Marae artworks and the reproduction of Maori ethnicity

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis essay approaches ethnic process through a description and analysis of the struggle to build a Maori marae at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. One goal is simply to document certain events 1976–1988. This specific history is then examined in terms of the artworks of the marae, and the particular ways in which stuggles to control these works became focused on the issue of authentic Maori culture. Resistance and opportunism among university authorities, uses of the relationship between Maori culture and academic culture, and the ambiguous relationship between tribal affiliations and more mundane political economic interests are briefly examined. A closer look is then taken at struggles to control the bearing of tapu, or taboo restrictions, on the artworks. A central theoretical consideration is the relationship of these struggles over meaning to political economic interests, especially efforts to control the production and work processes of the artworks and thus the meanings, values and opportunities arising from them.