‘Just another way of wriggling off the hook’? Exploring the construction of identity in Pākehā memoirs
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines four memoirs that explore Pākehā identity: Peter Wells, Dear Oliver: Uncovering a Pākehā history (2018), Alison Jones, This Pākehā Life: An unsettled memoir (2020), Richard Shaw’s The Forgotten Coast (2021) and John Bluck’s Becoming Pākehā (2022). Each writer engages with history – and their predecessor Michael King – to contextualise their personal stories, work through their discomfort at being part of the dominant group, and participate in creating a more just national discourse. However, their centering of histories of individuals simultaneously engages with and disavows the racialised power structures rooted in the past that still shape the present.
Source: Journal of New Zealand studies
Author: Judith Pryor
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4417512049
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