This thesis approaches the issue of bicultural nationhood as articulated through a Maori/Pakeha binary in Aotearoa/New Zealand by interrogating the deeply entrenched social forms that inform liberal democracy and that institutionalize capitalism in the modern nation-state. More specifically, it explores the concepts of �self-governing people�, �public sphere� and �free market� as three forms of collective agency that discursively construct �society� within the social imaginary and that interact to set the terms of democratic citizenship. Central to this discussion is the indigenous/non-indigenous binary constituting biculturalism and the manifestation of �indigeneity� as both unassimilable difference in the project of modernity and as political struggle for recognition and power. This study elaborates through the mediated texts of the mediasphere and argues that there is a constant relation between nation, culture and class wherein culture-as-difference provides a framework for masking class struggle in capitalist relations of production as well as for enabling the dominant group to discursively construct their own ethnicity as national cultural identity.
What is at stake in this discussion is the contrast between cultural difference as it emerges in the performance of everyday life and as reaction to issues of economic marginalization and cultural difference as it is contrived by the nation-state in terms of a Maori/Pakeha binary. The aim of this thesis is to highlight the necessity of difference in cultural identified, labeled and marketed as a fixed concept, but is an ephemeral by-product of ongoing social struggle for survival, recognition and political power. The objective is to undercut current ideological propositions and demand a just, equitable and democratic approach to the conceptualization of nationhood in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217554 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Begg, Anne, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Otago. Department of Communication Studies |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://policy01.otago.ac.nz/policies/FMPro?-db=policies.fm&-format=viewpolicy.html&-lay=viewpolicy&-sortfield=Title&Type=Academic&-recid=33025&-find), Copyright Anne Begg |
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