Postcolonial ideology and contact: The role of ingroup and outgroup friendships in perpetuating social inequality in New Zealand

Abstract

New Zealand's colonial heritage has precipitated stark inequality between the indigenous Māori and later European arrivals (Pākehā). Attempts to address this inequality have usually involved policies aimed at either redistributing material resources in favour of Māori, or at raising the profile of Māori culture within N ew Zealand. Recent evidence suggests that a large proportion of the variance in public support for such policies is explained by two ideologies that operate at the societal level: symbolic exclusion (SPE) and historical negation (HRN). SPE reflects a prescriptive belief that indigenous culture is irrelevant to representations of modern national identity; while HRN reflects a prescriptive belief that historical injustices are irrelevant to contemporary issues of resource distribution. Together, these ideologies serve to legitimise existing social inequality. In the present study, I investigated the effect of one long-heralded means of improving intergroup relations – intergroup contact – on levels of SPE and HRN, in a large nationally representative sample (Pākehā N = 3774; Māori N = 944). I found that contact with outgroup friends was associated with a decrease in SPE for Pākehā and an increase in SPE for Māori. These opposing processes suggest that the net effect of intergroup friendships is the maintenance of stable aggregate levels of this ideology in society, over time. Further, I found that intergroup contact had no effect on HRN, suggesting that this is a particularly entrenched ideology, resistant to the benefits of contact. I also tested the relationship between ingroup contact and these ideologies and found that greater ingroup contact was associated with an increase in HRN, but only f or Pākehā. Further, contact with ingroup friends was positively associated with SPE among Pākehā and negatively associated with SPE among Māori. The implications of these findings for the contact hypothesis and for the prospects of social change towards equality in postcolonial nations, are discussed.