Celebrating forgetting: the formation of identities and memories by Tarara in New Zealand

Abstract

In recent years there has been a discursive explosion around the concepts of identity, memory and the politics of belonging. Inspired by discourse theory, especially the work of Ernesto Laclau, which emphasises different identifications rather than a stable identity, this thesis explores the formation of Maori and Croatian identities in New Zealand and the relationships between these two groups. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, due to the dynamics of global positioning and colonisation, Maori and Croats were both dislocated, each in their own way – Croats emigrated from Dalmatia, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Maori, becoming a part of the British Empire, lost their land which resulted in local migration. The place of their encounter was the gumfields in the Far North of New Zealand. Memories about Maori-Croatian relationships revolve around the gumfields and the Kauri gum industry, unique to New Zealand. "celebrating Forgetting" examines the impact of different New Zealand social models – colonialism, assimilation, biculturalism or multiculturalism - on the embodiment of these memories; it is concerned to identify how and in what ways different discourses (race, ethnicity. class, gender, sexuality) intersected in the processes of creating these memories and consequently identities. Drawing on a wide range of material, from official historical narratives on the Kauri gum industry, to Maori and Croatian oral histories, mythology, novels, poems, letters written by gumdiggers, newspaper articles, marriage certificates, church records, photos, paintings, postcards, interviews with Maori-Croatian descendants, representations of the past in local museums, private museums, as well as the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and similar material, it explores shifts over time in the politics of remembering and their impact on the formation of Maori and Croatian identities in their individual and collective dimensions. Key words: politics of identity, collective memory, individual memory, representations.