Oceanic Identities: Trans/national formations in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands Region

Abstract

[eng] This chapter offers a general overview of the process of decolonisation and national formation in Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. The first section discusses the Māori nationalist movement in the context of New Zealand’s history as a post-settler nation. It then looks at the process of independence in some Pacific Island countries and considers some of the ongoing neo-colonial forces preventing some of these territories from achieving full sovereign status. The third and fourth sections discuss the importance of regional labels and frameworks in the political definition of the region after the Second World War, and offers a summary of Indigenous theorisations of Oceania as a relational and fluid space. The chapter concludes by discussing the contemporary diasporic trajectories of Pacific Islands peoples, with special attention to their role in the articulation of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific identity.