HISTORY, IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY:THE HUIA SETTLERS’ MUSEUM

Authors

  • Donna McKenzie

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11157/sites-vol2iss1id57

Abstract

The ways in which local inhabitants respond to and mediate pressures upon their community reflects the resources available to them (Day and Murdoch 993). Focussed on the rural, seaside community of Huia, West Auckland, this essay examines the concepts of community, history, and identity as resources a group of older residents have mobilised to resist perceived pressures on themselves and their community. I propose that their involvement in the establishment and maintenance of the Huia Settlers’ Museum is a symbolic representation of their collective and individual identities. External pressure in the form of change, for this group of older residents, arises from a combination of ethnicity, locality and ageing that is resisted through the expression of their genealogical connections to Huia in the form of the local Museum.

Author Biography

  • Donna McKenzie
    Honorary Research Fellow and also Policy Analyst at Te Pun Kokiri

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Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2005)

Section

Articles

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How to Cite

HISTORY, IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY:THE HUIA SETTLERS’ MUSEUM. (2008). Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, 2(1), 173-185. https://doi.org/10.11157/sites-vol2iss1id57