‘Which side of the bridge to safety?’ How young Pacific Islanders in New Zealand view their South Auckland community

Abstract

The community of South Auckland, an area that is home to the largest population of people with Pacific Island (Pasifika) heritage in New Zealand, has consistently faced scrutiny and criticism from the media, law enforcement, and other sectors of New Zealand for its reportedly increasing levels of violent gang activity and high rate of criminal offences associated with gangs and involving Pasifika youth. Within the community, however, young Pasifika people appear to have a positive opinion of their community and about particular features of gangs in their South Auckland community though they remain highly critical of the presence of gangs. This was revealed in a recent research study for the New Zealand Families Commission (Nakhid et al. 2009), which was carried out with South Auckland youth of Pasifika heritage between the ages of 12 and 28, including those who were involved in gangs and those who had never been involved in gangs.

Keywords:

• Pasifika (Pacific Island) youth
• community
• gangs
• New Zealand

Notes

1. Pasifika is a collective term used to refer to people of Pacific heritage or ancestry who have migrated to or been born in Aotearoa/New Zealand (Ministry of Education, 2011).

2. Relationship between the New Zealand government (the Crown) and Māori formally recognised in the Treaty of Waitangi (www.treatyofwaitangi.govt.nz).

3. Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

4. In 2010, the local territorial authorities (cities) were amalgamated into a single authority, Auckland Council. This article refers to the territorial units and authorities that used to exist, i.e. Manukau City, Waitakere City and the authorities that used to govern them, the Auckland City Councils.

5. The New Zealand Deprivation index is often analysed by decile, where decile 1 represents the 10% of meshblocks least deprived in New Zealand and decile 10 the most deprived. Meshblocks are geographical units defined by Statistics New Zealand, containing a median of approximately 87 people in 2006 (Counties Manukau District Health Board 2006).

6. 274 is a community organisation that works with South Auckland youth.