Documentary incursions into New Zealand’s multiculturalism: The case of Here to Stay

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the New Zealand television documentary series Here to Stay (2007–2008) and its construction of Pacific, Chinese and Indian identities in the context of New Zealand’s multiculturalism. It argues that the series introduces new ways of looking at the country’s multicultural make-up, which appear to suggest a shift from previous documentary productions, but eventually makes a number of slippages in its presentation of such communities that continue to reinforce similar notions of national identity. I consider three aspects in particular: the contradictions between the celebratory and the critical contents of the narrative; the simultaneous construction of Chinese, Pacific or Indian identities as both diverse and homogeneous; and the tensions between the series’ superficial construction of multiculturalism and the narrative’s explicit or implicit critique of such constructions. Whereas these ambivalences seem to reflect official approaches to the management of multiculturalism, revealing the unresolved tensions between the requirements of commercial television and the role of documentary in the formation of national identity, I argue that they can nevertheless serve to engage viewers in a critical revision of superficial constructions of the multicultural.