Navigating the Waka of Māori Community Development
New Zealand Journal of History, 49, 1 (2015) Navigating The Waka Of Māori Community Development PANGURU, ‘THE MAORI AFFAIRS’ AND ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE 1950S BETWEEN 1954 AND 1957, THE PEOPLE OF PANGURU in North Hokianga participated in a community development experiment administered by the Department of Maori Affairs. The Panguru Community Development Pilot Project, as it was officially named, was initiated by John Booth, the first anthropologist employed by the department.1 The project signalled an experimental policy shift away from individualistic ‘land development’ to collective ‘people development’. Although the project was a one-off, ‘tri-anthropological’ engagement was not new; throughout the early and mid-twentieth century, anthropology established a role in determining the pace and shape of the state’s assimilation policy, as well as in Māori efforts to revitalize tribal economies. The Panguru project provides a unique window into Māori negotiations with anthropology and the state. At the heart of this complex interaction was a clash of world views about what a ‘modern Maori community’ could and should have been in the 1950s. Although the state increasingly managed the processes of assimilation within the frame of modernity, such a view was peripheral if not irrelevant to the people of Panguru. Their participation in the project highlights how the leaders and people of Panguru took advantage of what they believed were the most beneficial features of the project. They sought control of their land, resources and economic futures, as well as access to modern technology and ideas. Examining their experience shows how Māori people – at both community and national levels – worked with the state and New Zealand’s emergent anthropological community, and negotiated anthropological theory in order to achieve divergent goals in the mid-twentieth century.
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