India In New Zealand Local Identities, Global Relations (original) (raw)
Related papers
Indian Diaspora in New Zealand
The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity, 2019
This chapter surveys the Indian diaspora in New Zealand through both the earliest historical presence of Indians in Aotearoa and through the lens of Indian settlement as recorded in the New Zealand Census. The earliest Indian presence is summarized through a previously unused historical source, the ships logs and muster rolls of the very earliest European vessels of exploration and exploitation to New Zealand. It places Indians in Aotearoa at the very instance of Māori-European first contact on land in 1769, 70 years earlier than previously recorded. Indian settlement, viewed through a more complete review of the New Zealand Census than previously reported, also places the first instance of Indians in the New Zealand Census 20 years earlier than previously reported, back to 1861. The chapter also charts the historical growth of the Indian population, ranging from
2015
Using the Indian diaspora in New Zealand as a case study, this thesis examines how state categorisation practices and nation building narratives have constructed and racialised migrant minorities, such as Indians, in particular ways. It does so through a review of the historical settlement narrative and census records that have tended to erase early ethnic minority presence from what is seen as a predominantly bicultural encounter. Aotearoan colonial society has tended to render early Indian presence in New Zealand invisible. This pattern remains perceptible in the prolonged use of homogenising ethnic categories utilised throughout the history of the New Zealand census that obfuscate the extent of ethnic minority diversification with specific reference to the Indian community. The thesis critiques state constructions of ethnic identity through (1) the presentation of alternative historical narratives that more appropriately demonstrate the presence of non-Māori non-European minorities at first contact; (2) an examination of minority reporting in the New Zealand census during the period of early European settlement; and (3) an analysis of data from a survey of the Indian community in New Zealand. The survey data on self-reported experiences of discrimination underscore the importance of ethnic self-identification and the use of more heterogeneous categories for appropriate minority recognition. At a theoretical level, the thesis outlines a novel framework for diversity governance, known as deep diversity, which is informed by an interdisciplinary methodological and theoretical approach that draws on the disciplines of anthropology, demography, history, and policy studies. This framework rethinks current policy approaches that position minorities as beneficiaries of policies designed for their social uplift and integration into majority society, and instead places the onus of social integration on both minorities and majorities. The framework is applied to an analysis of qualitative data from historical sources that fundamentally question New Zealand’s existing bicultural settlement narrative; to quantitative data from both historical and contemporary census records; and to a self-administered predominantly web-based survey of 1,124 Indian respondents using a snowball sampling method. This thesis presents an alternative historical settlement narrative that positions Indians as participating, along with Europeans, in first contact encounters with Māori in Aotearoa. Past and present census analysis also reveals the extent of historic Indian invisibility, and demonstrates continued state use of enumeration techniques that obscure and homogenise the diversity that exists within the Indian population. The survey results focus on the themes of identity and discrimination, the analysis of which offers insights about the importance of ethnic self- identification, the continued presence of discrimination, and the use of more heterogeneous categories for appropriate minority recognition. Specific survey results show that respondents, while identifying as ‘Indian’ on the census, favour terms that cite hyphenated nationality or ethnicity (e.g. Kiwi-Indian, Indo-Fijian) or regional, religious, linguistic and country of birth identifiers, as significant forms of self-identification. Results on discrimination demonstrate that 48.4% of survey respondents reported being the target of a discrimination event in New Zealand (86.9% of whom are migrants, while 13.1% were born in New Zealand). When queried about the presence of discrimination, 90.7% of respondents believe that racism and discrimination currently exist within New Zealand society, while only 9.3% believe that it does not exist. Minority invisibility contributes to social discrimination, and helps perpetuate the shallow diversity management practices in use today. More attention to the importance of appropriate minority self-identification and accommodation, involving majorities in minority integration programmes, and institutional support for a shared national identity, could all help facilitate and promote vital social cohesion strategies in New Zealand. The deep diversity framework articulated in this thesis offers an alternative vision for diversity governance and social cohesion that is appropriate for western liberal democracies with highly pluralised societies such as New Zealand.
2007
Marcus Banks (1996: 8) argues that the life of ethnicity has been lived out through the writings of academics rather than in the lives of the people they have studied and, indeed, local discourses of ethnicity are remarkably understudied. This thesis takes a step towards addressing the lack of attention given to local discourses of ethnicity by exploring the ways in which sixteen New Zealand-born Gujaratis talked about their Indianness in interviews conducted specifically for this project. Herbert Gans ' (1979) notion of symbolic ethnicity is initially employed as a framework for understanding participants' narratives. Although this analysis gives an indication of the salience of ethnicity in the lives of my participants it fails to account for the complex dilemmas of difference they expressed -the definition of 'Indian culture' in terms of difference from other 'cultures' and the suggestion that they were different from other New Zealanders by virtue of their Indianness. These issues are explained through an exploration of the assumptions about the cultural and the person that were inherent in notions expressed by participants of living in 'two worlds' and having to find a balance between them. This analysis suggests that participants constructed both 'culture' and 'the individual' as highly individuated categories. It is argued that these conceptualizations of 'culture' and 'the individual' can be usefully understood in terms of reflexive, or liquid, modernity and reflexive individualism. Under the conditions of late modernity, reflexive -that is, selfdirected and self-oriented -thought and activity become idealised and individuals are ideologically cast as the producers of their own biographies. My participants' discussions of their Indianness can, therefore, be understood to represent a kind of 'self-reflexive ethnicity' that is centred on the person rather than on social networks or cultural practices. This mode of ethnicity does not necessarily require the decline of such networks and practices; they are simply reconfigured in terms of personal choice. iii Acknowledgements I have thoroughly enjoyed my thesis year and have many people to thank for their part in it. I would like to thank my participants for so generously sharing their thoughts and experiences with me. Their vivid and insightful comments provided me with a wealth of fascinating material to analyse and are an invaluable part of this thesis. My supervisors, Dr James Urry and Dr Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich, have been fantastic. A huge thank-you for your enthusiasm for my project, engagement with my ideas, incredibly thorough reading of multiple drafts and ready availability in times of 'crisis'.
Identity and Invisibility: Early Indian Presence in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1769-1850
2018
This article is the first chapter in the edited volume "Indians and the Antipodes: Networks, Boundaries, and Circulation" edited by Sekhar Bandyopadhyay and Jane Buckingham, published by Oxford University Press. The article explores the very earliest South Asian presence in Aotearoa New Zealand beginning in 1769, ending with the earliest Indian settlements in 1850s. It rewrites Asian history in New Zealand, placing non-Māori and non-Pākehā minorities in Aotearoa at the dawn of Māori-European encounter.
Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2008
This article investigates the relationships of Indo-Fijians to their ancestral homeland, both in Fiji and following their secondary migration to Australia. Most Indo-Fijians are descendants of indentured labourers to Fiji. The majority have long ago lost all personal contacts with India. During their stay in Fiji, their social, cultural and religious practices have undergone many changes. Their experiences with subcontinental Indians are limited and their views of India and of subcontinental Indians largely based on ignorance, indifference and stereotypes. Recent efforts of the Indian Government at fostering relations with its 20 million strong diaspora are primarily aimed at wealthy Indian migrants in the West and descendants of indentured Indians have attracted comparatively little interest in India. Many Indo-Fijians have left Fiji and resettled in the developed Pacific Rim countries, especially Australia. In the wake of this secondary migration, Indo-Fijians have realised that their social and cultural distance from subcontinental Indians is too great to be narrowed by a shared ethnicity. In the process, they have developed a Pacific identity and have constructed a transnational space around Fiji as the new centre largely excluding the cultural hearth India.
Spiced-Up Sandringham: Indian Transnationalism and New Suburban Spaces in Auckland, New Zealand
Auckland's ethnic composition has diversified rapidly since the introduction of a new immigration policy in 1987. The policy targets migrants with skills and investment capital, and while it has attracted many asset-rich migrants, it has also resulted in the immigration of many with relatively little wealth, from a range of countries. Thus, much of the media attention which once focused on disadvantaged migrant groups shifted its attention to apparently wealthier groups such as the Chinese from Hong Kong and Taiwan. At the same time, the transformation of suburbs with high average socioeconomic status was conspicuous, but other suburbs considered less prestigious have also been transformed. This paper considers the situation of the Indian transnational group in New Zealand which is in the 'middle' socioeconomically. Further we consider the emerging transnational spaces in one of the suburbs within Auckland which is also in the 'middle' in terms of its historical transformation and the (re)construction of place which has taken place there.