Pākehā- Māori: European-Native. Ethnic Labeling in the Dorothy Neal White Collection

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe use of labels for the Indigenous and non-Indigenous, the colonized and the colonizer, who in contemporary New Zealand society are known as Māori and Pākehā, is examined through the lens of postcolonial theory (Bradford 2007) in a set of 54 books. These books were selected from the Dorothy Neal White Collection, a collection of over 7000 English language children’s books published before 1940 and housed in the National Library of New Zealand. Findings show that the labels Māori and Pākehā (albeit with inconsistent capitalization and italicization) are used in the majority of the books. The use of Māori, Pākehā, New Zealander, white, and native are discussed.