He kohuka whakarerekē: The Māori Renaissance and its impact on Aotearoa New Zealand's Pacific diplomacy

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Abstract

This thesis explores how the Māori Renaissance has reshaped Aotearoa New Zealand’s national identity and, indirectly, its Pacific diplomacy since the 1970s. I argue that shifts in Māori–Pākehā relations generated by the Renaissance have filtered through national identity in cyclical waves, producing uneven but meaningful changes in how New Zealand acts and presents in the Pacific. The thesis concludes that identity decolonisation offers a valuable framework for understanding these diplomatic shifts, challenging the assumption that foreign policy is identity-neutral and showing diplomacy to be inseparable from a state’s internal colonial reckoning.

Chapters

1. Introduction
2. Conceptualising identity
3. An interconnected history of Māori-Pākehā and New Zealand-Pacific relations
4. The first wave of the Māori Renaissance
5. Identity change after the first wave
6. The influence of Renaissance-inspired identity change on Pacific diplomacy
7. Change and impact of the Māori Renaissance’s second wave
8. Conclusion

Citation

Jayden Evett. “He kohuka whakarerekē: The Māori Renaissance and its impact on Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific diplomacy.” PhD thesis, The Australian National University, June 2025. https://hdl.handle.net/1885/733750511

@phdthesis{evett2025a,
    author  = "Jayden Evett",
    title   = "He kohuka whakarerekē: The Māori Renaissance and its impact on Aotearoa New Zealand's Pacific diplomacy",
    school  = "The Australian National University",
    year    = "2025",
    month   = "June",