices are constrained, at
least at the macro or social level, by a number of powerful discourses;
for example, the presumption that intermarriage will inevitably lead to
assimilation into the dominant culture (Callister et al. 2005), or
muliticulturalist discourses that presume the discrete, ongoing nature
of cultural groups free of outside influences.
How do the influences of family and school work to support or
challenge possible identities and shape the way people respond to their
wider social context? These issues are further influenced by the fact
that neither group, Samoan or Pakeha, are by any means homogeneous or
discrete from one another. However, historically Samoan culture and
increasingly Pakeha culture are presented as if they may be, and this
in itself has an effect on those who can lay claim to both. These are
some of the issues I will explore, via a discussion of selected
influences.
STUDY CONSTRUCTION
An epistemology that accepts the normality of pluralism and cultural
difference needs to be the starting point of research in this area
(Stanfield & Dennis 1993). Root (1992: 182) suggests that research
on “mixed race” people should be based on ecological models that
“emphasise the interaction of social, familial, and individual
variables within a context that interacts with history”. It is these
guidelines I have attempted to follow.
My study, as part of the requirement for a Masters degree,
consisted of four interviews and a follow-up focus group with the same
participants. The questionnaire administered was a series of open-ended
questions intended to elicit complex answers and generate discussion.
The questionnaire sought to cover variables at the micro, meso, and
macro levels of Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological model. The
ecological model attempts to provide a framework by which factors at a
number of levels can be identified, and their relative influence
explored. The wider, structural level of society, including historical
context, laws, political environment, cultural values and attitudes,
constitutes the “macro” level. The organisation/community is called the
“meso” level, and the individual/family is the “micro” level. Often
studies about identity issues focus solely on micro dynamics; however,
as so much of the discourse associated with identity is produced at the
macro and meso levels, the ecological model was used to make explicit
these factors. The idea of a simple transmission of identity,
particularly ethnic identity from parents to children, devoid of
outside influences, is naïve. This model therefore
highlights elements of both structure and agency, with a relatively
strong emphasis on how structural constraints impact on people’s values
and behaviours. The study also reflects a commitment to attempting to
explain how societal discourses impact on the way in which people
explain and “narrate” their life experiences (Ricoeur 1992). A
narrative approach seeks to understand not only “what” people identify
as, but why. The only way to ascertain this is to adopt a research
method that aims to find out what experiences a person has had, and how
they explain and ascribe meaning to those experiences (Stephan 1992).
The participants all had a Pakeha mother and a Samoan father, and
all grew up in the 1970s and 1980s in South Island cities. In the case
of all three nuclear families (the two men were brothers), the
marriages were precipitated by pregnancy, and all the partnerships were
strongly disapproved of at their inception by the Pakeha families of
the women involved. It is interesting to note both the gender structure
of these intermarriages, and that although there were a number of other
members of the men’s Samoan families living in New Zealand at the time,
none of the participants knew their opinions about the marriages.
Despite these rather inauspicious beginnings, the marriages were
relatively durable, with two lasting more than 20 years, and one still
going. Several factors should be commented on here. Firstly, the
categorisation of Samoan men and Pakeha women obscure the “mixed”
nature of each person. Two of the Samoan men also had German ancestry
and, of the women, one was of Irish and Scottish ancestry, and the
others were not known. The reasons for choosing one another,
particularly in the face of familial rejection for the women involved,
are not known. However, several possible factors are: (1) class-based
endogamy, that is, contact established via their shared working class
environment (Lieberson & Waters 1988); (2) the small size and
gender imbalance of the Samoan population, especially in the South
where young men were the earliest immigrants. Because of this, it is
impossible to deduce whether the men were displaying discriminatory
preferences in their partner selection or not (Callister et al. 2005).
Of the participants, there were two men and two women, all in their
mid-20s, and all of them described their family of origin as working
class. They all had some form of tertiary education. The two men are
brothers, one being the oldest in their nuclear family (A) and the
other the next child in that family (B). The women had a wider kinship
connection to each other. Both are the eldest children in their
respective nuclear families (C and D). While I dislike the use of
letters to refer to people, I decided for the purposes of this paper
that letters are less potentially loaded than names: if I use either
Pakeha or Samoan names, these both infer a certain view or identity
that may distract from the discussion.
MACRO: SOCIAL CONTEXT
Influences on identity at the macro level focus on the interaction
between the historical construction of “race”, the resulting racism,
colonialism, and the demand for legitimacy from minority and indigenous
people that results from this. Discourses about race and ethnicity rely
on history, politics, spirituality, values, and economics. These define
both how Samoan-Pakeha people are perceived by others, and how they
perceive themselves. These discourses form part of the meta-narratives
of explanation that people use to make sense of and attempt to make
coherent some of their life experiences, permeating both internal
self-talk and external subjectification (Ricoeur 1992; Wetherall &
Potter 1992). These discourses are often subtly imbued with an
understanding of cultural difference that rests heavily on genetic,
“racial” definitions and essentialist conceptions of culture (Masami
Ropp 2004).
An example of this is in the material about intermarriage. The
discussions have often concentrated on what it means for the minority
group and minority group identification, with implications for the
changing face of Pakeha ethnicities being invisible. Implicit in this
is the perception of Samoan-Pakeha people as being a subset only of the
Samoan population. The nature of discussions about this population has
therefore been about the diversification of Samoan culture (e.g., Anae
2001). It is clear from this invisibility that the presence of people
with “multiple ethnicities”, while a conundrum for the minority group
involved, for the majority of Pakeha is simply an impossibility because
those so described are rarely considered as being Pakeha. This can also
be linked to constructions of “whiteness” that maintain ideas of racial
purity and exclusion (Ignatiev & Garvey 1996).
This dynamic had an impact on my participants. It was one of the
influences that resulted in them mostly identifying as being Samoan,
especially if the enquirer was Pakeha. Even the one participant (A) who
identified as being mostly Pakeha felt he could not baldly state “I’m
Pakeha” without further explanation. So, why are the rules of “race”,
for example hypodescence1, still so
entrenched (see Zack 1993; Harre 1966)?
The first reason is related to cultural and colonial politics. The
nature of Pakeha cultural hegemony can render invisible or “normal”
Pakeha cultural values and practices. This is exacerbated by a tendency
for most Western academics to focus on minority or marginal groups,
rather than their own (Chambers 1994; Swift 1995). Pakeha popular
culture is the default setting, the invisible option for culture and
identity. Some contend that this invisibility is cultivated in order to
maintain the power base that comes with it. Secondly, a discourse of
culture that proposes that ethnic cultures are diametrically opposed
and mutually exclusive operates to continue to colonise and oppress
minority groups, portraying them always as “other” (Root 1992; Stephens
1995; Chambers & Kurti 1996).
This “otherising” of minority groups and “normalising” of dominant
Pakeha culture for Samoan-Pakeha people means that it is only those
aspects of their identity or culture that can be clearly assigned to a
Samoan ethnicity that are visible under this kind of litmus test. This,
combined with their phenotypical features and the meanings given to
those features, places them in a Samoan ethnic group by both themselves
and others. This is articulated by one of the male study members (B):
…because outwardly, on appearance, because I look different, look
Samoan or Maori then … I think that other people … didn’t see me as
being European, as being half… they would be looking for the Samoan
things in me that make me different…
All participants were affected by this view of Pakeha culture being
invisible or generic, and found the identification of traits, values,
or behaviours that they perceived as being Samoan much easier than
those that could be labelled Pakeha. Pakeha culture is allowed to be
pluralistic and tends to be less essentialised, making it less clearly
identifiable. However, this difficulty in identifying certain traits as
being from a particular culture is further complicated in that no
cultures are pure, discrete, or unchanging.
It is because of this tendency to “otherise” people and
essentialise culture that some have even recommended “writing against
culture”, arguing that “[c]ulture is the essential tool for making
other” (Abu-Lughod 1991: 143). This results in subject peoples being
forced to present their claims in terms of a presumed traditional or
“real” culture in order to be seen as legitimate. This demand for
legitimacy at a personal level based on being perceived as only Samoan
forces the closure of some paths or expressions and the impossibility
of identities based on gender, language, or nation: “Expression and
representation are compelled to support the collective burden and unity
of a presumed representation” (Chambers 1994: 65). The ultimate result
of this is that some people are rejected by a minority group because
they are not seen to have a legitimate claim to membership if they do
not conform to rigid cultural values, whatever their ancestry (Anzaldua
1990).
How has this dynamic influenced Samoan cultural representations and
affected those who are Samoan and Pakeha? Even New Zealand-born Samoans
who have two Samoan parents are often excluded and marginalised by
older, Island-born Samoans. They are perceived as being “fia palagi”,
that is, wanting to be Palagi (white) and often have limited ability to
speak Samoan (Tiatia 1998). Young Samoans who are more overt in their
critique of oppression are seen to be going against Fa’asamoa in which
politeness, courtesy, and respect for one’s elders are paramount, even
in situations of conflict (Field 1984; Macpherson 1999). Their Samoan
identity is challenged when they do not conform to strict ideas about
what Samoan culture consists of (Anae 1998, 2001; Tiatia 1998). All the
participants in my study felt this pressure in some situations to
“prove” their Samoanness to other Samoans, and had challenged, at some
time in their lives, an unquestioning obedience to elders as required
by the Fa’asamoa, again similarly to other young New Zealand-born
Samoans (Tiatia 1998; Fleras & Spoonley 1999). With regard to
Samoan culture and identity, older Island-born people are trying to
hold onto a notion of the “true” Fa’asamoa, and with it, the notion of
a “real” Samoan. This impacts on all New Zealand-born Samoans, as it
creates “…issues of identity for those who (find) themselves in
disagreement with parts of the aganu’u fa’asamoa which they
‘know’ to be the basis of Samoan identity. Were you still a Samoan when
you doubted central premises of what you knew to be Samoan culture?”
(Macpherson 1999: 55).
In this study, the demand for legitimacy acts as a major watershed
with regard to the way people locate themselves in the political
minefield that is identity politics, with both of the women (C and D)
identifying mostly as Samoan, one of the men (B) as both (with slightly
more emphasis on his Samoan identity), and the other man (A) mostly
Pakeha in the face of its divisive and forced dichotomising power.
Through all of these issues runs the theme of people struggling with
the dictates of societal understandings of race and culture, and
particularly, as they get older, acting consciously to reject them.
This is similar to the “new mestiza” described by Anzaldua (1987), who
learns to consciously choose who and how to be in each situation, and
is aware of the racial paradigm which would try to exclude or
marginalise her. Instead, it shows an embracing of new narratives that
allow one to actively and consciously choose to construct an identity
that embraces aspects of all relevant cultures. Participant D
illustrates this active construction: earlier in her life she described
herself as “part-Samoan”, but now refers to herself as “New
Zealand-born Samoan”. She feels this reflects both her cultural
heritages effectively, as well as recognising the shared experience and
values she has with other New Zealand-born Samoans. This increasing
freedom and desire to self-define relates in turn to the liberalisation
of values in many areas in the Western world, allowing more postmodern
and diverse understandings and values (Katz 1996; Phoenix & Owen
1996; Statistics New Zealand 1997). Conversely, participant A, who
identifies as Pakeha, also has to consciously reject discourses that
would try and use “race”-based classification to categorise him.
These challenges to essentialism are also reflected in New Zealand,
where some are accepting a less essentialised image of what it means to
be Samoan in New Zealand, and are acknowledging the ways in which to be
Samoan is changing and diversifying (Fleras & Spoonley 1999;
Macpherson 1999). However, Fa’asamoa, being such a strong, explicitly
articulated meta-narrative, means that for many Samoans, it functions
as a basis of identity and solidarity. This is further strengthened by
its ties with the Church and Christian principles (Tiatia 1998).
Indeed, it was used as such in Samoa in reaction to New Zealand’s harsh
rule (Field 1984), and in New Zealand as a method of survival and the
maintenance of morale and community in the face of oppression. As such,
Fa’asamoa has a long history of politicisation. An ideal example is the
rapper “King Kapisi” (Bill Urale) who shows an old picture of the Mau2 on the cover of one of his albums, and expounds
a number of their principles as a basis for resisting oppression and
having pride in being Samoan in contemporary New Zealand. Anae (2001)
gives another example of this kind of politicisation when she proposes
a “secure Samoan identity” to be attained by New Zealand-born Samoans
that rests on a number of traditional values and practices based on
Fa’asamoa.
The reiteration of Fa’asamoa as a basis of collective identity and
resistance obviously has many interesting aspects. The erection of such
rigid cultural boundaries as an attempt to resist the forces of
globalisation, suppression, and assimilation is prevalent amongst
minority groups worldwide (Niezen 2004). It seems that even if there
are no original, pure cultural states or the identities that result
from these, the rejection of such “cherished identities” results in a
“sense of malaise” and an attempt to revitalise older cultural
practices (Niezen 2004: 40). The conflictual and oppressive context
within which Samoans live in New Zealand means that attempts to modify
traditional culture are perceived as a threat to community cohesion,
and with good reason. After all, colonialism continues in the form of
mainstream, Pakeha culture and values being held up as normal,
ordinary, and desirable, and is embedded in a history of oppressive
practices, both here and in Samoa. This colonialism contributes to the
ongoing constructions of a “real Samoan” identity based on
“traditional” cultural phenomena, and Pakeha culture going unnoticed
and uncriticised.
However, inasmuch as culture is essentialised, it can act
negatively on both a person of Samoan and Pakeha parentage, and the New
Zealand-born young person who wishes to reject or adapt some of the
imperatives of the “traditional” Fa’asamoa. These kind of essentialist
ideas about what it is to be Samoan pose a threat to their own sense of
identity (Tiatia 1998), or rather, constitute constraints on the ways
in which they can construct their identity if they want to be perceived
by some Samoans as being Samoan at all. The ongoing essentialising of
culture, as well as constraining people’s identity choices, can be used
to rationalise class-based inequalities (Ongley 1996; Spoonley 1996).
Gilroy (1995) described this response as the production of differing
forms of answering identities to different forms of racism, for example
slavery, colonialism, or migration. So, this dynamic, and the resulting
way in which Samoan identity is presented, is a result of our own
particular history of colonialism and social relations. The combination
of both Pakeha colonial demands for authenticity and the Samoan
essentialism this engenders and encourages contributes to the
participants feeling “…like you weren’t 100% Samoan, but you weren’t
100% Pakeha either…”.
This similarity of experience in terms of rapid cultural change,
racism, and demands for legitimacy for those of Samoan and Pakeha
parentage in this study was a basis of solidarity and identification
with New Zealand-born Samoans with two Samoan parents. Somewhat
ironically, this similarity of experience ameliorated the sense of
marginality described above, as it served as a basis of solidarity and
therefore identity with some other New Zealand-born Samoans. This did
not necessarily rest on the explicit adoption of Samoan language and
practices listed by Anae (2001) but, nevertheless, resulted in a
strongly asserted Samoan identity, particularly for those who had
Samoan culture explicitly encouraged and practised in the home.
Further, the experience of racism, the demands for legitimacy, and a
growing feeling amongst my study members of being “different” as they
reached their high school years further emphasised this. This sense of
difference was not so much based on being Samoan-Pakeha, but being
perceived as being not at all Pakeha (B):
I noticed at high school that there weren’t many Samoans at
school; I went to an all-boys school, and there was only about four of
us, so we kind of stuck together ... because like all the other
Europeans kids would be saying there are all those fobs or whatever ...
hanging together...
Int.: You kind of had to hang out with them?
...but it was good to hang out with them as well, we enjoyed it,
and I kind of felt special because there ... wasn’t really many of us
... we were quite unique … it was fun, I was happy.
Implicit in this is the participant identifying himself as being
Samoan, partly because of his knowledge of how he was viewed by other
children, but also due to the positive experience of being seen as
belonging to a unique group. Another participant also notes the same
sense of being viewed as “different”, but extends the analysis beyond
the school setting (C):
...being seen as being “other” and not being clear about what that
“other” is, but it is “other” than from being Palagi (and so) you focus
a lot harder in resolving that.
Int.: In a way you have to in order to claim it, because
you’re living in a Palagi society...
Yeah because you’re defined as that, so you have to know what that
is, because if you don’t, you’re up s*** creek.
However, in more formal Samoan settings, the study participants
often felt excluded and marginalised (D):
I remember finding out in my fourth year at varsity that there was
a Samoan students association, but I felt I couldn’t join because I
wasn’t a “real” Samoan ... I had been stereotyped as being Maori ... I
couldn’t speak the language, you know, so I would always be “part
Samoan”...
Another participant identified himself in terms of his cultural
practices and identity as Pakeha (A) particularly in interactions with
Samoans. One reason for this was the feeling that it was “too hard” to
be a Samoan, and knowing that any claim to a Samoan identity would be
challenged.
The demand for legitimacy placed on minority peoples, in this case
Samoans, does place extra demands on those who have multiple
ethnicities who wish to claim their minority ancestry (Chambers 1994).
This desire, however, is somewhat more complex than simply a “wish”, as
in some cases it is more like an implicit assumption on the
individual’s part that is then challenged as they get older. The idea
of “choice” has numerous problems when a particular identity may be
forced upon them by a wider society that subscribes to ideologies of
“race” based on ancestry and colour, or traditional ideals unattainable
for young people in an immigrant context.
MESO: SCHOOL
The school environment as a vehicle for reproducing social
inequalities and reinforcing the primacy of white middle class culture
has long been acknowledged (Bordieu 1977). In New Zealand, this dynamic
has also been noted, especially the effects of it on Pacific Island
young people who are expected by their elders to achieve at school
without taking on the implicit values of the education system (Tiatia
1998). How does this dynamic affect Samoan-Pakeha young people, and how
does their experience of school influence the way their identities are
constructed?
Two of the participants achieved well in the school setting (A and
C) and while the other two just “scraped through”, they too went on to
tertiary education. This would suggest that they all had some of the
“cultural capital” valued by the school system. However, to attach this
capital to a single causative variable is difficult. It may have been
due to their interaction with their Pakeha parent, having English as a
first language, or exposure to Pakeha culture in general. It is likely
to have been bolstered by the high status, single sex state schools all
the participants attended, and their increasingly middle class
lifestyles. The participants pointed out that some Samoan values such
as respecting those in authority, achieving educationally, and being
generally tenacious were actually valued by the school system, and so
again, the concept of a simplified oppositional cultural dynamic is
confounded. However, the encouragement of critical thinking and the
moves in educational pedagogy away from a passive learning approach
make contemporary education more demanding of those abilities which are
not valued in more “traditional” Samoan culture (Tiatia 1998). From
this study, it is clear that the participants all learned what was
expected of them in the school setting with regard to behaviour and
values, with even those who did not have such a strong Samoan element
in their home environment recognising the implicit, different
expectations of the school environment. One participant notes that he:
“...didn’t have any Samoan or Polynesian role models as teachers so ...
I was never reinforced as a Polynesian person at school” (B).
There was also an awareness of, and an internalisation by, the
participants of the lowered expectations of them in the school setting.
This dynamic has been documented with regard to other Pacific Island
and Maori children (Simon 1982). The same participant (B) said at times
he felt like the “dumb kid”, and did not expect himself to achieve
academically. There were also some professions he had ruled out for
himself purely on the grounds that he was Samoan. The reason he gives
for this is because he saw none of his Samoan cousins or elders
achieving in this way. Another (D) spoke of being channelled by
teachers into “non-academic” subjects at school. Another who was
extremely successful at school (C) explains her teacher’s somewhat
mystified attitude towards her:
...I was this little darkie that was not only not under
the norm for achievement academically, but was leading the class ...
and that’s like I’m a freak because of it, and what’s going on in this
little girl’s head and why is she not like how we expect these people
to be...
Although the participants all possessed much of the necessary
cultural capital, this did not guarantee them freedom from racist
presumptions based on their Samoan ancestry. This suggests that the
reproduction of social inequalities is not only about cultural
differences such as values and attitudes; after all, these children had
a Pakeha parent and knew how to express their Pakeha cultural knowledge
in a Pakeha environment. These influences must therefore be connected
to much less sophisticated notions of race and biological “difference”.
As the latter participant’s experience shows, the capital, in itself,
is not enough; these subjects are still perceived as “different” by
Pakeha exclusion. The automatic assignment to the minority group is
problematic in that it did not always reflect the participant’s
realities, and it was imbued with negative expectations. It clearly
reflects the social attitudes with regard to race, demands for
difference, and the perceived exclusion from some identities (in this
case “professional” ones) described in the macro section. For the
participants, because this treatment was also meted out to children
with two Samoan parents, it solidified a sense of difference, and that
difference was named as “being Samoan”.
Multiple selves and situational ethnicity
Tiatia (1998) suggests that the New
Zealand-born Samoan young person develops a “Westernised self” in
response to the differing expectations of the home and school
environments. All participants agreed that they learned the differing
expectations of home and school. Although one was necessarily more
“Westernised” than the other, this was not perceived by them as one
presentation being a “true” self, and the other, by default, “false”.
Rather, they felt that both selves were true, or rather that the
ability to act appropriately in different contexts did not necessarily
threaten a sense of self. One participant (C ) used the term
“foundational self” to describe the underlying sense of continuity
which the participants felt existed across contexts. This is congruent
to some extent with the concept of a true self, but also one which is
more basic and dynamic than traditional modernist theories allow.
However, similar to Katz’s (1996) findings, nor does this support the
“...full-blown post-modernist assertion that identity is a fabrication
by the individual which is used to paper over the cracks of
discontinuous and contradictory experience”. This “foundational self”
may not be ethnically labelled although of course it is culturally
influenced. Another participant (B) said that he initially identified
as being both Samoan and Pakeha. When asked if one was more
predominant, he said that it:
Depends on what situation I’m in
... I am more Samoan with my Samoan family ... (and) friends, and more
Palagi or European with my European friends … actually more with my
European friends I still feel different, even now (I) still feel
different and I feel that I restrain my inner, my real inner
personality among my Palagi friends, I feel like I am not really being
me, I am sort of moulding myself to them … rather than what I am like…
This self-evaluation suggests his sense of a “true self” is Samoan.
However, this may be influenced by the demand for difference described
above, whereby this quote is evidence that this participant is treated
as being different from them by his Pakeha friends, but “the same as
us” by his Samoan friends. These meta-narratives of race and culture in
a colonial context may be reflected in his image of who he “really is”,
therefore influencing his sense of a “true self”. Most participants
clearly exercised the “situational ethnicity” proposed by theorists
such as Root (1990) and Anzaldua (1987), and recognised by Statistics
New Zealand (2004b). This was seen by them as a fluid and normal
process whereby they used their “insider” knowledge in both groups in
different circumstances.
While discussing aspects of this process with my participants, I
found that the idea of situational ethnicity was impossible to
extricate from demands for legitimacy, that is, to prove themselves a
“real Samoan”, whether it be to Pakeha or Samoan others. It can be
concluded from this that the decision to be either Samoan or Pakeha in
a particular situation is intrinsically tied to the social dynamics
which force that choice, in particular, that of being seen as
legitimate or “authentic”.
In an extension of the situational ethnicity idea, people may
construct their identity in a more multicultural way at home, and in a
monocultural way in situations external to the home. While some view
this as a transitory, temporary measure on the path to a fully
“integrated” identity that is constant in both settings, others see
this as a normal and creative aspect of functioning (Pinderhughes 1995;
Root 1996). It also allows for the fact that historically people have
been forced to “choose one” in public arenas, but may well have always
acted differently in the private domain.
Situational ethnicity is not only about being moulded by structural
forces, however, but is also about a more agency-focused idea of
“strategic essentialism”, necessary at times when needed to consolidate
identity or gain political or material gain (Wetherell & Potter
1992). This seemed to be practised in the public domain:
…like when I was on the debating team at High School I really
enjoyed the fact that I was Samoan and really played on that, that I
was the first Samoan to be on the debating team at this high school … I
didn’t recognise the Europeanness in me because I wanted to be
different, so I just selected that I was Samoan, even though I am
both…(B)
MICRO INFLUENCE: FAMILY
All heritages positively valued
Having both or all sides of a child’s heritage accepted as having a
positive value is important in helping a child attain a healthy regard
for themselves and others. The availability of the minority parent and
group is critical in this, as it is less likely that this can be
accessed elsewhere (as the majority culture can be) (Pinderhughes
1995). In this sense, the minority culture often requires some
“compensatory cultural emphasis” in order to counter societal racism
(Spencer 1987). However, this must be viewed in the context of each
individual person. While it may be optimum to have both parents
available, those who take this to the extreme by saying that this is
necessary for the child to develop a “healthy” identity must be
challenged. It is important to recognise once again that just because
of a child’s ancestry, they do not necessarily have to adopt an
identity that is congruent with that. Who decides what is congruent? It
is easy to slip into essentialist and even racist theorising if we say
that a child must identify equally with both or only one ethnic
group in order to be “healthy”. The diverse and specific nature of each
person’s experience means that we must resist making absolute
generalisations (Alibhai-Brown 2001).
In recent times, particularly in a post-colonial environment where
indigenous and minority cultures have been actively belittled and
oppressed by the majority culture, a kind of
minority-ancestry-as-therapy paradigm has been applied as a way of
reclaiming threatened cultures, resolving personal struggles, and
resisting assimilation (Wetherell & Potter). The application of
Maori and Pacific values that include a strong emphasis on kinship
connections has been a strong symbol of solidarity and resistance
(Greenland 1984). However, this also, perhaps unintentionally, supports
a “one drop rule” theory of ethnic categorisation, reinforces
essentialist conceptions, and can negate a person’s lived experience.
While discourses are presented as either/or options, people are forced
to choose an identity that may not coincide with their personal lived
experience. It can also pathologise a Pakeha identity where there is no
problem. Ethnic identity, whether based on one or more ancestral
groups, is not something to be “discovered”, as if it relied only on
ancestry, but rather created. “Cultural identity … is a matter of
‘becoming’ as well as ‘being’. It belongs to the future as much as to
the past. It is not something that already exists, transcending place,
time, history, and culture … far from being grounded in a mere
‘recovery’ of the past which is waiting to be found and which, when
found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity” (Hall 1990:
225). Certainly, the one Pakeha identifying person in my study (A) had
no “problem” with his identity, no sense of cultural conflict, no
mental health issues, and maintained positive relationships with both
his parents. In terms of Maori identification, Kukutai (2003) found
that 6% of those who identified as Maori had no Maori ancestry and 15%
of those with Maori ancestry identified as being non-Maori. She found
that other factors such as location and whether one’s partner was Maori
or not influenced a person’s decision to identify as either “sole
Maori”, “mixed Maori” or “non-Maori”. I am not proposing to simply
invert the “one drop rule” to encourage all those with Pakeha ancestry
to identify as Pakeha, nor encourage “we are all one people” ideology.
I hope instead to promote an idea of cultural identity that allows
people to choose for themselves what ethnicity means for them, and to
be able to identify with more than one if they wish. Other New Zealand
writers have also highlighted this. For example, O’Regan (2001) noted
that for many Kai Tahu, identity derives not only from Kai Tahu
ancestry, but also from one’s Pakeha sealer or whaler ancestors.
Kukutai (2001) noted that neither having a higher socio-economic status
nor acknowledging non-Maori ethnicity should make anyone “less Maori”.
Jackson (2003) argued that just as children are no less a grandchild of
a particular person just because they have other ancestry, they are
simply a mokopuna because of their ties to that grandparent, and this
status is not undermined by whoever else their grandparents may be.
Carter (1998) pointed to the inability of either blood quantum or
“traditional” Maori cultural values to either predict or authenticate a
Maori identity.
Threats to positive value
The attaching of positive meaning to ethnicity can be threatened if
there is violence or abuse in the home that becomes “racialised”, that
is, extended beyond the individual perpetrator to encompass their
ethnic group. This is further exacerbated if that group is held in low
regard by society, and by racism, which may encourage this kind of
racialisation. This is more likely to occur if the perpetrator is from
the minority group involved, as their culture is more “visible” and
essentialised in a context that portrays the dominant culture as being
“normal” and basically pluralistic (Pinderhughes 1995). All the
participants experienced harsh physical discipline from their Samoan
parent. For the one predominantly Pakeha identifying participant, he
felt this was particularly unfair. He felt that he was being treated
“as if” he was Samoan, when he did not feel Samoan. For his brother,
conversely, this discipline, although resented, actually solidified his
sense of being Samoan:
…even though I now know there is physical abuse in both cultures,
I thought that the physical abuse I got was … just a Samoan thing … I
talked to friends about it and they all got hidings as well but it was
cool, because we were all together and all the same, so that made me
feel more Samoan...
The differences within this one family are again evidence of the
variations in individual interpretation and narrative which influence
how a person constructs and names their identity. The shared experience
of this kind of discipline was clearly “racialised” and even seen as a
positive binding factor. However, only for one was it negative enough
for it to be a factor in his rejection of a Samoan identity. For the
others, positive aspects of what they perceived to be Samoan culture
and their exposure to it in both their nuclear and extended families
was enough to encourage a Samoan identity in most situations.
Extended family contact
In this study, all the parental relationships were durable, and the
children had as much access to their Samoan parent as their gender
roles (i.e., as the breadwinner) would allow. The fathers in the study
all had numerous relatives living nearby that the children had a large
amount of contact with. The exception to this occurred between the two
brothers. Both agreed that due to B’s more outgoing and overtly
humorous personality, he was more accepted by his Samoan cousins and
consequently spent a lot more time with them. The other brother, A,
identified himself as being more reserved, more like his mother. He
recalls one of the few occasions both his father and all the children
were at a Samoan relative’s house. He was offered cutlery by his auntie
when everyone else, including his siblings, were eating with their
hands. He accepted out of politeness, even though he was quite happy
eating with his hands. Thus, he was made excruciatingly aware of his
“difference”, the way he was perceived as being different by his Samoan
relatives, and by inference, the impossibility of a Samoan identity.
His brother, however, remembers that if he was at a Samoan relative’s
with his father, they would all eat with the men, before the women and
other children. As he got older and began to stay at his relative’s
house on his own, he would eat last with all the other children. These
kind of details had a profound impact on each of their respective
Samoan identities.
The kind of contact with Samoan relatives in general took on a
heightened sense of meaning for all the participants, especially as
none had extensive contact with their Pakeha relatives. All the mothers
had, at least initially, been ostracised by their families for their
partner choice, and this had an impact on the kinds of relationships
the children had with their Pakeha extended families. One participant
(C) did not even meet her maternal grandparents until she was 12 years
old. However, neither were the women’s relationships with their Samoan
relatives ideal. C recalls feeling “…totally alienated, total
rejection” from her Samoan cousins, something she attributes to her
academic success in the school system. She was seen as being more
Pakeha because of this, although it also meant that she was “put on a
pedestal” by her adult Samoan relatives, adding to the resentment of
her cousins. D had a lot of positive, everyday contact with her Samoan
cousins as a young child, although there were some instances of
ostracism as an adolescent (she recalls her Samoan cousins pretending
they could speak Samoan just to exclude her). However, while the
relationships they had with their Samoan relatives was sometimes
fraught, for the women (C and D), their relationships with their Pakeha
relatives were non-existent. This reflected and reinforced the
macro-level dynamic of the impossibility of a Pakeha identity due to
the persistence of ideas about race that prescribe an automatic
ascription to a solely Samoan category. Furthermore, the actual
experience of the participants, despite the mostly Pakeha demographic
of their towns, was ameliorated by the fact of their fairly large
Samoan ‘aiga around them. In fact, these relatively isolated ‘aiga of
the 1970s and 1980s in the South Island may have solidified a sense of
being Samoan for the participants, as they were noticeably “different”
in Pakeha contexts and had a sense mostly of being part of, if not
always included by, their Samoan families.
The home environment: explicit discussion and implicit culture
In the sample examined, none of the participants had been sat down
by their parents and had the options for identity presented to them.
This is similar to other findings of working class “mixed” families
that found that issues of ethnicity and identity were not openly
discussed (Tizard & Phoenix 1989, 1993; Katz 1996). However, one
participant (D) had interpreted things said to her by her Samoan
parent, such as being respectful and doing as you were told, as being
Samoan and this had therefore implicitly encouraged a Samoan identity.
Another participant (C) remembered being told to be strong in the
Samoan culture and being Samoan at family gatherings. These kind of
exhortations may be necessary to provide the compensatory cultural
emphasis required to resist the pervasive influences of a Pakeha
dominant culture (Spencer 1987). However, this participant, in her
reply, as the eldest of her generation had actually challenged the
speaker because almost all of the children and young people being told
this were of both Samoan and Pakeha parentage. She wanted to
acknowledge all the Pakeha mothers present, as she felt their presence
and input was being ignored because of the presumption that the
children were Samoan only. This illustrates the dissonance experienced
by the participants when they were forced to “pick one”, especially if
that choice is seen as a rejection of one parent. However, it also
shows the power of people of dual heritage to challenge those who would
try and constrain them to one. These two participants (the two women)
also described the dominant culture of their homes as being Samoan, and
certainly they were more openly encouraged than the men to identify as
being Samoan. They both had a strongly politicised sense of being
Samoan. As described earlier, D notes that while she used to say she
was “part-Samoan”, she now feels that “New Zealand-born Samoan” is a
more appropriate descriptor of her identity. She explained that this
descriptor emphasised her dual cultural heritage, national allegiance,
and of course emphasises her similarity of experience with other New
Zealand-born Samoans.
The women (C and D) had also made conscious links between certain
values and being Samoan:
…it’s just something I have always done (been generous) but now it
is more visible and I can say … yes, that is clearly Samoan … something
that has been part of my culture that I have grown up with, whereas I
have always thought that was who I was and has become part of my
everyday way of doing things … the fact that you give things to people
and don’t think twice about it … but I am beginning to realise as I get
older that that is quite different … to how other people operate…(C)
Without the self-conscious ability to recognise the proposed source
of a value or practice, the ability to claim an identity is weakened.
This was the case when it came to Pakeha culture, whose values or
practices the participants found much more difficult to identify. It is
also interesting to note in the above quote that the particular value
of generosity, labelled as a Samoan value, is framed as a realisation
of “difference” to the mainstream. Twine (1997) used childhood feelings
of “racelessness” and “sameness” as an indicator of a white identity
under certain conditions (that is, African-ancestry girls growing up in
a middle class, mostly white environment). She justifies this by saying
that those who are not white usually become aware of a feeling of
“difference” fairly early in life and conversely, that “sameness” is a
sign of a white identity. In the United States, feelings of
“difference” have been observed at around age four and even younger in
minority children, and is possibly because of the higher salience of
race in the lives of black children than in the lives of white children
(Katz 1996). For the two women in this study, while they felt different
from around the onset of adolescence, this was only because they became
aware of the negative stigma attached to both being Samoan and being
“mixed”. They argued themselves that even though they knew they were
both Samoan and Pakeha as young children, they still felt basically the
same as other children. They proposed that this was not necessarily a
sign of a Pakeha identity but instead was a lack of awareness of racism
and the “problematising” of being Samoan. What is interesting, apart
from the idea itself, is the way in which the participants, well used
to having to justify their Samoan identities, were able to use a range
of legitimating arguments in the face of theories that might be seen to
undermine those identities.
While the two other participants (A and B, the brothers) described
the dominant culture of their home as being Pakeha, there were many
similarities of experience and ways of doing things in the home between
all four participants. This included eating Pakeha food most of the
time, with their fathers eating Samoan food apart from the rest of the
family on occasion. English was spoken in the home, and both parents
tended to work long hours in working class jobs apart from when the
children were very young, and their mothers performed most of the
childcare. Other similarities included a mixture of Samoan and Pakeha
ornamentation in the home, harsh physical discipline from their
fathers, the valuing of education and respect especially by their
fathers, and a desire to “get ahead” as well as fulfil obligations to
wider family.
However, there were some important differences between the men and
women. The female participants had more contact with their extended
family on their Samoan side than the men, particularly A. The mothers
of the women were also included in this contact. On the other hand, the
men’s mother never visited their Samoan relations with her husband and
the children and was never accepted by the Samoan family. She was
openly hostile to some aspects of Samoan culture, for example, the
sending of large sums of money back to relatives in Samoa. B remembers
feeling embarrassed of her at Samoan events, wishing she were Samoan
“like everyone else”. This was in contrast with C’s mother who attended
many Samoan events, adopted many Samoan cultural values for herself,
and was openly scathing of Pakeha materialism and individualism. She
was also more in agreement than the other mothers with the harsh
discipline meted out by her husband to the children. The heightened
contact with extended family of the women’s mothers and the mothers’
adoption of values and involvement with the Samoan community helped to
encourage a Samoan identity, and the creation and perception of the
home environment as being predominantly Samoan. This contrasts with
Anae’s (1998) view that a Samoan mother is the linchpin of conferring a
Samoan identity on children. It would appear from this modest study
that instead, the issue is not so much the ethnicity of the mother, but
her attitude towards Samoan culture and her relationship with her
partner’s family. Kukutai (2005) found that Pakeha mothers of children
with a Maori father were more likely than Maori mothers to assign Maori
ethnicity to their children, and uses this to challenges the assumption
that only minority parents are responsible for the transmission of
ethnicity to children. She also found, however, that Pakeha mothers
were more likely to identify their children as solely Maori if the
father identified strongly as being solely Maori. The families where
fathers explicitly encouraged the adoption of Samoan identities were
more likely to produce a Samoan identity in the children of the
partnership. Mothers encouraged this not only verbally but also by
adopting a number of Samoan values. In this way, the “gendered
inheritance” described by Roth (2002) not only reflected a
categorisation based on assumptions about the patrilineal nature of
ethnicity transmission, but also the dominance of the cultural values
of the fathers over those of the mother.
The marked gender difference in the way the culture of the home was
named may also be connected to the fact that the women were more
confined to the home than the men, resulting in them spending more time
in the home and perceiving this protective kind of confinement as being
a “Samoan thing”. They were also both the oldest siblings which,
combined with being female, meant that they had more responsibility,
both for their younger siblings and domestic tasks; this was also
interpreted by them as being particularly Samoan. Another reason given
by the men for the predominance of Pakeha culture in the home was that
for the first seven or so years of their childhood, their father worked
such long hours that they hardly saw him and so, of course, the
predominant culture was that which was from their mother. Although this
was the same as the women’s experience, this was not mentioned by the
women as being influential. A also said he felt more “like” his Pakeha
relatives because of their shared Pakeha culture, whereas his brother
stressed his perception of differences between him and their Pakeha
cousins, saying that he felt they looked down on his family due to
their lower class status. The emphasising of different factors in the
narratives of these brothers highlights again the specific and
selective ways in which people use their internal discourse to
legitimate and support their identity choices. The different ways in
which people attribute meaning to similar life experiences can be
marked.
CONCLUSION
The inability of monolithic, static theories of ethnicity and
culture to account for the social realities to be found in most modern
metropolitan areas is evidence of their nullity (Chambers 1992; Root
1992). By examining the interplay between selected factors at the
micro, meso, and macro levels, I have explored the ways in which our
social, political, educational, and familial contexts influence the way
Samoan-Pakeha people construct their identities. The combination of
demand for difference and authenticity, racism, school, and the home
environment all resulted in an understanding among the participants of
their cultural options, the ways they were perceived by others, and a
certain analytical skill that comes from being both insiders and
outsiders in some situations, sometimes simultaneously. For the women
involved (C and D), the predominance of Samoan culture in the home, and
the acceptance of Samoan values by their mothers, all helped solidify a
Samoan identity. Despite the racialisation of abuse, experiencing
racism, and the awareness of society’s sometimes negative view of
Samoans, this was not enough to dissuade their sense of being mostly
Samoan. However, they also acknowledged being Pakeha as well. For B,
his exposure to Samoan culture via his relatives and the perception of
his personality as being “Samoan”, enabled him to claim both Samoan and
Pakeha identities, with slightly more emphasis on his Samoan one.
However, for his brother, the exposure to racism, his feelings of
difference to his Samoan relatives, the challenge of demands for
authenticity, and both his own and other’s perception of him as being
more reserved and “like” his mother, were enough to produce a Pakeha
only identity.
The study, while small, strongly supports a constructivist concept
of cultural identity, that is, one that emphasises positions of power
and the discourses associated with those positions as an important
influence on identity (Holland et al. 1998). The effect of these
discourses, based on our particular country’s history, encouraged a
Samoan identity as the name for the way in which most participants
improvised the culture of their daily lives. However, this was not
without challenges as these discourses were at times contradictory. On
the one hand, the participants were “Samoan” because of their
appearance, “race”, and some of their cultural values and behaviours;
on the other hand, they were “fia palagi” because they did not hold to
traditional ideas that legitimate a “real” Samoan identity. Their
improvisations of either a strongly politicised “I am a New
Zealand-born Samoan” to ideas of a “true self”, to embracing a solely
Pakeha identity, to practising situational ethnicity, also support a
constructivist position, as “[c]onstructivists think of improvisation
as an expected outcome when people are simultaneously engaged with or
pushed by contradictory discourses” (Holland et al. 1998: 17). This
kind of improvisation is a result of ever-changing social and material
conditions as they force the adaptation of cultural forms (Holland et
al. 1998). This underlying understanding allows us to conceptualise
ethnic identity as an ever-changing collection of values and practices
from various sources of discourse or ideology (Novitz 1989), as well as
explaining differences among the identity outcomes of people with
similar experiences, and normalises identity outcomes that do not
follow racial or cultural predictions.
More study needs to be done in this arena as part of understanding
the current cultural contexts of our young people, and how this
influences the ways they construct themselves in the face of sometimes
mutually exclusive and therefore untenable discourses. Other
influences, such as geographic location, terminology, the impact of
divorce and separation, and the emergence or otherwise of a “mixed”
identity as separate from either a Pakeha or Samoan identity as has
occurred in both the United Kingdom (Alibhai-Brown 2001) and the United
States (Spencer 1999), or a generalised “PI” identity with less
stringent authenticity tests as described by Anae (2001) and Fleras
& Spoonley (1999), could be areas of further study. Numerous
conceptual issues also abound; for example, the conflict between
individualised rights-based perspectives that emphasise a person’s
right to self-define, and the role of the collective to define their
own group membership as preferred by a less individually focused
Pacific paradigm.
REFERENCES
Abu-Lughod L 1991. Writing against
culture. In: Fox RG ed. Recapturing anthropology: working in the
present. Sante Fe, School of American Research Press.
Alibhai-Brown Y 2001. Mixed
feelings: the complex lives of mixed-race Britons. London, The Women’s
Press.
Anae M 1998. Fofoa-i-vao-’ese: the identity
journeys of NZ born Samoans. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of
Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Anae M 2001. The new Vikings of the sunrise:
New Zealand borns in the Information Age. In: Macpherson C, Spoonley P
ed. Tangata o te Moana Nui: the evolving identities of Pacific peoples
in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Palmerston North, Dunmore Press.
Anzaldua GE 1987. Borderlands/La
Frontera: the new Mestiza. San Francisco, Spinsters/Aunt Lute.
Anzaldua GE 1990. Making face, making
soul/ Hacienda Caras: creative and critical perspectives by feminists
of color. San Francisco, Aunt Lute.
Bordieu P 1977. Outline of a theory of
practice. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Bronfenbrenner U 1979. The ecology
of human development. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.
Callister P 2004. Ethnicity
measures, intermarriage and social policy. In: Social Policy Journal of New
Zealand 23.
[accessed 13 July 2005].
Callister P, Didham R,
Potter D 2005. Ethnic intermarriage in New Zealand. Wellington,
Statistics New Zealand.
Carter M 1998. None of us is what our
tupuna were: when growing up Maori is growing up Pakeha. In: Ihimaera W
ed. Growing up Maori. Auckland, Tandem Press.
Chambers I 1994. Migrancy, culture,
identity. London and New York, Routledge.
Chambers I, Curti L ed. 1996. The
post-colonial question: common skies, divided horizons. London and New
York, Routledge.
Fleras A, Spoonley P ed. 1999.
Recalling Aotearoa: indigenous politics and ethnic relations in New
Zealand. Australia, Oxford University Press.
Field M 1984. Mau: Samoa’s struggle for
freedom. Auckland, Polynesian Press.
Gilroy P 1995. Roots and routes: Black
identity as an outernational project. In: Harris H, Griffith E, Blue H
ed. Racial and ethnic identity. London, Routledge.
Gray A 2001. The definition and measurement
of ethnicity: a Pacific perspective. Wellington, Grey Matter Research.
Greenland H 1984. Maori ethnicity as
ideology. In: Spoonley P, Pearson D, Sedgwick C ed. Tauiwi: racism and
ethnicity. Palmerston North, Dunmore Press.
Hall S 1990. Cultural identity and diaspora.
In: Rutherford J ed. Identity: community, culture, difference. London,
Lawrence and Wishart.
Harre J 1966. Maori and Pakeha: a study of
mixed marriages in New Zealand. London, Pall Mall Press.
Holland D,
Skinner D, Lachiotte Jr W, Cain C 1998. Identity and agency in cultural
worlds. London, Harvard University Press.
Ignatiev N, Garvey J ed. 1996. Race
traitor anthology. New York, Routledge.
Jackson M 2003. The part-Maori syndrome.
In: Mana magazine 52, June-July. New Zealand.
Katz I 1996. The construction of racial
identity in children of mixed parentage: mixed metaphors. London and
Bristol, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Kukutai T 2001. Maori identity and
‘political arithmiteck’: the dynamics of reporting ethnicity.
Unpublished Masters thesis, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New
Zealand.
Kukutai T 2003. The dynamics of ethnicity
reporting: Maori in New Zealand. Hamilton, Population Studies Centre,
University of Waikato.
Kukutai T 2005. White mothers, brown
children: understanding the intergenerational transmission of minority
ethnic identity. Paper presented at the Annual American Population
Association Meeting, Philadelphia.
Lieberson S, Waters MC 1988.
From many strands: ethnic and racial groups in contemporary America.
New York, Russell Sage Foundation.
Macpherson C 1999. Will the real
Samoans please stand up? Issues in diasporic Samoan identity. In: New
Zealand Geographer 55(2): 50–56.
Macpherson C 2001. One trunk sends out
many branches: Pacific cultures and cultural identities. In: Macpherson
C, Spoonley P, Anae M ed. Tangata O Te Moana Nui: the evolving
identities of Pacific peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand. Palmerston
North, Dunmore Press.
Mailei F 1999. Identity as a concept: a
New Zealand-born Samoan’s perspective. In: Pacific Vision Conference
Proceedings (July). Auckland, Pacific Vision Conference.
Masami Ropp S 2004. Do multiracial
subjects really challenge race? Mixed race Asians in the United States
and the Caribbean. In: Ifekunigwe JO ed. ‘Mixed race’ studies: a
reader. London, Routledge.
Niezen R 2004. A world beyond difference:
cultural identity in an age of globalization. Oxford, Blackwell
Publishing.
Novitz D 1989. On culture and cultural
identity. In: Novitz D, Willmott B ed. Culture and identity.
Wellington, GP Books.
Ongley P 1996. Immigration, employment and
ethnic relations. In: Spoonley P, Macpherson C, Pearson D ed. Nga
Patai: racism and ethnic relations in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Palmerston
North, Dunmore Press.
O’Regan H 2001. Ko Tahu, Ko Au: Kai
Tahu tribal identity. Christchurch, Horomaka.
Phoenix A, Owen C 1996. From
miscegenation to hybridity: mixed relationships and mixed parentage in
profile. In: Bernstein B, Brannen J ed. Children, research and policy.
London, Taylor and Francis.
Pinderhughes E 1995. Biracial
identity—asset or handicap. In: Harris H, Blue H, Griffith E ed. Racial
and ethnic identity. New York and London, Routledge.
Ricoeur P 1992. Oneself as another.
Chicago, University of Chicago.
Root MPP 1990. Resolving ‘other’ status:
identity development of biracial individuals. In: Brown L, Root MPP ed.
Complexity and diversity in feminist theory and therapy. New York,
Haworth.
Root MPP ed. 1992. Racially mixed people in
America. Newbury Park and London, Sage Publications.
Root MPP 1996. A Bill of Rights for
racially mixed people. In: Root MPP ed. The multiracial experience:
racial borders as the New Frontier. California, Sage Publications.
Roth W 2002. Creating racial options:
labelling of multiracial children in black intermarriages. Paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological
Association.
Simon JA 1982. Policy, ideology and
practice: implications of the views of primary school teachers on Maori
children. Unpublished Masters Thesis, University of Auckland, New
Zealand.
Spencer MB 1987. Black children’s ethnic
identity formation; risk and resilience of castelike minorities. In:
Phinney JS, Rotheram MJ ed. Children’s ethnic socialisation: pluralism
and development. London, Sage Publications.
Spencer R 1999. Spurious issues: race and
multiracial identity politics in the United States. Boulder CO,
Westview Press.
Spoonley P 1996. Mahi Awatea: the
racialisation of work in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In: Spoonley P,
Macpherson C, Pearson D ed. Nga Patai: racism and ethnic relations in
Aotearoa/New Zealand. Palmerston North, Dunmore Press.
Stanfield JH, Dennis RM ed.
1993. Race and ethnicity in research methods. Newbury Park, Sage
Publications.
Statistics New Zealand 1997.
1996 Census of population and dwellings. Wellington, Government Print.
Statistics New Zealand
2004a. Demographic
trends.
[accessed
15 July 2005].
Statistics New Zealand
2004b. Report of the review of the measurement of ethnicity.
Wellington, Government Print.
Stephan CW 1992. Mixed heritage
individuals: ethnic identity and trait characteristics. In: Root MPP
ed. Racially mixed people in America. Newbury Park and London, Sage
Publications.
Stephens S ed. 1995. Children and the
politics of culture. Princeton, NY, Princeton University Press.
Swift K 1995. The color of neglect. In:
Manufacturing bad mothers: a critical perspective on child neglect.
Canada, University of Toronto Press.
Tiatia J 1998. Caught between cultures: a
New-Zealand-born Pacific Island perspective. Auckland, Christian
Research Association.
Tizard B, Phoenix QA 1989. Black
identity and transracial adoption. New Community 15(3): 427–438.
Tizard B, Phoenix QA 1993. Black,
white or mixed race? London, Routledge.
Twine FW 1997. Brown-skinned white girls:
class, culture and the construction of white identities in suburban
communities. In: Frankenburg R ed. Displacing whiteness: essays in
social and cultural criticism. London, Duke University Press.
Wetherell M, Potter J 1992.
Mapping the language of racism: discourse and the legitimation of
exploitation. West Sussex, Columbia University Press.
Zack N 1993. Race and mixed race.
Philadelphia, Temple University Press.
1This “rule” states that those who have
any ancestry from ethnic groups of colour are automatically assigned to
that group, for example African-Americans in the United States and
people classified as black or coloured in apartheid South Africa. It is
still the basis for the statistical prioritisation of ethnic data by
Statistics New Zealand when the ethnicity data is applied elsewhere,
for example to housing or income.
2The Mau was a Samoan political
self-determination movement active from the 1920s onwards. It was
influential in achieving Samoan independence in the face of brutal
measures by the New Zealand Administrators in Samoa (see Field 1984).
This year's abstracts | Journal home page | All abstracts | Publishing home page
