Despite last writing on this topic an eon ago, I thought I'd better live up to the promise of continuing to get out blogs on metics. So here we go.
The last time I wrote I briefly discussed the concept of social capital. It's a great little idea because it allows us to better understand how and why some people get to be in charge while others are pushed to the outer. It's also useful because it means you can distinguish between groups within a national society on a more abstract level that just race.
Let's look at Māori society for example. Since at least the 90s we've had an ongoing tussle between 'urban' and 'traditional' iwi. From here on the sidelines it's a great development for Māori because not only does it demonstrate that Māori society is vibrant, modern and evolving, but shows urban Māori making strong demands about their governmental belonging [governmental belonging is the idea that you have the right to a say in governance. Just because you're a citizen there's nothing to say you're going to get to contribute].
In the case of urban Māori while they may well fully belong to Māori society, traditional iwi resist their claims to belonging and their right to represent Māori as a whole. The interesting thing is that this type of behaviour is exceedingly common in political systems. When Pauline Hanson was purporting to speak for 'one Australian nation' there were numerous claims that she did not have such a right. Detractors were commonly trying to point out that Hanson was little more than an interloper on the national stage.
You could just write this type of behaviour off as a competition for 'authority', but the term just doesn't really encompass the political behaviour we see in these examples. You can get authority lots of ways, with a big gun for example, but it's most influential when you have it granted to you by your constituents. The Americans do not have governmental belonging in Iraq, for example.
As I stated in Metics Ten, social capital is a good way to understand how a group of individuals aggregate enough governmental belonging to maintain power. In New Zealand we have an idea called 'the majority' that determines what is and is not acceptable in a governmental sense, and the specific content of this group shifts every election time.
But what determines the content of that group? It's not simple electoral politics. You can have any number of votes based on party platforms, but what really determines the shape and nature of the governing body is the personality of the individuals in governance roles. Now first of all the governance roles in New Zealand are broader than just the Member of Parliament, much broader. And secondly they all have variable power, from the secretary of the local Rotarians club up to the PM. What they all have in common though is an amount of social capital they've accumulated over the course of their lifetimes.
Social capital is pivotal to the exercise of political power, and not just any social capital, but just the right kind. John Howard or George W. Bush may well have high levels of social capital in their own nation-states, but in New Zealand these do not amount to much. Not to disparage their social capital mind you, but in New Zealand it is quite simply inappropriate.
What's important to gaining political power is the accumulation of a social capital your constituency can identify with. And it's that idea that brings us full circle to the nature of nationality. Nationality is defined by individuals mutually accepting each others identity, and social capital works much the same way. Both ideas work in self-referential cycles, with one generation of individuals validating the next, and vice-versa, in perpetuity.
So how does this relate to the metics theme?
Sometimes you have entire groups of people who belong to a place but have their social capital, and their social identity, invalidated by the majority. Aboriginal people in Australia are a good example. There is very little about Aboriginality that mainstream Australian actually wants to keep.
And it's also what makes New Zealand a great place to study these concepts, because over the last 30 years Māori have gained increasing levels of governmental belonging, and have had their identity recognised by the majority as valid. You can't really underestimate the worth of that particular piece of rubber-stamping.
The situation has become one in which two types of social capital have been working in tandem, with both contributing to the overall 'vibe' of New Zealand nationality. But a problem seems to be developing, the issue of competition between these two components. And it's something we'll discuss another day.