CNZS Bulletin of New Zealand Studies

1. Views from the Edge of the World: New Zealand Film

2. Cultural Questions: New Zealand Identity in a Transnational Age

3. Projecting a Nation: New Zealand Film and its Reception in Germany

4. Cinema Journeys of the Man Alone: The New Zealand and American Films of Geoff Murphy

5. A Cultural Assault: The New Zealand Films of Peter Jackson

6. New Zealand - A Pastoral Paradise?

7. New Zealand Fictions: Literature and Film

8. An Ambivalent Archetype: Masculinity, Performance and the New Zealand Films of Bruno Lawrence

9. On Reflection: New Zealand Film Reviews from North and South, 1986-1993

10. New Zealand and Australia: Narrative, History, Representation

11. Isola Bella

12. A Literary Modernist: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of the Short Story

13. Small Nations, Big Neighbours: New Zealand & Canada

14. New Zealand, France, and the Pacific

15. New Zealand Filmmakers in Conversation

16. Studies in New Zealand Cinema

Cultural Questions: New Zealand Identity in a Transnational Age

by
Ruth Brown

Out of Print
21 pages
ISBN: 0 9530177 1 0
Published - 1997

At a time when national boundaries are blurred by a transnational flow of everything from financial investment to cultural influences, there is a concern sometimes bordering on obsession about national identity. What is New Zealand? A series of communities cemented by sport (particularly rugby), a clean, green pastoral paradise, a place of predominantly Maori cultural inheritance or a nation of enterprising capitalists? The stridency with which different versions of the 'real' New Zealand are asserted reveals an absence of consensus, and perhaps a fear that the nation no longer exists as an easily recognisable collective entity. The blurring between national 'myth' and 'reality' has been widely accepted since Benedict Anderson described a nation as an imagined community, nevertheless the idea persists that 'imagining' are falsehoods put about by those who have an interest in deluding people.

The blurring between national 'myth' and 'reality' has been widely accepted since Benedict Anderson described a nation as an imagined community, nevertheless the idea persists that 'imagining' are falsehoods put about by those who have an interest in deluding people. Claudia Bell's suspicion that everyday myths of Pakeha identity are being deliberately perpetuated to further the interests of powerful Pakeha elite is a case in point. Without disputing that national mythology is often promoted for dubious reasons, I want to consider it also in the sense that credulous allegiances (or believable myths) are inseparable from the idea of nation. It is not a new idea that 'invented' beliefs are necessary to hold society together.

The theory underpinning my argument goes back to Fredrich von Schiller, who anticipated postmodernist theories about the uncertain nature of reality when he argued in 1792 that 'truth' is not an entity but a human construction. Schiller did not stop with the conclusion that life is absurd; instead he argued for a constructed reality, strong enough to furnish sanction for action, but not so strong as to harden into dogma. In the Schillerian sense, all national identity formation is to some extent a scam: what matters is whether it works - in creating a sense of belonging that is convincing, but not so convincing as to be bigoted. Different versions of the 'real' New Zealand are considered in the light of this formula.

This book addresses the significant cultural questions regarding New Zealand's identity, with sections on 'Rugby/Myth/Identity', 'The Clean, Green, Pastoral Paradise', 'Maori and Pakeha', 'A New Zealand Without People', 'Enterprise and the Global Economy', 'Exposing the Myths', 'A Polluted Paradise', and 'Is New Zealand Working?'.