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Forty years in Aotearoa New Zealand: white identity, home and later life in an adopted country

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2011

MOLLY GEORGE  and
RUTH P. FITZGERALD
MOLLY GEORGE*
Affiliation:
Social Anthropology Programme, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
RUTH P. FITZGERALD
Affiliation:
Social Anthropology Programme, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
*
Address for correspondence: Molly George, Social Anthropology Programme, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

In this article we recount some of the memories, hopes and strategies of 22 older migrants who are ageing in their adopted country of Aotearoa New Zealand. Having arrived as young adults in the 20 years after World War II, most of the immigrants have lived on ‘foreign’ soil for twice as long as their brief sojourns of childhood and early adulthood in their country of origin. Arriving from a variety of backgrounds in 12 different countries, they can all be considered ‘white’ immigrants in relation to New Zealand's indigenous Māori population and other non-European immigrant groups such as those from Pacific Island Nations or Asia. Their lives encompass the experience of globalisation and transnationalism in communication technologies and inter-country migration. As they recount the meaning of living through these changes, these older folk discuss the delicacies of assimilation in post-World War II New Zealand and the interplay between the daily life of New Zealand as ‘home’ and the homeland as Heimat. Their stories argue against the assumption that decades of residence, particularly for white immigrants in a white-majority nation, imply an ‘assimilation’ of cultural identity. Instead, the stories evoke recognition of the negotiation of gain and loss which continues as they, and their contexts, change over time.

Keywords

migrationglobalisationtransnationalismageing in placehome
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , February 2012 , pp. 239 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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