Migration, race and settler colonialism: British migrants in New Zealand

What is it about?

This paper explores the reflections and experiences of British migrants in Auckland, New Zealand on biculturalism and multiculturalism. It draws on critical race studies and settler colonial studies to frame this contribution. It pays special attention to their spatial and temporal assumptions, e.g. positioning someone/something as 'out of place' and 'out of time'. Finally, it considers the diverse perspectives and investments at work among British migrants to complicate ideas of belonging, otherness and identity in settler colonial societies.

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Why is it important?

This paper addresses the relationship between settler colonialism and whiteness, which has otherwise been under-researched. It makes a case for centring both spatial and temporal normative assumptions when considering encounters with difference in settler colonial contexts. Finally, it considers the heterogeneity of British migrants' experiences within a racialised, settler colonial urban context, thus complicating understandings of the experience of migrants in such contexts, as well as contributing original empirical material about a significant source country of migrants in New Zealand and beyond.