The Construction of Ethnicity and 'Belonging' in New Zealand; Where We Have Come from and Where We Might Be Going

Abstract

In the lead up to the 2011 election the issue of ‘race’ again featured in discussions about the future of New Zealand. The split between the Māori Party and breakaway MP Hone Harawira embodied debates over who has the right to speak on behalf of ‘Māori’. ACT party leader Don Brash continued to argue that we are ‘all one people’ but in the process highlighted ‘racial’ groupings. New Zealand First party leader Winston Peters, linking nationality and ethnicity, tried to invoke nationalism by identifying a possible foreign ‘Chinese’ takeover of New Zealand enterprises. In addition, in 2010 the New Citizen Party was registered to represent ‘Chinese New Zealanders’. These discussions invoke commonly accepted, but often confusing, categories of race, nationality or ethnicity. Alongside these debates lies the official classification of the New Zealand population, which is based not on race but on self-determined, culturally defined, ethnicity. So how did these official categories come about? And, perhaps more importantly, how useful are they when considering public policy?