Kiwiana goes upmarket: Vernacular mobilization in the new century

Abstract

Kiwiana refers to popular cultural items that distinctly reference New Zealand. This research focuses on the interplay between the material and social worlds, as attitudes to traditional items have evolved to a new, highly commercial, phase. The makers and consumers of new items that draw on the old kiwiana references, ignore, defy, or have simply moved on from the hazardous debates about cross-cultural appropriation.

In the face of globalization and the flood of mass consumer items into local markets, the revival and recasting of kiwiana can be explained as an eager search for items that express a bicultural localism. This research demonstrates how nostalgia, creativity and design entrepreneurship can amalgamate to convey a confident nationalism. The revised versions of kiwiana have claimed a unique space in the expression via materiality of some of the cultural accelerations of post-colonialism. This article concludes that a significant and visible part of national identity construction and expression is being actively and consciously undertaken by the creative industries, and by the purveyors and purchasers of their creations.