Creating New Zealand from Aotearoa

The belief in an Arcadia has long played a role in European ideology, and in the creation of landscape. In the case of New Zealand, immigrants from Great Britain hoped, in part, to find there own Arcadia in a country that appeared to them as being open for business. Longing for a better life away from the enormous difficulties of the British proletariat, immigrants dreamed of opportunities for jobs and the possibilities for land of their own. Some immigrants who were in better economic circumstances in Britain even sought to create for themselves a British County lifestyle. To create New Zealand from the Maori Aotearoa required the theft of indigenous land, and, in fact, the importation of animals, grass seed, trees, and even birds for the desired effect. In short, the process required the destruction of the old way of life and its exhaustive replacement with the new. This paper discusses the British colonization of New Zealand using Pierre Bourdieu’s structure of social fields.