Thinking about Citizenship in Reference to Colonial Histories : Fieldwork with Maaori and Tahitians
This article offers a comparative analysis of the situation of two Polynesian populations with different histories whose claims in terms of decolonization are formulated differently today : the Maaori of New Zealand and the Tahitians of French Polynesia. Ethnographic research on Maaori and Tahitian associations and ONGs reveals that despite the differences between the two populations, the ways Maaori and Tahitians engage into society as citizens through a strong affirmation of their culture and identity are very similar. The author tries to throw light on this particularity, which supposes that citizen practices mostly take place at the margins of the common political space where the vivre-ensemble could be negotiated, that is, in pluralist societies such as New Zealand and French Polynesia. She hence exposes that the situation could be explained by the political arrangements within both states – a republic in one case, and a constitutional monarchy, in the other – and by the ways social interactions have been structured through colonial history – French in one case, British in the other. She notably questions the discriminations inherent to the colonial system.