‘I’ve engaged strongly with Te Ao Māori … I could bore you forever’: Constructing a Progressive White ‘Good Pākehā’ Identity through Vying for Position

Recent intensified calls for social justice-oriented change have caused shifts for Pākehā navigating identities as ‘good’ in relation to Māori. Within an individualist social environment, personal choices around political issues have become how Pākehā ‘stage-manage’ identities that can be read as good, in relation to other Pākehā. We examine how this identity work unfolds through focus group data, using thematic and discourse analysis to explore how Pākehā position ourselves and others within positive talk about Māori culture. Becoming good Pākehā was constructed as a transformative journey which required significant knowledge and engagement with Māori culture, largely through extensive, intentional labour. While what counted as ‘good’ practices varied in each group, the ways that participants oriented to these practices discursively were similar (as good or right), evoking an ideological jostle that occurred at multiple levels. We have called this ‘vying for position’, where participants put forward personal experiences and ways of talking about our relationship with Māori that established a hierarchy of what counts as good. Instead of resolving the injustice of colonisation, positioning as (best) good Pākehā works to improve a damaged (individual) Pākehā self-image, fuelling division and conflict among us and occluding possibilities of collaboration for justice-oriented change.