Bi/Multiracial Maori Women's Hybridity in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Abstract

This paper examines the exclusion of bi/multiracial Maori women from dominant representations of Maori women's identity and engages with a new articulation of Maori women's difference through a narrative of cultural hybridity. Through a study of key texts on the history of New Zealand and dominant articulations describing Maori nationalists’ efforts to invoke equality for Maori during the 1970s and 1980s, I exemplify how an essentialist Maori women's identity was promoted within Maori nationalist appeals to bicultural nationalism. I argue that current articulations of Maori women's identity do not include an analysis of race, gender, and class, nor the way they operate simultaneously to position the bi-multi racial woman discursively in the nation today. Twenty women who position themselves as bi/multiracial were interviewed and their stories show how the raced and gendered body must be reinstated within articulations of Maori women's identity through situating corporeal difference within discussions on their subjectivity and related marginalization.

Notes

1. The term Pakeha/Other identifies New Zealanders who are non-Maori. In this context, Pakeha refers to white New Zealanders who form the dominant majority and are either descended from British colonials or British settlers. The term “Other” refers to all other white and non-white immigrants who have not fully assimilated into mainstream New Zealand culture. For example, an individual who is white but has a strong Dutch accent would be included in the “Other” category.

2. Hui: formal gathering; marae: tribal ceremonial meeting ground.

3. Meeting house.

4. Spirituality, spiritual life force.

5. Turangawaewae: place to stand and belong to.