“TITIRANGI IS THE MOUNTAIN”: REPRESENTING MAORI COMMUNITY IN AUCKLAND

Authors

Daniel Rosenblatt, University of ChicagoFollow

Abstract

Although “culture movements” of the sort that have become increasingly common in the Pacific and elsewhere are reactions and responses to colonialism and globalization, and are often at least partly inspired by imported models, they nevertheless have locally (culturally) specific content and effects. This is because the things that are “revived” are always grounded in particular local institutions, genres of practice, traditions of interpretation, and modes of expression. Form in these cases carries content, and the content is for that reason rooted in local socially inherited traditions. Contemporary New Zealand Maori liken urban communities to those based on kinship, and they do so by employing a variety of representational conventions, ranging from songs to carved meeting houses. These forms connect asserting kinship to making claims about land, and link land to culture and to a distinctive status within the nation-state.

Recommended Citation

Rosenblatt, Daniel (2002) "“TITIRANGI IS THE MOUNTAIN”: REPRESENTING MAORI COMMUNITY IN AUCKLAND," Pacific Studies Journal: Vol. 25: No. 1, Article 5.
Available at: https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol25/iss1/5