Drawing upon critical whiteness theory I examine whiteness and privilege within a New Zealand context, specifically with 15 men and women who self identify as Pakeha. Through in-depth interviews I explore the proposition that the adoption of this identity may preclude an understanding of the ways that whiteness and privilege operate. Employing thematic and discourse analysis, four major themes were identified within the data. The functionality and organisation of language is considered in order to examine participants’ detachment from dominant white culture. The thesis illustrates that the assumption of a Pakeha self identity may allow the bearer to discursively obscure both the cultural capital that whiteness provides and the privileges afforded by this capital. Ultimately, this research draws attention to the intersection of privilege and whiteness within New Zealand, in order to offer one explanation for the persistence of white hegemony.

This project investigates the experiences of a small group of social service practitioners as they consider the question of what it means to be Pakeha in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2004. Specifically this study considers the contribution of Māori cultural knowledges to Pakeha identity. It also explores whether therapeutic practices that participants have available, are relevant to their current claims of Pakeha identity. This study highlights the complexity of experience and multiple stories that inform constructions of identity. In approaching the topic I was aware that many important stories of people's lived experience are not often told. People are often silenced due to the difficulty of 'telling'. In this exploration, space was created for the telling of stories, which are often not easily told: stories of struggle and pain; stories of compassionate witnessing; stories of rule-breaking; stories of stepping into territory beyond binaries and stories of richness and delight. Knowledges have been produced that indicate the need for carefully crafted space for often very difficult identity conversations to occur and for voices to be heard. Further, the study has produced knowledges for scaffolding for respectful and honouring conversations . The stories of this project indicate that the conversations required, have their foundation through engagement with the value of fairness. Findings also indicate that forums, where mutual contribution to identity for both Māori and Pakeha can be acknowledged, are a critical to establishing ongoing honourable relationships between Pakeha and Māori New Zealanders. Throughout this project participants acknowledge and honour the rich contribution of Māori knowledges and language to their Pakeha identity.

People telling stories of national identity, land and spirituality contribute to the local formation of the nation. I explore this view of nationhood in Aotearoa/New Zealand from Māori and Pākehā perspectives. Theorising this exploration, I form my own national identity concept for guiding analysis, that of locally narrated roots. Locally narrated roots is, essentially, a way of looking at national identity through the everyday narration of land, spirituality and history/ancestry by individuals. Supporting the production of this term is Smith’s (2003) theory of revised ethno-symbolism, which links religion, nationalism, land and history/ancestry, and Thompson’s (2001) grounded, everyday approach summed up as local production of national identity. Research methods draw upon Thompson’s people-focussed approach in conjunction with a narrative approach inspired by life story and Kaupapa Māori Research practices, which informed the conducting of twelve semi-structured interviews. From these interviews, six Māori and six Pākehā stories of history, ancestry, spirituality, land and identity were generated. These narratives revealed that colonial settler society, romanticism and whakapapa (genealogy) are central to this research and vital for further exploration on national identity. I close with the suggestion that participants’ stories enact a process of locally authenticating one’s national identity. I also suggest this local authentication is a secular spirituality, an idea that combines both patent secularism and spirituality, and is expressed through land, history and ancestry in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The depiction of birds by artists such as Don Binney, Bill Hammond, Michael Parekowhai and Grant Whibley has served as metaphors in the conceptual systems of post-settler New Zealanders’ expression of identity. This project investigated unease in New Zealand post-settler identity and its dislocation from the past by considering works depicting native birds. Is depicting native - rather than introduced birds, an incongruous and romantic settler iconography in identity, leading to a re-telling of our place in this land at the expense of not only the rightful indigenous place of Maori, but of our own cultural becoming? By exploring the painting of birds as metaphors of New Zealand post-settler identity, the project aimed to contribute to the complex issues surrounding the entwined and entangled post-settler relationships of both the past and present. This painting project investigated these issues through the medium of oil paint, culminating in a body of artwork presented in an exhibition with an accompanying exegesis representing 20% of the work.

The depiction of birds by artists such as Don Binney, Bill Hammond, Michael Parekowhai and Grant Whibley has served as metaphors in the conceptual systems of post-settler New Zealanders’ expression of identity. This project investigated unease in New Zealand post-settler identity and its dislocation from the past by considering works depicting native birds. Is depicting native - rather than introduced birds, an incongruous and romantic settler iconography in identity, leading to a re-telling of our place in this land at the expense of not only the rightful indigenous place of Maori, but of our own cultural becoming? By exploring the painting of birds as metaphors of New Zealand post-settler identity, the project aimed to contribute to the complex issues surrounding the entwined and entangled post-settler relationships of both the past and present. This painting project investigated these issues through the medium of oil paint, culminating in a body of artwork presented in an exhibition with an accompanying exegesis representing 20% of the work.

This dissertation critically analyses New Zealand’s National Museum Te Papa Tongarewa. Since it opened in 1998, Te Papa, arguably the world’s foremost exponent of the ‘new museology’, has been popularly and critically supported for its innovations in the areas of popular accessibility, bicultural history, and Maori-government management arrangements. As the first in-depth study of Te Papa, I examine and problematise these claims to exceptionality. In producing an analysis that locates the museum within cultural, political, economic and museological contexts, I examine how the museum’s particular institutional program develop, and point to limitations in its policy and practice.