Narrating indigenous modernities : transcultural dimensions in contemporary Māori literature

Author(s)

    • Moura-Koçoğlu, Michaela

Bibliographic Information

Narrating indigenous modernities : transcultural dimensions in contemporary Māori literature

Michaela Moura-Koçoğlu

(Cross/cultures : readings in the post/colonial literatures in English, 141)

Rodopi, 2011

  • : [hardcover]

Available at  / 1 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-282) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

The Maori of New Zealand, a nation that quietly prides itself on its pioneering egalitarianism, have had to assert their indigenous rights against the demographic, institutional, and cultural dominance of Pakeha and other immigrant minorities - European, Asian, and Polynesian - in a postcolonial society characterized by neocolonial structures of barely acknowledged inequality. While Maori writing reverberates with this struggle, literary identity discourse goes beyond any fallacious dualism of white/brown, colonizer/colonized, or modern/traditional. In a rapidly altering context of globality, such essentialism fails to account for the diverse expressions of Maori identities negotiated across multiple categories of culture, ethnicity, class, and gender. Narrating Indigenous Modernities recognizes the need to place Maori literature within a broader framework that explores the complex relationship between indigenous culture, globalization, and modernity. This study introduces a transcultural methodology for the analysis of contemporary Maori fiction, where articulations of indigeneity acknowledge cross-cultural blending and the transgression of cultural boundaries. Thus, Narrating Indigenous Modernities charts the proposition that Maori writing has acquired a fresh, transcultural quality, giving voice to both new and recuperated forms of indigeneity, tribal community, and Maoritanga (Maoridom) that generate modern indigeneities which defy any essentialist homogenization of cultural difference. Maori literature becomes, at the same time, both witness to globalized processes of radical modernity and medium for the negotiation and articulation of such structural transformations in Maoritanga.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction: Reframing Maori Storytelling "Things are not exactly black or white in Aotearoa": The Many Facets of Kiwi Identity Fragmentation Reconsidered: Transcultural Identities in the Making Narratives of (Be)Longing: Maori Literary Voices Advancing Narratives of (Un)Belonging: Unmasking Cleavage, Cleaving to Identities Transcultural Readings: Recombining Repertoires Navigating Transcultural Currents: Stories of Indigenous Modernities Works Cited Index

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

Page Top