Multiple identifications and

the dialogical self: urban

Maori youngsters and the
cultural renaissance
T oon van Meijl University of Nijmegen

The renaissance of Maori culture and tradition has played a significant role in the political campaigns
of New Zealand’s indigenous population over the past few decades. At the same time, however, it
has brought to light that many Maori youngsters are unable to construct a cultural identity in terms
of the discourses of culture and tradition that dominate the political arena. This article analyses the
experience of urban Maori youngsters in ceremonial settings (marae) by examining the question of
how they mediate different representations of their cultural identity within the self. It demonstrates
that many young Maori people are engaged in a psychological dialogue between, on the one hand,
the classic model for a Maori identity that prescribes them to embrace traditional culture and, on the
other hand, their personal identification as outcasts in daily practices of New Zealand society.

A single consciousness is contradictio in adjecto. Consciousness is in essence multiple. Pluralia tantum.

Mikhail Bakhtin (1984 [1929]: 228)
[W]ho am I to tell a people ... how they are to practise being and reflecting themselves?
Alan Duff (1993: 47)

In 1988 I conducted ethnographic field research in a Maori community in New Zealand,

where I met Theresa, a Maori woman, who was then 26 years of age and mother of four
children. Her husband had become unemployed and therefore she felt she also had to
look for a job. She had no previous working experience, nor did she have any qualifi-
cations. Hence she enrolled for a computer course at a Maori training centre for school
dropouts.
The training centre which Theresa attended was different from other training centres
in New Zealand because of its location on a marae, a traditional ceremonial centre. Marae
protocol (kawa) prescribes everyone present on a marae to take part in ceremonies when
visitors arrive, during meetings, funerals, and other transitional rituals. The curriculum
of the training centre therefore included a compulsory module for all trainees that focused
on the performance of Maori ceremonies,the teaching of Maori language,and elementary
skills in Maori ‘culture’, colloquially defined in an expressive manner and limited to
ceremonial speech-making, singing, and dancing. The teaching of Maori language,
‘culture’, and traditions was necessary since few trainees had the skills to participate in

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918 Toon van Meijl

marae ceremonies.Underlying the‘cultural’component of training courses,however,was

also an assumption that marae practices are emblematic for a Maori identity. When you
are unable to join in, you are not considered a genuine Maori.
But Theresa, and many of her fellow trainees, experienced great difficulties with this
model for a Maori identity. She felt she would never be able to learn the Maori
language, which would also make it difficult for her to take part in Maori ceremonies.
The marae model for a Maori identity made her realize that she was not a ‘real’ Maori
or a ‘good’ Maori, as the local idiom goes. She told me that at the training centre she had
come to realize that she was ‘only Maori because I have got a dark skin’. Initially she did
make an effort to conform to the prototype of a Maori identity conveyed on the marae
by participating seriously in the language and ‘culture’ classes, but soon she reached the
inevitable conclusion that for her the ideal of a ‘real Maori’ was unattainable: ‘being
Maori doesn’t come from my heart’.
Being Maori for her meant something entirely different:‘living in a tin shack and being
poor’. Until she enrolled at the training centre, she had never visited a marae, even though
shehadlivedlessthanakilometreawayfromone.Themaraelocationof thetrainingcentre
confronted her therefore with the paradox of the marae model for a Maori identity that
she did not dispute, but to which she felt little personal connection. Her sense of self as
Maori was rooted predominantly in the feeling of being an outcast in New Zealand society,
something she shared with many other Maori people. The experience of not being able
to identify in terms of the model for a Maori identity that was dominant on the marae was
therefore alienating and also painful. In this article I seek to examine the mediation
between these two different models for a Maori identity, and the dialogue between them
within the self of mainly urban Maori youngsters whose participation in a marae-based
Maori training centre made them realize that they belonged neither in European domains
nor in typical Maori domains of New Zealand society.

Culture and identity in Maori society

The constitution of cultural identities is a topical issue in contemporary Maori society.
Over the past twenty-five years a cultural renaissance has taken place which aims
primarily at restoring Maori sovereignty over the lives of Maori people, the indigenous
population of New Zealand (e.g. Durie 1998). During this period not only has a
blueprint of a bicultural society crystallized, but so too has a model for a cultural
identity of Maori people in postcolonial New Zealand (Norton 1993; Sissons 1993;
Webster 1998). Paradoxically, however, this model is founded mainly in the history and
traditions of the Maori people, their language, customs, songs, and ceremonies (e.g.
S.M. Mead 1984).1 An important assumption of this view of cultural identity is that
inequality between Maori and Europeans may be reduced to a clash of cultures. As a
corollary, a strong cultural identity is often considered the only remedy against the
subordination of Maori in New Zealand society.
Since Maori culture is practised and performed principally on Maori marae, it is also
widely assumed in New Zealand that marae practices are foundational for Maori
identities (e.g. Durie 1999). This is rather remarkable since recent research has revealed
that only one-third of the Maori population has regular exposure to marae (Te Hoe
Nuku Roa 1998).2 This figure confirms other observations, for example by the head of
a Department of Maori Studies, who reported that the vast majority of students who
were enrolled in his department had no experiences on a marae (Kaaretu 1989: 75). For
the analysis of the cultural identities of all Maori people, including old and young, rural

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Toon van Meijl 919

and urban, it is therefore necessary to take into account the marginality of marae
discourses and practices in the daily lives of the majority. This, in turn, is important to
be understood against the background of the colonial history of Maori society.
In the nineteenth century, Maori people lost most of their land, which in the
twentieth century caused many to migrate to urban areas in search of employment. At
present, approximately 80 per cent of the Maori population are residing in towns and
cities (Statistics New Zealand 1998). At the same time, it is interesting and significant
that the Maori population is demographically rather young: 36 per cent of the Maori
population are under the age of 14 (Te Puni Kokiri 2000: 1), while 19 per cent are aged
between 15 and 24 years (Te Puni Kokiri 1999: 1). Many Maori youngsters have limited
knowledge of Maori traditions; they do not speak the Maori language; they are only
marginally conscious of distinctive cultural customs; they rarely, if ever, sing Maori
songs; and they never participate in Maori ceremonies. For that reason, too, many
Maori youngsters, particularly in urban areas, feel alienated from traditional culture as
it is reconstructed in Maori political discourse and represented on marae. This raises
the question of how young Maori people who find it difficult to identify in terms of the
public model for a cultural identity as Maori represent themselves as Maori in con-
temporary New Zealand.
In this article I seek to examine this question by focusing on the self conception of
those urban Maori youngsters who experience a clash of identities when confronted
with political presentations of the Maori self in marae encounters. In all public arenas
managed by Maori in New Zealand society, ranging from school to church, and from
special training centres to prisons, but especially on marae, they are told that, if they
wish to be, or rather to become, a genuine Maori, they have to ‘know who they are,
where they are from and what they are on about’. The meaning of this popular slogan,
however, does not provide most youngsters with sufficient inspiration to learn the
Maori language, to study their genealogies, and to commit themselves to the transmis-
sion of Maori traditions. It could be argued that they perceive these presentations of the
Maori self on marae as ‘theatrical’ (Bauman 1996: 18). The classic model for a Maori
identity, so to speak, is not a model of their identity as Maori. Their Maori identity is
not characterized by pride in Maori customs and history, but, instead, by a second-rate
status in New Zealand society: poor education records, high unemployment, low
incomes, alcohol and drug abuse, shocking crime statistics, excessive rates of teenage
pregnancies, etc. (e.g. Te Puni Kokiri 1999). In consequence, the self-presentation of
Maori people by the brokers of traditional Maori culture is far removed from the
self-representation of many Maori youngsters (Spiro 1993: 122).
Elsewhere I have demonstrated that the tension between political presentations of
the Maori self and personal representations causes a crisis within the self of individual
Maori, especially young people in cities (Van Meijl 1999; 2002). Their self is often
constituted in and through different models of cultural identity, as a result of which
they may be left with a feeling of not being a real Maori yet also lacking in any other
positive form of cultural identity. It is also important, however, to examine the question
of how they relate different representations of their cultural identity within the self
(Bammer 1994: xiv-xv; Moore 1993). In this article I aim to address this question with
reference to the psychological concept of the dialogical self, which is inspired by the
Russian literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin. This notion of self considers a person’s
identity as multivoiced and dialogical, while it acknowledges not only the role of
human interchange, but also the impact of power in social relations. The theory of the

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920 Toon van Meijl

dialogical self will help towards understanding how Maori youngsters at the training
centre on the marae mediate the traditional view of a cultural identity as Maori with
their own understanding of what makes them Maori in contemporary New Zealand.
That recent reconstructions of traditional culture have had negative consequences
for the identity of many Maori people has already been exposed by the Maori scholar
Poata-Smith (1996). He argues cogently that the emphasis on culture and identity as
crucial factors in the struggle for socio-economic equality has been ‘an unmitigated
disaster for the vast majority of working-class Maori’ (1996: 110). His main objection to
the centrality of culture in Maori political ideology is its failure to recognize that Maori
people are located predominantly in the working class, with other concerns ruling their
lives than culture and identity. In his opinion, therefore, the rhetoric of cultural nation-
alism has been counterproductive by fostering internal controversy over the authen-
ticity of culture. Furthermore, Poata-Smith argues against the promotion of changes in
individual lifestyle when these are advocated instead of radical political changes that
may improve socio-economic circumstances of lower-class Maori people.
The strength of Poata-Smith’s relentless critique of the central place of culture in
Maori political discourses is that it draws attention to the over-emphasis on culture in
the Maori renaissance, particularly since an excessively narrow conception of culture is
implied. The value of his contribution is also that he rejects the understanding that the
inequality between Maori and New Zealanders of European origin may be reduced to
a clash of cultures (see also Rata 2000). The weakness of his analysis, however, is that it
leaves unexamined the implications of the traditional representation of culture for
individuals who cannot identify in its terms. This article will fill that lacuna and also
adds the theoretical perspective of the dialogical self on the practical consequences of
this ideological debate.

The marae model3 for a cultural identity

My ethnographic analysis of individual Maori self-representations and their dialogue
with the classic conception of a Maori cultural identity in political discourses is grounded
in fieldwork at a training centre offering second-chance education to Maori school
‘dropouts’(see also Van Meijl 1994).4 Special education for disadvantaged youngsters who
have left school with no qualifications is available throughout the country.5 Maori trainees
had in common that they failed at school, and therefore they also had relatively low
aspirations, low self-esteem, and little expectation for the future. In addition, they were
invariably from working-class families that were rarely involved in marae practices.
Otherwise they varied widely in age, work experience, motivation, interests, and abilities.
At the training centre that is at the focus of attention in this article, trainees were between
15 and 28 years old, and very few had any working experience.6
The training centre at which I conducted field research did not differ much from
other vocational training institutions in the sense that it offered a computer course, an
automated office course, as well as a construction and maintenance course. Unlike most
other training centres, however, it was located on a Maori marae, a ceremonial centre,
which made it almost unique in New Zealand. A marae is made up of the combination
of a courtyard used for traditional ceremonies and community assembly, with a set of
communal buildings, normally including an ancestral meeting-house, a dining-hall,
and some showers and toilets (Metge 1976 [1967]). As mentioned above, the implication
of the marae location of the training centre was that all trainees were obliged to
participate in ceremonial gatherings held on the site. Since most trainees were not

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Toon van Meijl 921

familiar with marae etiquette, however, the training centre made the teaching of Maori
‘culture’ and traditions, including marae protocol and Maori language, a compulsory
component of the centre’s training courses.
The focus on ‘culture’ at the training centre was particularly prominent during the
pre-vocational course, which served as an obligatory introduction to all other training
courses. It aimed at exposing the students to all advanced courses, while it also intended
to teach trainees cultural and language skills in order to prepare them to take part in the
ceremonies that were held on the marae. Particularly during funeral ceremonies train-
ees were expected to play an essential role in marae proceedings, both to welcome the
guests and to provide the necessary hospitality. Training in Maori ‘culture’ and language
occupied twelve hours a week during the induction phase, but was reduced to four
hours a week for trainees at the advanced level.
The ‘cultural’ component of the training courses tied in with the centre’s educational
philosophy, which also aimed at building a strong Maori identity, with due respect for
Maori values and pride in Maori ‘culture’, to be expressed through ceremonial speeches
(whaikoorero), songs, and dances. This philosophy, in turn, was based on the belief that
a strong cultural identity as Maori would enhance a person’s self-esteem and self-
confidence, and, as a corollary, his or her chances of success in New Zealand society.
This approach to vocational training was developed by the management and staff of
the training centre, which was mainly made up of middle-aged people from the local
Maori community. They considered it a duty ‘to teach the young people who they are’.
For them there was no question about the relevance of teaching Maori ‘culture’ and
language as they saw no other way of being Maori in New Zealand. Someone who was
unable to perform marae ceremonies and who was unable to speak the Maori language
was not considered a genuine Maori.
Interestingly, however, staff members of the training centre, with the exception of
the Maori language teacher, were themselves not fluent in the Maori language either.
Most were of the first generation with limited proficiency in the language, but since
they were born and raised in the marae community they were obviously conversant
with marae protocol and traditional ceremonies. They also had a command of the
Maori language that enabled them to take part in marae ceremonies, albeit not in a
leading position, but they were not fluent enough to use it in everyday interaction.
When they were young they had been punished for speaking Maori at school, and
therefore they had ‘lost’ the language, as they said. For that reason, too, they were
determined to offer the opportunity to learn the language to the younger generations.
Hence, they were among the first to establish a kohanga reo at the marae, a bilingual
childcare centre, and they also managed to transform the primary school into a bilin-
gual school. The training centre was part of this campaign of the community to change
the conditions of being Maori in New Zealand. The enthusiasm of the management
and staff of the training centre for the renaissance of Maori culture and language,
however, made them immune to criticism of their goals. They simply could not envis-
age that there might be a gap between their aspirations and the objectives of young
people to sign up for a training course.
Indeed, the emphasis on traditional culture and identity construction did not cor-
respond to the trainees’ motivation to enrol for a training course. The main motivation
to sign up for special training was usually to become eligible for a bonus of 10 per cent
on top of their unemployment benefit. This is not to say that trainees did not enjoy the
vocational training in computing and constructing that was offered at the centre, but

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922 Toon van Meijl

most trainees did not appear to be interested in building up an identity as Maori by

learning a ‘culture’ and a language which they considered archaic. They were also
reluctant to believe that knowledge of Maori culture and language would enhance their
chances on the labour market.7
Trainees were generally not aware of the emphasis on ‘culture’ at the training centre
before they began their courses. And many of them, just like Theresa, had never
attended marae ceremonies before they enrolled for a training course. None of the
trainees was fluent in the Maori language either. This background caused many also to
feel extremely uncomfortable when they were forced to follow lessons in traditional
culture and in Maori language. Their embarrassment was compounded with resent-
ment when confronted with the political precepts prescribing Maori individuals how to
shape their self as Maori, which were incompatible with their own sense of self as New
Zealand Maori. The resulting clash of identities exemplifies the flipside of the integra-
tion of Maori culture into the curriculum of the training centre.
For most trainees it was extremely embarrassing to participate in the lessons in
‘Maori culture’ since it was widely regarded a failing if Maori people were unable to take
part in marae proceedings. The cultural embarrassment, however, was unquestionably
more difficult to endure for boys than it was for girls (see note 6). While female trainees
often needed a couple of weeks to cross the threshold to participate in the culture class,
boys usually persisted in their refusal. Thus, it was rarely a problem to find a woman to
do the karanga or ‘opening call’, and almost all of the female trainees would join in
when a song was due at the end of a ceremonial speech (whaikoorero). On the other
hand, there was never a boy to be found who wanted to learn a simple Maori greeting,
let alone a more formal speech.
The same difference between male and female interests occurred during the Maori
language lessons. For some trainees it was so embarrassing to be instructed in a language
which was considered ‘their own’ that they refused to turn up for the lessons soon after
they started. The reason they provided why they lost interest was that they thought it was
‘stupid’ to repeat basic sentences in Maori, or simply because they did not see the point
of learning ‘the language of the old people’. Interestingly, virtually all trainees who
persisted throughout the culture and language classes were female,while most boys either
played truant or simply sat at the back talking about topics that interested them more,such
as the pub, smoking marijuana, rugby union, or TV programmes.
The diverging interests between female and male trainees in culture, traditions, and
language generated an interesting debate about the meaning of being Maori in con-
temporary New Zealand. Some boys told me plainly: ‘We don’t know. We are Maori and
that’s it!’, but many women had different feelings about it. When some female trainees
overheard the above statement, for example, they were upset and criticized the boys as
‘cowards’: ‘What they really say is “We are Maori, but we don’t need to know our
culture” ’. Some women also blamed the boys for not accepting their ethnic identity: ‘If
you want to be a “real Maori” you don’t really have to be able to speak Maori or sing a
song or something. It is accepting that you are a Maori what makes you a better Maori’.
The woman who made this statement was herself trying to come to terms with being a
Maori since she had entered the training centre. She attempted to live up to the public
image of Maori people with their own language and culture, but she did not yet
consider herself a ‘real Maori’ since she was far from fluent in the language while her
command of traditional chants was also limited. Some had no problems in admitting
that they did not consider themselves as real Maori, but others found it difficult to

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Toon van Meijl 923

confess their feelings of inauthenticity, such as the woman quoted above, who wished
to be genuinely Maori but none the less felt displaced in a marae situation because she
had only just become involved.
In due course, many women who initially were enthusiastic about Maori culture at
the training centre also came to realize that their new goal was unachievable since
traditional cultural skills had not been an integral part of their upbringing. In fact,
none of the women who enrolled at the training centre were able to develop their
cultural skills to such an extent that they have become accepted as indispensable aids on
the paepae (‘frontbench’) of the marae. This tragic turn in the personal development of
some female trainees caused confusion and made it inevitable to compare and contrast
the marae model for a Maori identity with their own sense of self as Maori. Thus, it
appears that the debate between male and female trainees on the value of classic Maori
culture was not only held within the group of trainees, but also within the self of
individual trainees. Before we may examine the mediation between the two different
models for a Maori identity within individual conceptions of self, however, it is nec-
essary to provide a more detailed account of how the youngsters themselves had
experienced Maori culture in their lives and how they viewed their identity as Maori.

Maori identity in practice

Most trainees had grown up in ordinary Maori families, in some cases with their
grandparents, and as far as their cultural identity was concerned their youth had been
relatively unproblematic. The meaning of a Maori identity in their youth was variable
among individual trainees, but two associations came up in all conversations. Some
trainees confessed that for them being Maori evoked primarily associations with
poverty: living with large families in small houses with barely enough money for food
and proper clothing. Indeed, almost all trainees had grown up in lower-class families
that were characterized by dependency on state benefits. Another association that was
raised concerned the periodical attendance at tangihanga, funeral wakes on marae
lasting several days. In a focused group discussion the organization of tangi, too,
emerged as the most important distinctive feature of Maori identity.
The intensive atmosphere at tangihanga had left a lasting impression on all trainees,
while their cultural importance was obvious (H.M. Mead 1991). Tangihanga, however, are
not daily events and most trainees had only attended a limited number of tangi in their
youth. Therefore, these occasions had not provided the trainees with the necessary
cultural skills, which was also intertwined with their lack of any command of the Maori
language. Their deficiency in Maori language, however, had not complicated their Maori
identity when they were young since their cultural identity had also been expressed in
other ways.One trainee recalled how he had set the hinaki or‘wicker eel-pot’every evening
during the fishing season, which he had assumed was a Maori custom since his father had
told him that‘Pakeha’, or European New Zealanders, were not fond of eels. Other trainees
mentioned the customs regarding the rules of tapu (religious restrictions): for example,
that you would not wash your hands in the kitchen sink, that you would not sit on a pillow
in the meeting-house, that you would not talk at the dinner-table. These customs,
however, were never mentioned until I raised them in the interviews, and most trainees
also admitted that they had hardly been conscious of these specifically Maori practices
until they reached their teenage years (cf. Vaughan 1972).
For most trainees the first significant experience of their identity as Maori had been
the initial week at high school, when they were guided to a special class of ‘slow

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924 Toon van Meijl

learners’. In New Zealand most high schools implement a streaming practice in which
faster and slower students are separated, and many Maori pupils felt stigmatized as
‘slow’, leaving a lasting impression on their identity as Maori. In this context it is also to
be noted that most trainees identified simply as Maori, without reference to their tribal
affiliation. The construction of a pan-tribal identity as Maori usually emerged at high
school. For most Maori adolescents, tribal affiliations were eclipsed by an attachment to
the town or city in which they grew up.
Asking trainees whether they could identify the common denominator of Maori
people from different tribal backgrounds, I did not receive a positive response,
although one of the answers was telling: ‘To me, being Maori is just the colour’.
Enquiries into the meaning of colour for their personal identity revealed that most
trainees evaluated their self as Maori on the basis of criteria derived from the dominant
European domain of New Zealand society. This can best be illustrated with reference to
the meaning of the adjective ‘Maori’ in colloquial speech, in which it is often used as an
equivalent of anything of inferior quality or status. ‘A Maori door’, for example, is a
door that creaks when it is shut; ‘a Maori car’ expels abundant fumes from the exhaust
pipe; ‘a Maori shirt’ has holes in it; while ‘Maori language’ was often used as an
equivalent of ‘foul language’, referring to the racist stereotype of Maori people liberally
using abusive epithets. One day I was flabbergasted to hear my Maori neighbour
referring to ‘the bloody Maoris from down the road’ as the people whom he suspected
were illegally using the communal showers on the marae. Indeed, informally a distinc-
tion is made between ‘good Maori’ and ‘bad Maori’, who relate to each other as
individuals who are successful in European society and those who are not (cf. Archer &
Archer 1970).
The self-evaluation on the basis of non-Maori criteria also explains the inferiority
complex of most trainees. Being Maori implied for them principally the likelihood of
being unemployed, and for boys an enhanced chance of having to spend some time in
jail, and for girls a higher risk of becoming pregnant at an early age. Indeed, for most
trainees being Maori involved first and foremost a position on the fringes of Pakeha
society. The flipside of the self-representation in negative terms of European society
involved the absence of a positive identification with the traditional model of Maori
culture as taught at the training centre. Most trainees simply did not recognize them-
selves in the ‘official’ view of Maori culture that is perpetuated at marae.
The confrontation with the Maori language at the training centre was crucial in this
respect. Trainees were consistently greeted in Maori by the centre’s staff, not because
they normally communicated in Maori, but because they felt that the marae was a place
where everyone should work on building a Maori identity. Beyond the practice of
traditional ceremonies, however, their use of Maori language was limited to the
exchange of greetings and functioned as a mere marker of a Maori identity (Murray
2003). From the moment I arrived on the marae, it also struck me that greeting young
people in Maori caused enormous embarrassment. And during the interviews I held
with trainees the ambivalent feelings about the place of Maori language in relation to
their identity came to the surface. Although most trainees acknowledged that the Maori
language was supposed to be their ‘own’ language, there was no consensus about the
necessity to learn the language for a Maori identity. This issue was, in turn, com-
pounded by the discussion about the need to learn ‘culture’. Opinions on this item were
divided between two categories of people, one believing they had a responsibility to
transmit the Maori cultural heritage to the younger generations, the other admitting

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Toon van Meijl 925

they would never be able to master Maori culture and language and therefore opted to
withdraw.
The central value that was at stake in this debate concerned respect for ‘things Maori’.
Most trainees mentioned respect for traditional Maori culture as the most important
characteristic of their Maori upbringing: ‘it was grumped into us’. At the same time,
however, respect for elderly people, native speakers of the Maori language, and the
masters of cultural ceremonies was the subject of a permanent debate at the training
centre. Those who felt responsible for the transmission of Maori traditions openly
criticized the indifference of other trainees. In their view, they simply showed insuffi-
cient respect for Maori culture and therefore they were held in contempt for avoiding
their personal responsibility as Maori. Some critics were more empathetic and therefore
also milder in their judgement. One informant quoted the saying ‘you can lead a horse
to water, but you cannot make it drink’. He even argued that the dogmatic attitude of
cultural brokers ‘to pushing youngsters into “culture” ’ was counterproductive.
But how did those trainees respond who withdrew from language and culture classes
at the training centre, and who opted out of all marae practices? Not surprisingly, they
were not the most talkative during the interviews. Yet the unspoken passages of the
interviews were paradoxically the most revealing. Initially trainees who had no affinity
to ‘culture’ provided the standard answers: for example, by endorsing the statement that
it is essential to speak the Maori language for any Maori person. Thus, they displayed
their familiarity with the politicized discourse about Maori language, culture, and
traditions. Some trainees also thought I desired standard answers for my research, thus
evading the crux of the interviews. When I continued to refine my questions, however,
other meanings came to the surface.
My questions focused on the meaning of traditional Maori culture and language for
their personal sense of self, although many were unable to grasp my interest in their
personal feelings about what is called Maoritanga. One trainee mentioned after a long
pause, for example, that he was ‘stumped’ by my questions. Several others who usually
had a ready tongue were also far from talkative about their personal future on the
paepae. Not all trainees, however, were shy to show that my enquiries into their private
feelings about public visions made them feel rather uncomfortable. Their response may
best be described as an attitude of resistance. This was poignantly formulated by
Theresa, who initially argued that she was incompetent to speak about Maori culture as
it did not evoke any positive feelings with her. When I explained that I was interested in
her own personal feelings about it, either positive or negative, she answered that
Maoritanga for her personally had nothing to do with feelings, only with colour: ‘I am
only Maori because I have got a dark skin’.
Theresa’s reference to skin colour was not simply an index of an ethnic identity caused
by racial stereotyping in New Zealand, but rather expressed her defiance of the pressure
to transform her ethnic identity into a cultural identity in terms of the marae model of
Maoritanga. This interpretation was confirmed when I asked Theresa how she related her
ethnic identity to the marae model for a cultural identity as Maori.She provided the telling
answer: ‘I think I am more a Pakeha anyway ...’. The identification as Pakeha by Maori
youngsters who did not qualify as‘authentic’Maori was not unique.Several other trainees
responded similarly, but when I confronted them with the contradictory import of their
answer, implying they were not Maori, they agreed that their answer was inappropriate.
Naturally,theywereMaori,althoughtheywereMaoriwithoutacommandof thelanguage
and without specific knowledge of ceremonial practices.

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926 Toon van Meijl

The revelation that in terms of political ideology some trainees felt more Pakeha
than Maori contains an unambivalent critique of the focus on language and expressive
culture. This form of criticism came up even more sharply in replies that focused on the
notion of human being: ‘I always say that first and foremost I am a human being, not
a Maori’, and ‘in the long run we’re all only humans’. These answers directly suggested
that some trainees felt denigrated by cultural brokers. Since they were not able to live
up to the public ideal of genuine Maori, they felt that some people did not even regard
them as human beings. In the final instance, these moving contentions also implied a
dispute on the notion of respect in Maori society: ‘Young people don’t feel respected by
the old people. Respect really means that they don’t judge you for what you are not, but
that they respect you for what you are’.
This answer, too, came up only towards the end of a long interview as many trainees
felt uncomfortable discussing the issues that I raised. They were reluctant to criticize
anyone belonging to the vanguard of Maori culture since ‘it had been grumped into
them’ that they were supposed to respect ‘things Maori’. Indirectly, however, they
conveyed unambiguously that within Maori society there is a great barrier between old
and young, between those who speak Maori and those who do not and probably never
will, between those who are skilled in Maori culture and those who feel embarrassed to
perform culture. This barrier might not be understood by the old people and it was also
disregarded by the staff of the training centre, who could not imagine a Maori person
who was unmotivated to learn the language and culture. From the viewpoint of dis-
advantaged youngsters, however, there is an undeniable gap. They are told they should
construct their cultural identity as Maori in terms of cultural ideology, but they cannot,
and they realize they never will, and therefore an increasing number of young people no
longer want to make an attempt to subscribe to the public discourse prescribing Maori
people how to be Maori. This relatively radical change in valuation of classic Maori
identity among a significant group of youngsters in contemporary Maori society
implies that multiple modes of cultural identification are emerging in Maori practices.
This, in turn, raises the question about the relationships between multiple identifica-
tions as Maori, not only in the public arena of the marae, but also within the self of
individual Maori youngsters in urban environments.

Multiple identifications and the fragmentation of self

The question of how multiple identifications are related within the self is particularly
topical in multicultural societies and other postmodern conditions, in which the
number of cultural options and opportunities has expanded and many also interact
with a range of different views about culture and identity (Lyon 1994). The cognitive
anthropologist Claudia Strauss (1997) has published one of the few methodologically
sound attempts to examine and conceptualize differences within, rather than between,
individual selves in postmodern circumstances. Following the American theorist
Fredric Jameson, she mentions three characteristics of postmodern culture, namely
depthlessness, pastiche, and schizophrenic processes of signification. As it may be
argued that Maori culture has also been postmodernized (Webster 1998: 225-52), these
cultural aspects apply to the identity of disadvantaged youngsters in contemporary
Maori society, too.
Depthlessness refers to the importance of images or simulacra in postmodern
culture, and to the fact that in many cases there is no signified behind signifiers

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Toon van Meijl 927

dominating the representation of culture (Jameson 1984: 58 ff.). In Maori society, too,
culture in the classic sense of the term is no longer self-evident, and therefore it is not
transmitted automatically anymore. Instead it is to be taught at schools and at training
centres, but it is taught in a rote manner and the reception of it by young people does
not necessarily entail that the traditional signifiers are connected with the traditional
signifieds, particularly since they are unable to understand the Maori language.
Related to the flatness or superficiality of culture is, according to Jameson (1984), a
weakening of historicity, resulting in a pastiche of historical styles in which a represen-
tation of the past has given way to a stereotypical representation of contemporary ideas
about the past. This contention also applies to the experience of young Maori school
dropouts at the training centre, at which they are no longer presented with survivals of
the past, but with reconstructed simulations of an imagined past, for example with
regard to the tribal organization of Maori society (Barcham 2000: 147). After all,
trainees were told that all Maori people belong to tribes, but none of them had any
knowledge of their tribal genealogies.
The transformation of the Maori past at the training centre results, in turn, in what
Jameson (1984), following Lacan, labels a schizophrenic structure of relationships,
referring to the increasing differentiation of society and the related incoherence
dominating postmodern consciousness. In postcolonial Maori society, too, the
neo-traditional form of culture, which in terms of Jameson’s perspective on postmod-
ernism may be defined as the new culture of the image or the simulacrum of tradition,
brings about an unprecedented differentiation of society, a related multiplication of
identities, and a consequent fragmentation of self (see also Van Meijl 1999).
The flattening of culture and the fragmentation of self are not general effects, but
they are concentrated among those who are disadvantaged in society, in this case
young, unemployed Maori people in urban situations. Jameson (1984: 63) writes that
the alienation of the marginalized in modern society has been displaced by the frag-
mentation of their self in postmodern society. In this article the disintegration of the
consciousness as individual self is being explored, which to a large extent may be caused
by the loss of a genuine experience of historicity or traditional culture (Strauss 1997:
365). Maori trainees have not experienced the culture which they are taught, or only
indirectly, and the absence of an emotionally salient experience of traditional culture
brings about the disintegration of their self. Evidence for the fragmentation of indi-
vidual selves was submitted during the interviews that I conducted with trainees.
Following Strauss (1997: 371), a single voice may be taken as evidence of an integrated
self dominating an interviewee’s discourse about a wide range of different subjects.
Multiple voices in a single person’s talk, on the other hand, may be taken as evidence of
a fragmentary self. The divergent and contradictory responses I received during inter-
views with individual Maori trainees on the marae may be considered as expressions of
multiple voices in a disintegrated discourse of a single person’s narrative, which in this
case illustrates the psychological dialogue between the different views of their cultural
identity conveyed by different voices speaking within their self.
As mentioned above, many trainees initially aimed at providing standard answers
derived from political discourses of culture and tradition. Thus, they also tried to speak
with a single voice, but soon it appeared that it was not their own voice as it submerged
their personal and pragmatic, non-ideological views of their identity, which they found
difficult to articulate anyhow. When I continued to ask questions for clarification of
their first answers it soon appeared that the voices through which they tried to speak did

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928 Toon van Meijl

not belong to their self. In the second instance, most admitted that they could not speak
adequately with the dominating voice of others, the voice of the elderly or the voice of
cultural brokers. A significant number of trainees initially felt that they ought to
appropriate the voice of others, but they apologized for not – yet – having succeeded in
that ambition. These trainees were struggling to integrate another perspective on
culture and identity within their self, so to speak, while others simply did not aim at an
integration of different discourses of culture within their self. The latter appeared
among the least talkative trainees during the interviews, but the long moments of silence
in between their answers also indicated an intense struggle between various voices
speaking about Maori identity, with which they were trying to come to terms. In sum,
then, all trainees were engaged in a dialogue between different views of their identity
that was expressed through different voices in their responses during the interviews.
The volume of the ideological voice expressing the traditional perspective on Maori
culture in the discourse of individual trainees reflected the degree of integration or
disintegration of a classic Maori identity within their self, which, in turn, represented
different categories of trainees. All trainees, however, shared the experience of having to
internalize a public discourse of culture that was not considered part of their self. In
fact, most considered it as the culture of the other, as a result of which their self became,
at least partially, disintegrated during their attempts at appropriation and internaliza-
tion. When an attempt was made to integrate the other’s culture within the self,
different discourses of culture were compartmentalized within their self, each also
represented by a different voice, which raises the question of to what extent they coped
with this fragmentation of their identity as Maori.

The dialogical self

The question of how the confrontation with a different view of Maori culture and
identity is mediated in the consciousness of the youngsters and in their construction of
self has been the subject of a long-standing debate in personality psychology. This
debate is dominated by two contrasting viewpoints: cognitive dissonance theory and
shifting self theory (Robben 2003: 78). The central hypothesis of cognitive dissonance
theory is that any person experiences the existence of dissonance between cognitive
elements as uncomfortable and therefore everyone will always try to reduce a discrep-
ancy between conflicting cognitions (Festinger 1957). The underlying concept of self in
this theory is that people attempt to preserve a consistent and stable sense of self.
This theoretical approach is inadequate to explain the fragmented self of postmod-
ern subjects and the cultural conflicts within the self of urban Maori youngsters. The
assumption that a sense of consistency is crucial for an individual self, however,
remains deeply embedded even in attempts to discard the notion of a coherent self.
Katherine Ewing (1990), for example, aimed at showing how individual selves continu-
ously construct new selves from a set of self-representations that are mutually incon-
sistent, but in her view these shifts do not normally thwart individual experiences of
wholeness. This argument, however, may be refuted with reference to the Maori train-
ees, whose experiences on the marae were not characterized by personal continuity or
wholeness. In fact, they were disunited between their sense of self in practice, their own
sense of who they ought to be, and the image of who they ought to be according to
others on the marae.
The experience of a fragmented self is not unique to Maori trainees. The increasing
multiplicity and discontinuity of self is reflected in the emergence of the concept of the

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Toon van Meijl 929

shifting self (e.g. Battaglia 1995). The idea of changing, even competing, conceptions of
self has become rather common in personality psychology and cognitive anthropology,
in which it is linked with the notion of a person as a composite of multiple, often
contradictory, self-understandings and identities (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner &
Caine 1998: 8). This conception of the shifting self, however, raises the inevitable
question of how to conceive of individual selves who are not unified but torn between
a number of different, possibly conflicting, identifications.
Interestingly, the answer to this question was in some way foreshadowed by the
Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin:

[T]he self ... is not a presence wherein is lodged the ultimate guarantor of unified meaning. The
Bakhtinian self is never whole, since it can only exist dialogically. It is not a substance or essence in its
own right but exists in a tensile relationship with all that is other and, most importantly, with other
selves (Clark & Holquist 1984: 65).

Holland and her colleagues (1998: 171 ff.) have drawn attention to the importance of
Bakhtin for contemporary psychology, but his notion of a dialogue has been integrated
more comprehensively in personality psychology, notably in the concept of the dia-
logical self (Hermans & Kempen 1993). In short, the dialogical self may be described as
a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions in the landscape of the mind, intertwined as the
mind is with the minds of other people (Hermans, Kempen & Van Loon 1992). The
concept of the dialogical self is inspired not only by Bakhtin’s (1984 [1929]) conception
of dialogical relationships among a multiplicity of individual positions, but also by
William James’s (1890) classic distinction between I and me. The I he described as ‘the
self as knower’, as the observing agent. The me, on the other hand, was portrayed as ‘the
self as known’, as the object of self-observation. Combining these traditions, Hermans
and Kempen (1993) have argued that the I has the possibility to move from one spatial
position to another in accordance with changes in situation and time. The I fluctuates
among different and even opposed positions, and has the capacity to endow each
position with a voice so that dialogical relations between positions can be established.
Thus, it may be argued that on the marae Maori trainees were involved in a dialogue
between different conceptions of their cultural identity. The voices speaking in the self
of Maori trainees during the interviews functioned like interacting characters in a story,
involved in a process of agreement and disagreement. Each of them had a story to tell
about his or her own experiences, both from the viewpoint of traditional Maori culture
and from the viewpoint of younger Maori not living a traditional life. As different
voices, these characters exchanged information about their respective me’s, resulting in
a complex, narratively structured self.
In a sense the dialogical self is a ‘society of the mind’ (Hermans 2002), because there
is no essential difference between the positions a person takes as part of the self and the
positions people take as members of a heterogeneous society. Both self and society
function as a polyphony of consonant and dissonant voices. As such, the dialogical self
is characterized by two main features that are necessary for understanding its dynamics.
First, in a multi-voiced self, there is constant dialogical interchange, while, second, the
relationships between the several positions are characterized by relative dominance.
The most important characteristic of the dialogical perspective is that the self is con-
sidered no longer as an intra-psychic phenomenon in the Cartesian sense, but instead
as a relational phenomenon that transcends the boundaries between the inside and the

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930 Toon van Meijl

outside, between self and other. Methodologically, the dialogical self has been elabo-
rated by relating the spatialization of dialogical relations to the simultaneity of voices
within a self’s discourse. In Bakhtin’s view, what we hear in the utterances of individual
speakers is not simply the talk of individuals, but also the voices of their surrounding
groups and institutions. This was obvious when the Maori trainees simply reproduced
the voice of the marae community at the beginning of the interviews. According to
Bakhtin, some persons might also speak with a double voice or some formulations may
be characterized by what he labelled ‘hidden dialogicality’. Indeed, some trainees
attempted to internalize the other’s discourse of culture, while others provided answers
which they thought were correct, but which they themselves had not – yet – integrated
within their self. Bakhtin expressed this situation as follows:

The second interlocutor is invisibly present, his words are absent, but the profound traces of those
words determine all of the first interlocutor’s words. Although only one person is speaking, we feel
that this is a conversation, and a most intense one, since every word that is present answers and reacts
with its every fiber to the invisible interlocutor (Cited in Hermans & Kempen 1993: 43).

These words illustrate also that the notion of dialogue is not equivalent with explicit
conversation, but that it is at the core of all thoughts. The other may be physically
absent yet spiritually pervasive even when the self is alone. Thus, the – ‘other’ –
representatives of classic Maori culture were absent during the interviews I conducted
with the Maori trainees, but still they influenced all answers that trainees thought were
correct from an ideological point of view.
The absence of the other in dialogue is closely connected with the second distinctive
feature of dialogical relationships, namely relative dominance, which Hermans and
Kempen exemplify with reference to the relationship between self and community (1993:
73). If the self is defined as a multiplicity of different identities, it may be argued that the
community is able not only to address the self in a variety of identities, but also to let the
self know how these identities, and the way the self functions in them, are approved. This
occurs also on Maori marae, where young people who do not live up to the ideological
notion of a Maori self are monitored by the dominant community approving or
disapproving their construction of a Maori identity. Thus, marae communities also have
the capacity to make some constructions of identity more dominant than others.And the
dominance of marae communities in the constructions of identity not only organizes but
also restricts the multiplicity of possible identities in the public arena of Maori society.
An important implication of this form of cultural dominance is that some identities
are strongly developed, whereas others are suppressed or even disunited from the self.
Indeed, the prevalence of one identity implies the necessary neglect of another identity.
The dominance of the marae model for a cultural identity as Maori is in other words at
the root of the dialogue between different conceptions of Maori identity within the self
of individual Maori youngsters. Specific experiences, particularly negative experiences,
may lead to the active suppression or even splitting of unwanted identities, which slow
down the dialogical movements between different identities. But dominance of one
identity over another rarely excludes dialogical exchange.

Conclusion
In conclusion, then, it may be argued that the cultural and traditional orientation of
contemporary Maori political discourses does not support all categories of Maori

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Toon van Meijl 931

people who are struggling with their ethnic identity. Rather it creates an unexpected
crisis of identity for those Maori who are unable to identify in terms of cultural
ideology as they believe they can never meet the orthodox criteria for recognition as
genuine Maori, colloquially also known as ‘good Maori’. In addition, it may be con-
cluded that the confrontation with traditional culture for young Maori people who
have been alienated from the cultural principles that dominate counter-hegemonic
discourses does not create an illusory sense of wholeness in their consciousness, sup-
posedly constructed out of contradictory parts that play a role in different contexts.
Instead, as I have demonstrated, their consciousness is characterized by an intense
dialogue between different models of identity as defined by other and self. In political
discourse the other’s model is prescribed as the only model for a Maori identity, leaving
the self of some Maori bewildered with their personal yet deviating notions of Mao-
riness. The presentation of Maori cultural identity in the other’s model of self is
fundamentally different from the self-representation of alienated young urban Maori
people. The dominant presence of the prototypical model for a Maori cultural identity
in New Zealand, however, forces all Maori individuals to engage into a dialogue
between political and personal conceptions of cultural identity within their self.

NOTES
This article is based on two-and-a-half years of fieldwork in a Maori community on the North Island of
New Zealand that first began in 1982. Most data discussed in this paper were collected in 1987 and 1988, when
I conducted ethnographic field research for a Ph.D. in social anthropology. Contact with some of the trainees
was strengthened during short-term visits to the marae and the training centre in 1991, 1994, 2000, and 2002.
I thank the host community cordially for the permission they have given me to pursue my anthropological
studies and for their warm hospitality. I would like to express special gratitude to the trainees for bearing with
me and for their friendship.
Earlier versions of this article were presented in Auckland (2000), Canberra (2000), Nijmegen (2001),
Heidelberg (2002), Marseilles (2003), Paris (2003), and Warsaw (2004). I thank the following persons for their
comments and critique: Manuhuia Barcham, Jonathan Friedman, Don Gardner, Michael Goldsmith, Mari-
anne Gullestad, Elfriede Hermann, Hubert Hermans, Dorothy Holland, Judith Huntsman, Erich Kolig,
Françoise Marsaudon, Francesca Merlan, Mark Mosko, Nicolas Peterson, Jan Pouwer, Elisabeth Rata, Alan
Rumsey, Serge Tcherkézoff, James Weiner, and Jürg Wassmann. I also thank two anonymous referees for
encouraging me to make my ethnographic data more explicit. Needless to say, I alone accept full responsi-
bility for the contents of this article.
1
Elsewhere I have documented that the restricted and conservative concept of culture on which this model
for a Maori identity is based emerged relatively recently in the colonial history of New Zealand (Van Meijl
1996). See also Hanson (1989).
2
Following the analysis of this survey, Durie (1998: 58) constructed four Maori cultural identity profiles:
a secure identity was held by approximately 35 per cent of the Maori population, a positive identity by 53 per
cent, a notional identity by 6 per cent, and a compromised identity also by 6 per cent. The group of Maori
youngsters that is at the focus of attention in this article would have to be classified in the final two categories.
3
The concept of ‘marae model’ is here used as a theoretical construct which does not foreclose the
possibility that some marae may prefer a more liberal attitude towards defining cultural identities.
4
In 1987-8 I conducted ethnographic fieldwork over a period of fifteen months on the same marae as the
training centre was located. In the course of my research I was able to develop confidential relationships with
many trainees, some of whom consented to a lengthy in-depth interview about Maori cultures and identities.
Altogether I spoke to twenty individuals for approximately two and a half hours each. I selected the trainees
on the basis of three criteria: gender, age, and background in Maori community life. During short-term visits
to the marae and the training centre in 1991, 1994, 2000, and 2002 I was able to verify my interpretations of
the interviews.
5
In New Zealand 39 per cent of Maori pupils leave school with no qualifications, compared with a national
average of 19 per cent (Statistics New Zealand 2001: 1).

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932 Toon van Meijl

6
On average, female trainees were approximately five years older than male trainees, mainly because many
girls had had children in their teenage years. For that reason, too, female trainees were generally more
motivated than male trainees.
7
This assumption is also disputed by the research of Simon Chapple, who has drawn attention to the
disproportionate disadvantage experienced by those who identify only as Maori. He even argues that ‘[s]ocio-
economic outcomes could be a cause of “Maoriness”, rather than “Maoriness” being a cause of socio-
economic outcomes for some people’ (2000: 115).

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Identifications multiples et soi dialogique : les jeunes Maoris urbains et la

renaissance culturelle

Résumé

La renaissance de la culture et des traditions maories occupe depuis quelques décennies une place
importante dans les campagnes politiques de la population indigène néo-zélandaise. Dans le même temps,
elle a révélé que de nombreux jeunes Maoris sont incapables de construire leur identité culturelle au
moyen des discours sur la culture et les traditions qui prévalent sur la scène politique. L’auteur analyse
l’expérience de jeune Maoris citadins dans les sites cérémoniels (marae), en cherchant à savoir comment
ils assurent l’intermédiation dans le « soi » de différentes représentations de leur identité culturelle.
L’article montre que les jeunes Maoris sont nombreux à s’engager dans un dialogue psychologique entre
le modèle classique d’identité maorie, d’une part, qui leur enjoint d’adopter la culture traditionnelle, et
d’autre part leur identification personnelle d’exclus, laissés à l’écart des pratiques quotidiennes dans la
société néo-zélandaise.

Toon van Meijl studied social anthropology and philosophy at the University of Nijmegen and the Australian
National University in Canberra, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1991. Currently he is Associate Professor in
the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies and secretary of the Centre for Pacific and Asian
Studies at the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He has written extensively on issues of cultural
identity and the self, and on socio-political questions emerging from the debate about property rights of
indigenous peoples.

Centre for Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Nijmegen, PO Box 9104, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
[email protected]

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 12, 917-933

© Royal Anthropological Institute 2006