Anthropological Horizons. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. xvi, 345 pp. (Maps.) C$32.95, paper. ISBN 978-1-4426-1413-0.
As Gagné points out, until relatively recently, there has been a paucity of anthropological work on indigenous ways of life in the city. This lack is perhaps a result of two factors: a disciplinary tendency to prioritize small-scale societies which engage in “authentic traditional” practices and where relationships with land and resources are perceived to be primordial; a lasting conceptualization of such communities as relatively bounded and the methodological challenges associated with undertaking participant observation in a multi-complex site. This book is timely given that an incredible 84.4 percent of Māori now live in urban centres compared to 50 percent of the world’s population. Auckland, the main site of Gagné’s research, is the largest multicultural city in New Zealand; Greater Auckland has a population of 1.3 million, and is home to just under one quarter of all Māori. Auckland also has the highest population of Polynesians of any city in the world.
Gagné’s research, described as one of the few ethnographic studies on Māori urbanization since the 1970s (i), employs classical anthropological methods of long-term participant observation and interviews to capture “the everyday combat … regular experiences and strategies of urban-based Māori” (4). In the introduction and first chapter she contextualizes this struggle within the history of Māori urbanization from World War II, the Māori renaissance of the 1980s and more recent battles for land and resources in light of neoliberal policies of privatization and devolution. Crucial to this background is the colonization of New Zealand and the evolving significance of the Treaty of Waitangi and Waitangi Tribunal as a means through which Māori articulate indigenous losses and seek compensation. The Office of the Treaty Settlements, an alternative and more direct method of negotiating with the Crown, is not explored. Gagné does, however, provide a comprehensive overview of the main issues and a multitude of references for readers interested in further exploration.
In the second chapter Gagné emphasizes the diversity of experiences of Māori in the city. This diversity includes: different tribal identities and homelands and the absence of this type of identification; length of time in the city; occupational and educational heterogeneity; whether residence is in a predominantly brown/working class or Pākehā (New Zealand European)/middle-upper-class neighbourhood (this dichotomy is not nearly so clear-cut!) and strength of attachment to kin and tribal territory. Gagné sympathetically highlights the contradictions that inhere in the discourse surrounding “authentic” and “urban” Māori and the politics of differentiation used to demarcate Māori and non- Māori ways of being and doing. Key to the discussion is the concept of “comfortable,” which Gagné’s participants use to highlight their oft-conflicting feelings of being at home/not at home in the city. Closely connected with this are the bonds of Māori kinship as expressed through whānau (extended family), hapū (sub-tribe) and iwi (tribe) and the organizing principles of whanaungatanga (a kinship ethic that communally and horizontally unites) (55) and whakapapa (a vertical descent ethic which enables boundaries to be created) (55). Gagné shows how these concepts have become lived in the city, how whānau includes non-kin members and how, despite this elasticity, the underlying ethical values, principles and structuring elements remain intact. The ability of whānau to expand in the city is again emphasized in chapter 5.
The third and fourth chapters underscore the importance of place, here grounded in marae, the traditional Māori meeting place, ceremonial centre and a principal site in which to reaffirm tribal culture and belonging. In the third chapter Gagné traverses the literature on marae highlighting traditional functions, associated protocols and symbolic representations. Threaded throughout this discussion is the hint that she is inclined to concur with Sissons’s (Building a house society: the reorganization of Maori communities around meeting houses,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 16, no. 2, 2010: 372-386) recent assessment of Māori society as being structured by a relationship between houses, rather than, or at least as well as, descent. This argument comes out more clearly in chapter 4, where Gagné uses her own ethnographic material to describe an urban Māori suburban house which, she argues, is a marae. Two main points are used to validate this analysis: “these houses, like ‘real’ marae are all about sharing and the community … [and] these types of houses and their principles are not necessarily part of everyone’s daily experience. A house is not necessarily in a permanent state of being … it could be so only on special occasions” (120).
Gagné’s analysis of the continuation yet also mutability of marae is an important contribution to the study of modern Māori society. Perhaps missing from this discussion are the more contentious and conflictual aspects of contemporary marae. For instance, various government departments consult with Māori on marae, introducing new types of power dynamics and technologies; a notable tension exists over whose protocol is prioritized. Waitangi Tribunal hearings, long held on marae, involve Māori presenting their history of loss and alienation in the midst of Tribunal judges, well-heeled lawyers and other hapū groupings which often have alternative renderings of history and they may individually be subjected to intense questioning from Crown lawyers. Such hearings are deeply emotional and politicized occasions and the Tribunal often leaves a heightened conflict in its wake. In the event of a successful claim, marae may become further entangled with bureaucratic procedures; marae, rather than hapū, are the channel through which compensation, held by the central iwi, is distributed on an annual basis. As these examples suggest, the modern marae is not purely a Maori space but has, in some instances at least, been infiltrated, maybe even co-opted, by bureaucratic and state forces.
In the final three chapters Gagné weaves together her themes by employing the concept of “universes of meaning,” which is as an “orientational device through life, experiences, and practices” (12). She shows how a politics of differentiation can serve to create a distinctive universe of meaning for Māori, but that this universe is paradoxical, has internal inconsistencies and continually intersects with alternative universes: “in practice … Māori and Pākehā people alike internalize multiple universes of meanings and develop multiple identities and ways of engaging within these worlds” (229). In her conclusion, Gagné makes a compelling argument regarding the importance of an anthropology concerned with ordinary, superficially apoliticized, indigenous city people: “What is really significant is the continued general attachment of Māori people to the idea of being Māori and to Māori identities” (253).
Fiona McCormack
The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
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