A stranger-anthropologist as advocate of Maori development projects

Abstract

Dispossessed of their land and other material and immaterial resources during the British colonization of New Zealand, and in the midst of a movement reasserting Maori historical rights and legal claims gaining momentum, Toon van Meijl was welcomed by the Maori Queen and her political entourage. In this chapter he reports how in return for permitting him to pursue his field research they expected him to act as an 'ambassador' representing Maori in their struggle to repossess confiscated lands and redress other historical injustices. As 'remote kin', that is, a 'stranger' relative to the Maori 'near kin', he is granted access to community life in all its dimensions, so that he can tell the world at large of its accomplishments. For it befits a Maori chief to adopt a restrained and detached attitude, and to 'invite outsiders to speak up on their behalf'.