Defiant Memory and the Infrastructure of Intimacy: The Thriving Homes of Māori Jews in Aotearoa, New Zealand

Abstract

Social research since the 1980s demonstrates the resurgence of interest in whakapapa and growing recognition in the importance of whānau for the affirmation of being Māori in contemporary Aotearoa, New Zealand. Analysing memories of home, this paper integrates the latest development in the theory of home and nostalgia with empirical data from social psychology on the well-being of contemporary Māori Jews. The data is based on open-end, in-depth interviews with twenty-one Māori Jews between the ages of eighteen and sixty-seven years old, highlighting relationship with whakapapa through funerary practices and food. It demonstrates that contemporary Māori Jews express longing for home and intimacy as well as ambivalence, pain and grief as they critique home. In their lived relationships with whakapapa the Māori Jews in this study employ defiant memory to resist the intergenerational racial tension within their whānau. In this way, they constitute their infrastructure of intimacy and ameliorate their well-being.

Hybrid identities: Māori Italians challenging racism and the Māori/Pākehā binary

“…We note interesting convergences and divergences between our findings and those of existing studies on other hybrid Māori identities. Like the Māori Jews (Ore, 2018) and younger generations of Māori Indians (Pio, 2009, p. 22), our respondents affirmed the value of both their Māori and non-Māori heritages. As Ore noted for Māori Jews, Māori Italians have resisted and challenged racist attitudes and behaviours within and outside their whānau.…”

“…Similarly, most of Ore's (2018) Māori-Jew participants experienced intergenerational racism within their kin networks, when their Jewish grandparents rejected their Māori parents: they overrode racist attitudes and behaviour by affirming the value of being Māori and expressing pride in having mixed heritages. Pio's study of Māori Indians identified a progression from Māori, Indian, and Chinese being treated 'equally badly' by Pākehā in earlier times to the current acknowledgment of mixed heritages by families and schools and the perception that mixed identities are a 'definite advantage ' (2009, pp.…”

“…The complexities of intermarriages and mixed Māori-Pākehā identities have been addressed by several researchers (Meredith, 1999;Moeke-Maxwell, 2003;Rocha & Webber, 2017;Wanhalla, 2008Wanhalla, , 2013Webber, 2008). Other ethnic hybridity has gained less attention, except for such notable examples as Māori Dalmatians (Božić-Vrbančić, 2005, 2006, Māori Chinese (Ip, 2013), Māori Indians (Aikman-Dodd, 2013Pio, 2009), and Māori Jews (Ore, 2018). Since the claiming of a multi-ethnic identity is an important and growing phenomenon in New Zealand (Kukutai, 2003(Kukutai, , 2004, it is timely to examine other hybridities, focusing on how they may challenge and be affected by the prevailing Māori/Pākehā cultural binary, thus expanding our understanding of Māori diversity.…”