The ‘real’ New Zealand: Rural mythologies perpetuated and commodified

Abstract

Rural mythologies have long been an important component in expressions of national identity in New Zealand. As a pastoral nation carved from the bush in the nineteenth century, rural dwellers have long claimed their place as ‘backbone of the country’. Rural mythology transmission in New Zealand has taken place historically, through many processes. Fictions about the ‘great way of life’ in the country, involving particular rural values, activities and artifacts, have become dominant imagery in visual culture about national and local identity. Images that sentimentalize country life abound in media advertising, on postage stamps, in small-town promotion projects (eg town murals, roadside objects, festivals), and in contemporary popular and vernacular culture. This article addresses the ways in which versions of the real New Zealand' draw from romantic, nostalgic and invented versions of the past, and of rural way of life.