(Mixed) Racial formation in Aotearoa/New Zealand: framing biculturalism and ‘mixed race’ through categorisation

Abstract

This paper explores racial formation in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and the impacts of state categorisation on understandings of ‘mixed race’. Processes of racial formation have undergone significant shifts over time, from initial colonial understandings of racialised domination and hierarchy, to present-day narratives of a multicultural society within a bicultural national framework. Connecting these narratives is a constant thread of racial differentiation, framing inter-group relations within society and underpinning contemporary state and social understandings of (mixed) race. Although New Zealand maintains an innovative method of measuring ethnic (self) identification, this fluid categorisation is constrained by existing classification structures and dominant racial narratives. ‘Mixed race’ identity is thus firmly positioned within the bicultural/multicultural tension, which characterises ‘race relations’ in New Zealand. Mixed identities for the individual can be seen as reflecting the ‘mixed’ nature of the state and society, with the narrative of a bicultural nation providing a macro level depiction of personal mixedness.

Keywords:

• mixed race
• racial formation
• New Zealand
• categorisation
• race
• ethnicity
• racial narratives

Introduction

Omi and Winant's theory of racial formation (1986, 1994) provides a lucid and grounded framework to explore and analyse the politics of race and ethnicity. The term racial formation describes the complex interrelationship between social, economic and political forces, the creation of racialised categories and hierarchies, and the content and influence of racial meanings (Omi & Winant 1986:61). Placing race at the heart of social analysis, racial formation theory emphasises the centrality of race in social structures, as well as its socially constructed, politically contested and historically flexible nature. Racial categories, historically created and embedded, both dictate and reflect individual understandings of race, where micro understandings meet macro structures (Omi & Winant 1994, 2009; Winant 2000:182).

Processes of racial formation in New Zealand have undergone significant shifts across different stages of nation-building, moving from colonial understandings of racialised hierarchy, to the present-day complex narrative of a multicultural society within a bicultural national framework. Connecting these narratives over time is a constant thread of differentiation along racial and ethnic lines, framing inter-group relations and underpinning understandings of race and ‘mixed race’. Despite a shift towards conceptions of ethnicity, the country's racialised colonial past continues to influence social policy and popular understandings of identity and belonging. This article illustrates the temporal continuities and changes in macro narratives of race and ethnicity, exploring historical processes of racial formation through colonisation and categorisation, with a focus on how ‘mixed race’ has been understood in policy and practice.

As a lingering colonial legacy, the idea of ‘race’ in New Zealand as a means to structure and understand society remains pervasive and powerful, for the state and the individual (Spoonley 1993:2). As racial narratives have shifted over time, from colonialisation and amalgamation, through assimilation, and towards biculturalism (Bozic-Vrbancic 2005:518), state, social and individual understandings of what it means to be ‘mixed race’ in the New Zealand context have also developed and changed. Although 90% of the population reports a single ethnic group (Statistics New Zealand 2009), these groups are complex and fluid, representing a multiplicity of understandings and practices. Within the contemporary overarching binary narrative (potentially illustrating a ‘mixed’ identity at the state level), individual mixed identities have been simultaneously acknowledged and ignored – recognised officially through categorisation, but practically subsumed under the broader categories of Māori, Pākehā,1 Asian and Pacific Peoples, which structure institutional and everyday interactions. This article traces the origins of this dissonance and complexity, looking primarily at the Māori and Pākehā populations, and changing constructions of race and ethnicity in New Zealand.2

Race, ethnicity, and racial formation theory

Race is commonly understood as a socially and politically constructed concept within the social sciences: a form of social organisation, which erroneously links phenotype and ancestry to personal and social qualities and intrinsic worth. The biological basis for racial categorisation was widely discredited in the second half of the twentieth century, as it was found that human biological variation is not patterned along racial lines, with the majority of genetic variation occurring within, rather than between, racial groups (American Anthropological Association 1998). However, the assumptions and motivations behind biological understandings of race lingered, reflected in the practices and symbols of hierarchy and difference, particularly in post-colonial societies (Omi & Winant 1994; Parker & Song 2001).

Thus, the legacy of the concept of race threatens its theoretical worth. Theories of ethnicity aim to move away from assumptions of biology and hierarchy, instead focusing on the positive aspects of subscribed identity, rather than negative aspects of ascribed categorisation. The construction of boundaries and the production of meaning are central, as it is ‘the ethnic boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses’ (Barth 1969:15). Ethnic groups are thus defined through voluntary differentiation across boundaries, based on the identification of the individual (Nagel 1994; Barth 1996). By comparison, the concept of race is relegated to discussions of history, blood, appearance and ancestry, contrasting with the ideal of ethnicity as belief in common descent and shared cultural practices (Nagel 1994; Weber 1996).

Despite this theoretical differentiation, the categories of race and ethnicity remain overlapping and blurred (Song 2003; Gunew 2004:21). Frequently interchanged and conflated with nationality, ancestry and heritage, race and ethnicity each describe notions of descent and community, and an individual's location within and between groups. Yet the ascriptive nature of ethnicity is tempered by the realities of social structure. Rooted in historical understandings of racial differentiation, ethnicity is both optional and mandatory, reflecting choice curtailed by structure (Nagel 1994:156). In essence, both categories are essentially socially constructed (Spickard 1992:23), and each relies on a combination of external and internal identification for membership. The use of race or ethnicity is frequently a matter of semantics, varying across countries. In this paper, using the term race consciously acknowledges the historical baggage of racial hierarchies, and the continuing power of phenotype.

Critical race theory, and, in particular, racial formation theory, attempts to reconcile some of these contradictions and subtleties. This theory focuses on the constructed and historicised nature of race, and its significant practical consequences, as collective action and personal practice lead to racial categories being ‘formed, transformed, destroyed and re-formed’ (Omi & Winant 1986:61). Thus, race is neither merely an ideological construction to be overcome, nor a natural or biological organising principle. Rather, race is conceptualised as a balance between the objective and subjective, an equally real and constructed element of social structure (Omi & Winant 1994:55).

Using this theory as a base, the ethnicity paradigm has theoretical strengths and weaknesses. Ethnicity promotes the positive, subscribed aspects of group identities, and the personal importance of ethnic forms of belonging (Omi & Winant 1986:53–54). It also raises legitimate concerns about the historical echoes of racial thinking, and the reifying potential of race. However, drawing away from phenotype in definitions of ethnicity (while retaining amorphous notions of common descent) neglects the lived reality of race—how individuals are perceived and defined—in everyday interactions and institutional practices. Race remains relevant, both conceptually and in everyday life. Despite its constructed nature, race is socially salient in commonplace, naturalised, understandings of belonging. Race continues to structure social relations in everyday life, on local, national and global scales (Winant 2001). Using racial formation theory to trace the intertwining of race and ethnicity in New Zealand seeks a balance between reification and discounting race entirely as a theoretical topic.

Race, ethnicity and projects of categorisation

Racial formation theory provides a useful means to structure thought around race and ethnicity. The theory was initially applied to the polarised black/white context in the United States, tracing the history of the ‘color line’ and changing aspects of racial rule. However, racial formation provides analytical tools for understanding across levels of analysis, which can be applied in different contexts. The framework has been used to explore differences in Australia, South Africa and the United States (Farquharson 2007), and across Brazil and Europe (Winant 2001). It is used here as a scaffolding for insight to connect and analyse macro and micro understandings of race and identity, and to place the development of ethnicity and ‘mixed race’ in New Zealand in historical context.

One of the key strengths of racial formation theory is the concept of ‘racial projects’. Racial projects are the individual and institutional negotiations, conflicts and understandings of ‘race’ in everyday life, and the processes forming and transforming these meanings. These projects range from state policies based on race, to collective action over racial meanings, to an individual's beliefs and experiences of their own identity (Omi & Winant 1994).

At the macro, structural level, meanings of race are situated in historical and contextual frameworks, and entwined in the formation of economic, political and cultural structures. Racial categorisation underpins the ‘racial state’ (see Goldberg 2002), reflected in policies of citizenship, individual and group rights, and social policies. Categorisation thus has potentially far-reaching consequences for resource access, allocation of funds, and state recognition of groups in society. At the individual level, racial formation is inseparable from identity formation, shaping the ways individuals understand others and themselves. Racial meanings and the rules of classification permeate individual socialisation at many levels, reflected in personal beliefs and practical action (Omi & Winant 1994:60). These meanings are constantly in flux however, in tandem with racialised processes at the macro level. The performance and understanding of the ‘racial self’ is intertwined with collective understandings of race, and the hierarchies and classifications which underpin the state framework of action (King & DaCosta 1996:231).

Using this framework, the interplay between a racialised history and new discourses of ethnicity in New Zealand can be seen as a type of racial project. Historical processes of racial formation provide the backdrop for political projects of ethnicity to emerge. Paradigms of race and ethnicity thus do not necessarily conflict, but rather co-construct each other, with institutional and individual projects reworking racialised structures against historical limitations.

Further complicating understandings of race, the concept of ‘mixed race’ has been the subject of increasing interest over the past two decades (Parker & Song 2001; Ifekwunigwe 2004). In multicultural societies, greater numbers of individuals of mixed ancestry are identifying outside of traditional racial categories, posing a challenge to existing systems of classification, and to sociological understandings of the significance of ‘race’. Highlighting wider questions about the consequences of and motivations for identification, ‘mixed race’ identities were recognised by the American and British censuses in 2000/2001. New Zealand provides a particularly interesting contrast, highlighting policy and individual outcomes in a context where multiplicity has been formally recognised for an extended period of time. Applying racial formation theory to ‘mixed race’ illuminates new ways of understanding both racial formation processes, and what it means to be ‘mixed’. More broadly, placing ‘mixed race’ at the centre of racial formation theory, this paper illustrates the shifting and problematic concept of race in New Zealand, and the ‘crisis of racial meaning’ that is posited to occur when racial categorisation is not possible (Omi & Winant 1994:59).

Racial formation in New Zealand

Race and racialised hierarchies were key in the British colonisation of New Zealand, with pseudo-scientific racialisation justifying colonial policies of assimilation and dominance in New Zealand's processes of nation-building (Callister 2004:110). White European settlers were defined in opposition to the indigenous Māori, while immigrant Chinese were initially understood as the quintessential racial ‘other’ against which a national identity was to be built (Sedgwick 1998:118–119; Murphy 2005:2). State racial projects deliberately sought to exclude non-white individuals through restricting immigration or policies of cultural marginalisation and enforced assimilation. Society-level racial projects further promoted racial stereotypes: of lazy and childlike or warlike yet primitive Māori, and the corrupting ‘Yellow Peril’ (Larner & Spoonley 1995:44–45; Murphy 2009). Thus, initial racial relations were characterised by the power imbalances of the coloniser–colonised, reinforcing the separation between white and non-white, and epitomised in the 1840 signing of the Treaty of Waitangi (Spoonley 1993; Orange 1997; Grbic 2010:126).

While phenotypical and cultural differences existed prior to colonisation, it was the application of a fixed framework which ‘made’ race (Marx 1998:2), and made it possible to measure race in New Zealand. Categorisation created a racial hierarchy as the colonial government consolidated its rule, a crucial mechanism to elaborate the idea of racial separation (Hirschman 1986; B. Anderson 1991). As a form of categorisation, the national census was a very visible politicised project of a racialised state. It did more than reflecting social ‘reality’, serving to construct and assign gendered and racial meanings (Stoler 1992; Nobles 2000; Kertzer & Arel 2002:2).

New Zealand's first national census in 1851 included only the European population, providing a clear message as to which population counted (literally) in the nation-building process. A partial census of Māori was carried out in 1857–1858, before full and regular censuses of Māori became institutionalised from 1867, with this separation in measurement continuing until 1951 (Statistics New Zealand 2004:21). This delimiting of the Māori population combined ideas of race and culture, measuring those identified as Māori, but also, interestingly, those who lived as Māori, highlighting the importance of the practice of racial identities for the state (Callister et al. 2006:5; Howard & Didham 2007:2). The application of race as practice was directed particularly at those who were classified as ‘half-castes’. After 1916, data on race was systematically collected, and those in the middle, the ‘half-caste’ population, were classified by their modes of living (Statistics New Zealand 2009:11).

In contrast to many other colonial societies, the New Zealand state closely monitored racial mixing and attempted to structure private lives through colonial policy, but never prohibited miscegenation, intertwining racial identities, gender roles and empire building (Wanhalla 2004:39, 2009:15). The Māori population were viewed as biologically ‘close’ to the European settlers, and intermarriage was seen as a viable method of social and biological assimilation, as well as of appropriation of land (Freeman 2005). Intermarriage generally occurred between Māori women and European men—initially due to the population of single European men involved in early trade, and later continuing a pattern of gendered power imbalances. Inter-racial unions, as gendered crossings of racial boundaries,3 represented an important point of contact between the colonisers and the colonised, and a disruption of the racial hierarchy, particularly if they produced biological evidence—the ‘half-caste’ (Grimshaw 2002:12; Wanhalla 2004:28).

‘Half-caste’ children were viewed as in-between the two populations in terms of traits and worth, and were practically included as Māori or Pākehā, depending on the cultural associations of the parents (A. Anderson 1991; Meredith 2000:11). However, despite the lack of legal prohibition, neither group viewed mixed children positively, particularly as they disrupted popular settler notions of a ‘white New Zealand’. Differential understandings of land and inheritance also highlighted how colonial ‘mixed race’ differed significantly from Māori understandings of belonging. Traditionally, measurements of ‘blood’ were not used to defined ‘Māoriness’: rather, being born with links to other Māori made an individual a grandchild of the tribe, regardless of blood percentage (Jackson 2003:62; Howard & Didham 2007).

Official understandings and measurements of ‘mixed race’ were complex and often inconsistent—based on biological understandings, but tempered by the realities of cultural practice. The concept of ‘half-caste’ both described and dictated relationships between racialised groups, acting as a means to promote certain processes of land acquisition and cultural dominance, in favour of the British settlers (Wanhalla 2004:9; Kukutai 2007:1151). By troubling the binary mode of Māori/non-Māori for the census enumerators, and often relying on subjective judgements of living conditions or skin colour rather than ‘scientific’ measures of blood, the category of ‘half-caste’ ‘continued to defy categorisation and instead occupied an ambivalent and unstable position in the national census’ (Wanhalla 2004:296–297).

In the decades preceding World War II, New Zealand's settler population continued to grow, primarily as a result of kin-migration from Great Britain (Pio 2005:1278; Grbic 2010:126). The dominant national narrative remained intimately connected to race, and ‘Race Aliens’ were perceived as a significant threat to the socio-economic and political fabric of the nation, particularly in times of economic and social uncertainty (Leckie 1985). This was reflected in changes in the measurement of race, with Victorian understandings of race and racial separatism emerging in census measurements (Statistics New Zealand 2004:21; Kukutai 2007:1151). The 1936 census introduced a new complexity, removing the term ‘half-caste’ from census forms, and instead requiring respondents to specify their heritage in more precise fractional terms: halves, quarters and eighths (Callister et al. 2006:5; Khawaja et al. 2007:8; Callister & Kukutai 2009:19).

For the Māori population, those who listed more than half their heritage as Māori were classified as Māori overall, although, in contrast to other colonial contexts, authentication was not required. This classification mirrored the growing fixation on racial purity and declining tolerance (and practical use) of intermarriage, by classifying those who were ‘impure’ with the indigenous population (Callister 2004:119; Kukutai 2007:1151). Interestingly, while the Māori were designated separately, it was paternalistically understood that they were included under a broader definition of ‘whiteness’. Thus, individuals classified as Māori by blood could change their racial identities and potentially be declared officially European (and ‘civilised’) (Brookes 2007:502–503).

Domestically, the decades following World War II brought the beginnings of significant social change between Māori and Pākehā. Against a background of expected racial amalgamation, the Māori population were targeted by institutions aimed to help them assimilate into ‘civilisation’, marginalising Māori culture and values (Spoonley 1993:65–66). With increasing urbanisation of the Māori population in the 1950–1960s, a consolidation and resurgence of Māori culture arose in opposition to this institutional racism. The pervasive structural discrimination against Māori and the monocultural basis of the state were called into question, with a series of investigations, such as the 1960 Hunn Report, documenting the widespread disadvantage of Māori in society (Spoonley 1993:66; Grbic 2010:126–127).

Parallel to this shift in social relations, dominant understandings of race were also in flux. The 1971 Race Relations Act and the 1977 Human Rights Commission aimed to provide some form of protection and redress against explicit racism and discrimination (Spoonley 1993). The measurement of race in the census also shifted. The term ‘race’ was used until 1951 when a single census of population was introduced. ‘Race’ and ‘descent’ were used interchangeably until 1970; in 1971 the terms ‘descent’ and ‘origin’ replaced ‘race’ entirely; and in 1976 ‘ethnic origin’ was used for the first time (Callister et al. 2006:5; Callister et al. 2009:17; Callister and Kukutai 2009:19). The 1975 Statistics Act illustrated this shift away from ‘race’, indicating that each census must ask a question on ethnic origin (understood as self-perceived). This was implemented in the 1976 census, which, as well as retaining the fractional division of ‘ethnic origin’, also asked for statements of (full) European and (partial) Māori descent by means of two tick boxes (Allan 2001:3).4

In the 1980s, a range of far-reaching socio-economic shifts occurred in New Zealand, based around neoliberalism, competitiveness, market deregulation and the dismantling of significant welfare systems (Spoonley 2004; Spoonley and Trlin 2004). Against this background, debates about national identity continued, particularly in the face of persistent social inequalities (Bonilla-Silva 2000:201). With Māori activism gaining in strength, the emergent biculturalism of the 1970s served to reorient inter-group relations, and several economic and social policies enacted in the 1980s placed considerations of indigeneity at the fore (Bonilla-Silva 2000:202; Spoonley 2004).

Biculturalism as the dominant narrative of the nation strengthened, positioning Māori and Pākehā as equal partners in nation-building, and gradually becoming institutionalised as a socio-cultural partnership based around shared values and institutional accountability (Spoonley 1993:93; Fleras & Spoonley 1999, cited in Grbic 2010:127). Theoretically, a narrative of biculturalism provided a powerful expression of united identity and (racial) inclusion. Yet, in practice, the very concept proved complex to define and translate into reality (Larner & Spoonley 1995:61; Meredith 1998). Even within a social framework oriented towards inclusion, the gap between Māori and Pākehā, in both expectations and outcomes, remained unbridged (Orange 1997:5). Bicultural rhetoric and practice sat uneasily with the increasingly neoliberal economic policies of the state, with the new orientation towards social justice and collective rights clashing with a growing focus on equity and efficiency (Larner & Spoonley 1995:40; Pearson & Ongley 1997:16).

Immigration policy also changed as part of the reforms, counterposing allowances towards diversity with a bicultural state framework. The 1987 Immigration Act removed the existing source country preferences for immigrants, to attract skilled migrants to contribute to economic growth (Pearson & Ongley 1997:16–18; Grbic 2010:127). Further reforms facilitated immigration from Asia, and significantly transformed the character of immigration flows into New Zealand (Bedford & Ho 2008:13). In order to accommodate an increasingly diverse population, state understandings of race shifted significantly in the 1980s and 1990s, laying the groundwork for a more fluid understanding and use of ‘ethnicity’ rather than ‘race’. As a reflection of this, the national census began to measure ‘ethnic groups’, marking boundaries and defining groups in order to measure and assess group characteristics and equity of access to services such as health, education and social welfare (Allan 2001:8; Kukutai & Didham 2009:46–47).

The national census shifted decisively away from race-based measurements to self-identification based on ethnicity in the 1980s, marked by two key changes. From 1986, racial fractions were removed from the census, and respondents were presented with a list of ethnic origin groups and ask to ‘tick the box or boxes that apply to you’. The term ‘ethnic origin’, with its connotation of ancestry and heritage, was abandoned in 1991, to reduce the confusion between ancestry and cultural affiliation. This was replaced by ‘ethnic group’ in the 1991 census, with a separate question about Māori ancestry (Statistics New Zealand 2004:22). This formal rejection of race as a marker of difference set New Zealand apart from many other census-taking nations. However, popular understandings of ethnicity remained varied, and often conflated with race and ancestry (Callister 2004:134; Howard & Didham 2007:2; Callister & Kukutai 2009:19).

A bicultural nation with a multicultural people?

Partly as a result of continuing immigration, the population of contemporary New Zealand remains diverse: 67.7% of the total population identify as (New Zealand) European, 14.6% identify as Māori, 9.2% of the population as Asian and 6.9% as Pacific Peoples, while 10.4% of all individuals identify with more than one ethnic group (Statistics New Zealand 2006). With biculturalism as a key narrative and symbolic framework for governance, the government finds itself attempting to reconcile increasing diversity and multicultural immigration policies, with the idea of a bicultural nation based on Treaty partnership (Ip 2008). The juxtaposition and coexistence of these two racial/national projects is a key feature of present-day New Zealand politics and society. Concerns about this uneasy balance are expressed by many different groups in society: for Māori, a push towards multiculturalism and increased diversity can be seen as threatening their rights as the indigenous population; for Pākehā, ethnic diversity undermines the privileging of Pākehā traditions and institutions; and for immigrants, new and old populations must negotiate a position between two often conflicting partners (Grbic 2010:131).

Statistics New Zealand continues to measure ethnicity, as associated with voluntary cultural practices:

Ethnicity is the ethnic group or groups that people identify with or feel they belong to. Ethnicity is a measure of cultural affiliation, as opposed to race, ancestry, nationality or citizenship. Ethnicity is self perceived and people can belong to more than one ethnic group. (Statistics New Zealand 2005:2)

Primarily measured through the national census, ethnicity can thus be influenced by many factors, including name, ancestry, cultural, location, place of birth, nationality, language, customs and religion (Callister 2004:111–112; Statistics New Zealand 2009).

This definition reflects an official attempt to align classification with lived realities, in a global context of increased individualism and human rights discourse. It focuses on self-identification for measurement, moving away from externally ascribed notions of race to better encompass the shifting, situational and multiple aspects of identity (Keddell 2006:46; Statistics New Zealand 2009). Importantly, official records allow the selection of multiple ethnic groups, making New Zealand one of few countries to do so. While this remains uncontroversial domestically, there have been significant shifts in the way that this data is analysed and present since 2004. Having dispensed with fractional identities, new methods of recording and simplifying data were needed. From 1986 to 1991, a system of prioritisation was used, reducing multiple ethnicities to one, based on a priority coding system which placed Māori at the top and New Zealand European at the bottom (Callister 2004:123; Callister et al. 2006:9). The 2004 Review of the Measurement of Ethnicity highlighted the weaknesses of this approach, replacing it with two standard outputs: total response data (individuals counted in all groups that they list) and single/combination data (counting individuals in unique categories, reflecting the mixture of their response) (Kukutai 2008:1; Statistics New Zealand 2004, 2009).

As well as the question on ethnicity, the census asks for information on ancestry, but only for individuals with Māori ancestry. Collection of data on Māori descent is a requirement under the 1993 Electoral Act, and while ancestry does not require substantiation for the census, for resource or political claims, proof is often required (Callister 2004:114). This difference highlights weaknesses in the official conceptualisation of ethnicity, and the pervasiveness of race in the national narrative: self-identification is acceptable for national records, but proof of blood descent is required for practical outcomes. With ethnicity and Māori origin measured separately, the complexity of ethnicity/race/ancestry for individuals becomes apparent: more individuals record ancestry than identify with Māori ethnicity, and over 5000 people identified as Māori, but did not record Māori ancestry (Callister 2004:115; Kukutai 2007).

The idea of self-identified ethnicity faced a significant test in the 2006 census, when over 400,000 people recorded ‘New Zealander’ as their ethnicity, under the ‘Other’ category. This represented a fivefold increase, making ‘New Zealander’ the third largest ethnic group (Statistics New Zealand 2009). Further analyses showed that this was due to ‘inter-ethnic mobility’, and primarily represented individuals previously recorded in the New Zealand European category (Brown & Gray 2009:32; Statistics New Zealand 2009). This conflation of nationality and culture illustrates how Pākehā culture and institutions are often portrayed as the norm (assuming a single Pākehā culture exists), from which ‘ethnic’ groups deviate (Thomas & Nikora 1997:31; Keddell 2006:48). This is reflected also in the naming of state institutions, such as the ‘Office of Ethnic Affairs’, which deals with those who are ‘ethnic’, as distinguished from the majority population (Gilbertson 2007; Cormack 2010).

Race thus remains an important thread in New Zealand's national project(s), highlighting the racialised legacies of colonisation (Gibson 2006; Keddell 2006). Within official rhetoric of biculturalism and ethnicity as self-identification, race is a term associated with discord and conflict (‘race relations’),5 while ethnicity implies a more benign form of social relations. Official ethnicity statistics continue to be collected in New Zealand as in the US and the UK: to identify and address inequalities within society (Statistics New Zealand 2009:8). Data on ethnicity is utilised by various government agencies, based on the rationale that inequality can be measured and addressed by (ethnic) group membership.6 However, ethnic categories are themselves legacies of racial categorisation, often based around ascribed characteristics (Callister & Didham 2009:63). Erasing the concept of race from government and social narratives of belonging has not been accomplished with ‘ethnicity’. Despite an effort to acknowledge cultural affiliation, historical understandings of race and blood classification remain pervasive in the state and popular imaginary.

In broadening measurement, Statistics New Zealand has attempted to encompass new understandings of ethnic identity as multiple and changing (Brown & Gray 2009). In practice, multiple ethnic identities have been explicitly measured by the national census since 1991 (Morning 2008; Callister and Kukutai 2009:16). Such measurement has significant consequences for a national narrative of biculturalism and partnership, particularly with a high rate of intermarriage between the two ‘partners’, illustrating biculturalism at very intimate level (Callister 2003a). Measurement of Māori ethnicity in particular has practical consequences due to ancestry-based commitments under the Treaty of Waitangi. Multiple ethnicities thus need to be carefully defined, taking into account the possibilities of situational ethnicities, self-prioritisation, and the fact that recording multiple groups may mean identification with none of the those groups entirely, but something in between (Howard & Didham 2007:3–5; Callister & Kukutai 2009:16).

Increasing research has been carried out in New Zealand over the past decade, exploring the identifications and characteristics of the ‘mixed’ populations, and the processes of constraint and acknowledgement created by measurement. Multiple scholars suggest that increasing official recognition of ‘mixedness’ works to deconstruct race for both the state and society, recognising the hybridity which characterises cultural identities in a diverse society (Callister 2003b; Keddell 2006; Khawaja et al. 2007). With research exploring interactions and intermixing for individuals of Māori/Pākehā, Māori/Chinese and Pacific Island/Māori descent, conceptions of hybrid identities and dual/multiple identifications are increasingly removed from ideas of blood and ancestry and grounded in context and social interaction, strengthening the cultural affiliation understanding of ethnicity (see, for example, Meredith 2000; Ward 2006; Ip 2008).

However, while the fluidity of ethnic identity is emphasised by the academic and the policy-making communities, wider social understandings of ‘mixedness’ remain heavily circumscribed by notions of race. Mixed identities are seen as the product of inter-racial relationships, crossing socially maintained group boundaries. Among the dominant Pākehā in particular, racially based discourses remain common in describing both the relationships and the ‘mixed’ children—using a rhetoric of concern rather than disapproval, by asking ‘what about the children?’ Previous notions of mixed children having ‘nowhere to belong’ still exist, highlighting the fact that for many people, ethnic boundaries seem rigid, even in the face of increasing discourses of hybridity (see Gibson 2006).

Conclusion

Exploring ‘mixed race’ in New Zealand highlights the differential outcomes of racial formation: how macro understandings of ‘mixed race’ translate to the social and individual levels, and back again. The historical trajectories of racial formation illustrate a complex process of creating ‘mixedness’: moving from state-led racial projects which classified by blood quantum, towards structured racial frameworks based on singular race categories, and finally to contemporary individual-focused movements searching for classification, and self-categorising as ‘mixed’. Although New Zealand maintains an innovative and potentially forward-looking method of measuring ethnic identification, this fluid categorisation remains constrained by the racialised base of existing structures and dominant racial narratives. While individuals have the option to identify with multiple ethnicities, ‘mixedness’ in and of itself is not explicitly recognised, and is often rendered invisible in the public presentation of ethnicity data, which highlights membership in bounded groups (T. Kukutai, pers. comm. 2009). However, space for ethnicity discourse remains important, as a state and academic (ethno-)racial project, working to influence racial structures and shift racialised thinking.

‘Mixed race’ is then firmly positioned within the bicultural/multicultural tension which characterises ‘race relations’ in New Zealand. Mixed identities for the individual can be seen as a reflection of the ‘mixed’ nature of the state and society, with the narrative of a bicultural nation made up of two parts providing a macro level depiction of personal ‘mixed race’. However, this is more complicated at both macro and micro levels, given the ambiguity of recognising and categorising mixed identities. Upon closer inspection, narratives of equal partnership and recognition strike an uneasy balance between rhetoric and reality, as societal and state understandings of ethnic identity remain heavily curtailed by traditional notions of race and belonging through blood.

Notes

1. A Māori term commonly used to describe New Zealanders of predominantly European descent (the numerical majority). While frequently used by Māori and many Pākehā, the term is not without controversy, and is rejected as discriminatory by some groups of European descent (see Bell 1996). This paper will use either Pākehā or New Zealand European, or the terminology of the institution being discussed.

2. Although many groups in New Zealand could be discussed when looking at mixedness and hybridity, particularly Pacific Peoples, the article focuses on these two groups for conceptual clarity.

3. Wanhalla has shown such relationships to be diverse and complex, ranging from brief illicit unions to marriages for economic purposes, sanctioned by indigenous customs, or church-based legal marriage contracts (Wanhalla 2008a, b).

4. As stated on the census form: ‘If of full European descent, no matter where born, tick box’ and ‘If you are a person of the Māori race, or a descendent of such a person, tick box’ [emphasis added]. This wording reflects the 1974 Māori Amendment Act which defined as Māori a person of (any) Māori descent (Cormack 2010:14).

5. This is also reflected in official discussions of ‘race-based’ social policies, and the position of the Race Relations Commissioner in the Human Rights Commission (Callister & Didham 2009:63–64)

6. However, following the 2004/5 Mallard Review of Targeted Programmes, funding along ethnic lines was reduced, shifting the focus for many sectors to need, not ‘race’ (Mallard 2004; Cormack 2010:8).