Monday, March 09, 2015

Asian communities & their impact on Kiwi multiculturalism


In the past 50 years Aotearoa New Zealand has become increasingly more culturally diverse, with people from the Pacific Islands, Asia and the Middle-East settling, taking New Zealand citizenship and raising New Zealand-born children.

In a compelling new study, Asians and the New Multiculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand, academics from a range of disciplines shed light on the multiculturalism debate, focusing their attention in particular on the histories and circumstances of Asians. This is the first study to address multiculturalism and Asian-ness in New Zealand.

‘Multiculturalism here as elsewhere is a fraught and challenging issue,’ says lead editor Gautam Ghosh. Defining a New Zealander in the 21st century is increasingly difficult as the cultural mix of our communities rapidly diversifies.

‘We highlight the ways recent migration has impacted on multicultural discourse and practice,’ says Gautam Ghosh, ‘giving particular attention to the “Asian dynamics” of this migration and multiculturalism.’

What kind of multicultural framework, if any, best suits our rapidly expanding ethnic and cultural diversity? Can the Treaty of Waitangi – initially set up to accommodate British settlers and to recognise the tangata whenua – serve as the basis for New Zealand’s immigration policy in the new millennium?

Asians and the New Multiculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand aims to clarify the debate: the areas of agreement and the areas of contention. The collection presents thought-provoking new research on New Zealand’s fastest-growing demographic – the geographically, nationally and historically diverse Asian communities. Cumulatively the authors reveal the unresolved tensions between a dynamic biculturalism and the recognition of other ethnic and cultural minorities that are increasingly asserting themselves.

Co-editor Jacqueline Leckie also asks, ‘What are the lived realities of multiculturalism and belonging in contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand for people with a diverse heritage, including that from Asia?’

Asians and the New Multiculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand raises the scholarship on Kiwi multiculturalism to a new level and is a significant contribution to the debate both in the academy and beyond it.
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Asians and the New Multiculturalism
in Aotearoa New Zealand

Edited by
Gautam Ghosh & Jacqueline Leckie

ISBN 978-1-877578-23-6, $40


About the editors
Gautam Ghosh is a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Otago. He studied anthropology at the University of California Berkeley and the University of Chicago. He has served on the editorial boards of Anthropological Quarterly and SITES: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies.

Jacqueline Leckie is an associate professor and head of department in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Otago. Her books include Indian Settlers: The story of a New Zealand South Asian community, To Labour with the State and several coedited volumes.

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