Responding to Superdiversity: A Research Agenda
Paul Spoonley
Massey University
Chinese TodayRising Dragons, Soaring Bananas
17-19 July 2009Auckland
INTEGRATIONOF IMMIGRANTSPROGRAMME
2007 – 2012
How have the core institutions in New Zealand and the people who run them,
responded to diversity in general and the presence of Chinese in particular?
The Superdiversity of Auckland
Overseas Born
Ethnicity
Maori PP Asian
North Shore 40 6 3 19
Waitakere 32 13 15 16
Auckland 38 8 13 24
Manukau 38 15 28 21
Overseas Born and Ethnic Composition, 2006
Employment
• Attitudes of employers towards Chinese • Experiences of Chinese business owners
and job-seekers
Public Attitudes
Agreement
2003 2006
Positive: Make NZers more open to new ideas and cultures
60 71
Improve standard of food and cuisine 73 75
Concerns:Immigrants stick to their own and do not mix
77 75
Racist comment 41 46
Attitude Surveys, 2003-2006
A Future Agenda: Research Capability
• A tipping point: NZ-born Chinese
• New identities and experiences
• New ways of doing research
A Future Agenda: New Technologies
Cyber Ethnicity• Do online technologies significantly alter the
nature and articulations of ethnicity?• Enhance community networks/solidarity or
destroy them?
Online connections – corrode or preserve culture?
(Howard)
A Future Agenda: Chinese Invisibility
• Royal Commission on Auckland Governance
• Making Auckland GreaterGreater communities, greater connections, greater value?
Who is a New Zealander?
• What it means to be a New Zealander?
• What it means to be a New Zealander in a culturally diverse society?