New Zealand’s cultural diversity exceeds that of Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. At the most recent national census in 2013, New Zealand had a population of 4,242,048, with 668,724 (16%) people reporting Maori, or indigenous, ancestry. According to the New Zealand census, the first members of the Islamic community arrived by at least 1874 as a small group of male migrant laborers, probably from China, but all eventually returned to their native countries. Then, beginning in the early part of the 20th century, Muslims began to permanently settle in New Zealand, with this first wave of Muslim immigrants comprised of a small group of Gujarati men who ran small shops south of Auckland. The New Zealand Muslim community remained modest in size for the first half of the 20th century and numbered only 205 at the time of the 1951 census. More recently, however, the Muslim population has increased dramatically from 5,772 in 1991, to 46,149 in 2013. The current New Zealand Muslim community is of diverse origins—of those that affiliated with Islam in 2013, 26.9% were born in Asia, 25.7% in New Zealand, 23.3% in the Middle East or Africa, and 21% in the Pacific Islands.
b) culture
West and Zimmerman’s (1987) notion of “doing gender” (i.e., gender as an everyday accomplishment of language) has led to countless studies of gender construction in several nations, as well as a focus by others on how we also “do race” and other identities. The way that we construct our identities through communication is inherently linked to how we construct the identities of those in outgroups, as we shall see; but they are also linked to behavior within our group. Social constructionist approaches to culture thus often become critical in their focus on power relations. Critical approaches look at how cultures, through communication, architecture, law, literature, education, and so on create a sense of the “other”—and of the self—that constrains us and pits us against one another in group conflict.
c) race
Images created in times of war reveal the tensions and fears ignited by the conflicts between nations. Close analysis shows that the attached World War II propaganda poster is one such image (Figure 1). This 1942 poster, titled This is the Enemy, circulated in the United States following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Its purpose was to embody the entire Japanese nation as a ruthless and animalistic enemy that needed to be defeated. This image represents a clash between two nations at war and illustrates the biased perceptions that developed as a result. By dehumanizing the Japanese and instilling fear in the minds of Americans, WWII propaganda posters prompted cultural and racial hatred that led to massive historical consequences for the Japanese.