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Where You Feel You Belong: Classifying Ethnicity and Mixedness in New Zealand

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The Palgrave International Handbook of Mixed Racial and Ethnic Classification

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Abstract

New Zealand has a relatively long history of collecting data on multiple ethnic identifications, occupying a unique position by administratively privileging self-identified, socially defined ethnicity over race-based classification. Classification has reflected processes of social change within the country over time, and ethnicity has been measured as voluntary, individual, and multiple for over thirty years, making the country one of the first to do so. In recognizing the socially constructed nature of ethnicity, and officially recognizing mixedness for such an extended period of time, New Zealand provides a very valuable case study and point of comparison. However, care needs to be exercised because both the classifications and the socioeconomic environments in which the politics of identity sit are in continual flux, as debates about linguistic and sociological categorization affect not only what is collected but how the information is then packaged. The way forward requires cross-sector solutions as the emergence of new ethnicities frequently passes through a period of multiplicity of labels in the process of creating/constructing emerging identifications. The relationship between changing multiple identifications and social change requires consistent and robust measurement with an agreed nationally established and stable standard classification system, such as has been applied to the New Zealand census, with generally minor adjustments, since at least 2001.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Information on ancestry is collected for individuals of Māori descent, as a requirement of the 1993 Electoral Act. Although proof of ancestry is not required to identify as Māori for the national census, for claims with more practical or political impacts, proof is often required (Callister 2004; Rocha and Wanhalla 2018).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Waikato University, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Robert Didham

  2. Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Zarine L. Rocha

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  1. Robert Didham
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  2. Zarine L. Rocha
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Correspondence to Zarine L. Rocha .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Zarine L. Rocha

  2. Centre for Health Services Studies, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Peter J. Aspinall

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Didham, R., Rocha, Z.L. (2020). Where You Feel You Belong: Classifying Ethnicity and Mixedness in New Zealand. In: Rocha, Z.L., Aspinall, P.J. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Mixed Racial and Ethnic Classification. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22874-3_31

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22874-3_31

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-22873-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-22874-3

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