Political paradoxes and timeless traditions : ideology and development among the Tainui Maori, New Zealand

Abstract

This study examines the implications of the paradoxes evoked by the coexistence of a discourse of development and a discourse of tradition among the Tainui Maori on the North Island of New Zealand. In the early 1980s the Tainui people launched a comprehensive development programme aiming chiefly at regaining the political, economic and cultural autonomy which they lost in the course of colonial history. As a result of Maori encapsulation within the New Zealand liberal-democratic welfare state the Tainui people are compelled to justify their aspiration to selfdetermination in a culturally specific manner. Since the sharing of a common colonial past plays an important role in uniting Tainui and other Maori people vis-avis their European counterparts, the desire to manage and control tribal development autonomously is validated by means of a discourse of tradition. Thus tradition is not only reified, but, paradoxically, its objectification and reinterpretation takes place principally in opposition to a stereotypical representation of European values, largely because a major goal of the discourse of tradition is to counter European domination. A second paradox of the counterhegemonic reification of tradition is that it serves as a symbol of Maori survival and continuity in order to discontinue and transform their contemporary predicament. The representation of Maori traditions as timeless treasures thus defies change in order to bring about change. I focus the analysis of the mediation between the discourse of development and the discourse of tradition on the discrepancy between positive affirmations of tradition in inter-ethnic discourse and the internal contestation and negation of Maori tradition by factions who can no longer identify in terms of the tradition oriented model for a Maori identity. I examine the ideological motivation of the discourse of tradition by situating the aims and objectives of the discourse of development in a historical perspective. The history of Maori dispossession and confiscations of vast areas of land from the Tainui people in particular, explains the present political aim of recovery of the lost ground, literally and metaphorically. On the basis of the analysis of the political paradoxes of timeless traditions I argue that the notion of tradition must no longer be viewed in a dichotomy with modernity, as something which can only be lost and not retained in a modified form. The understanding that traditions can be highly dynamic leads me to advocate a dialectical perspective on social change in colonial histories, as not simply the result of the imposition of external forces, but also consequent upon indigenous interaction, initiatives and interpretations, even though ultimately constrained by colonial predominance. This, in turn, causes me to review the concept of ideology and redefine it in a broad manner, both to reject functionalist notions of ideology and to enhance its analytical value, as well as to deepen the understanding of the role of ideology in emic and etic accounts of social change. Show more