Abstract
Interrogating why class has been demoted as a useful concept within anthropology, the author examines the ways in which issues of inequality and ethnicity have been used to explain both the enduring impact of settler colonialism on, and contemporary forms of discrimination against, New Zealand Māori. He weighs up the impact of the cultural turn in academia, the Māori Renaissance, the impact of neoliberalism, and the assumption that class coincides with ethnicity and hence the emphasis on affirmative action in education. The assumption that poverty is either class- or ethnicity-based is false. Māori themselves have been affected by social change: a few making it into a middle class, while, despite growing intermarriage, identification as Māori, appears enhanced by both enduring poverty and racism.
Highlights
It is somewhat peculiar that in the social sciences references to class distinctions abound yet the term has never acquired the status of a key analytical concept
Socioeconomic disadvantage associated with class frequently intersects with different dimensions of diversity, including ethnicity and gender
Conceptual if not political preferences determine whether scholars elect to prioritise class or ethnicity
Summary
It is somewhat peculiar that in the social sciences references to class distinctions abound yet the term has never acquired the status of a key analytical concept. A related question concerns the reasons why race and ethnicity are more dominant in discourses of difference and inequality. These questions will be addressed in a New Zealand setting. In recent decades significant progress has been made to ‘close the gaps’ between Māori and non-Māori, differences within Māori society have increased considerably. Should these differences be understood better through a class concept? Should these differences be understood better through a class concept? And how does the debate about different achievements in education fit in?
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