Editorial

Abstract

This special issue of the Journal of New Zealand Studies is the outcome of a seminar series at the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies in 2007. Over a period of two and half months we discussed topics around the task of 'Watching the Kiwis: How Anthropologists Look at New Zealand'. This edition comprises five of the original seminar papers and three additional ones which replace papers which could not be published. I am very pleased with the result, which, I believe, gives inspiring, often humorous, yet scholarly insights into what New Zealand studies and the social sciences are able to achieve; these eight articles point in a direction that I would like to explore much more extensively and, I hope, might also eventually lead to a follow-up series.

All of the authors look at issues around the question of how life in New Zealand is imagined, structured, lived and even materialised. Three main areas are addressed: analysis of identity construction, of media representation of New Zealand topics and of social and cultural codes and behavioural patterns in the everyday life of Kiwis.