‘Pasifika’ and ‘I‐Kiribati’ identity in Aotearoa New Zealand: ‘Dancing’ and ‘edge‐walking’ through multiple identities

This article explores the relationship between I‐Kiribati communities and the broader ‘imagined’ Pasifika community in Aotearoa New Zealand. It looks at the way a group of I‐Kiribati tertiary students experience identity within this context. Through the use of semi‐structured interviews and a discourse analysis, the study draws three main conclusions. First, that I‐Kiribati navigate multiple identities and are constantly negotiating these within different spaces. Although this contributes to uncertainties around identity, I‐Kiribati students also strategically enact identity to suit various contexts. Second, that Pasifika as a term tends to infer ‘Polynesian’ which in turn may marginalise I‐Kiribati identities within certain spaces, particularly in education settings that intend to support all Pacific identities. Yet, given such a narrow understanding of Pasifika, these efforts may counter that intention for those on the margins of, or outside the common usage of, the term Pasifika. Last, community plays a significant role in the formation of identities within minority groups, which is important for countering aspects of marginalisation experienced within broader pan‐ethnic labels such as Pasifika. Consequently, we argue that Pasifika as a label needs to better reflect inter‐Pacific diversity as well as the identity negotiations that Aotearoa New Zealand‐born Pacific peoples navigate.     

Place,memory and identity: Imagining ‘New Asia’

Abstract: The rapid transformation of Asian societies and landscapes, especially since the mid‐1990s, has engendered much conjecture of the ‘Asian renaissance’ and the rise of a ‘New Asia’. This Special Edition of Asia Pacific Viewpoint explores the intersecting themes of ‘urban place’, ‘social memory’ and ‘cultural identity’ in the articulation of and contestation towards New Asia. Specifically, the six articles here offer various interpretations of New Asia – as tourism marketing tool, political vision and social identity – and the politics involved in urban, tourism and cultural development. From colonial hotels in key South‐East Asian cities to the historic waterfront of Singapore; from festivals and rituals in Hong Kong, Hoi An (Vietnam) and Penang (Malaysia) to the clash of cultural values in Manggarai (Indonesia), ‘selective remembering’ and ‘ideological forgetting’ are central to the construction of New Asian identities. Ultimately, this Special Edition hopes to provoke continuing discussions on the rhetoric of New Asia and its imaginative and contested geographies, sociologies and histories.