‘Native time’ in the white city: indigenous youth temporalities in settler-colonial space

ABSTRACT

This paper is concerned with the chronopolitics of indigenous young people’s life-worlds in settler-colonial space. Drawing on a study about young people’s narratives about the future, we examine how Māori youth in New Zealand navigate competing temporal frames of reference as they move around their towns and cities. In a series of walk-along interviews and group discussions, Māori young people deployed ‘native time’ as a means of negotiating access to various neighbourhoods and exclusion zones. These border-crossing strategies not only opened up ‘corridors’ that allowed them to pass through unwelcoming or exclusionary urban areas, they also provided a sense of indigenous place-belonging. We argue that when indigenous young people mobilise ‘native time’ in urban spaces and build temporal solidarities outside settler/white time, they can begin to stake a powerful claim on their own futures.

KEYWORDS:

• Colonialism
• ethnicity
• racialised geographies
• temporality
• youth

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, the Māori Centre of Research Excellence, University of Auckland, for funding this study and Dr Carl Mika, University of Waikato for comments on early drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga. Māori Centre of Research Excellence.