Being Maori in the City: Indigenous Everyday Life in Auckland

‘This is a very solid and satisfying urban anthropological work…Highly recommended’

K.S. Fine-Dare, CHOICE Magazine; vol 50:11:2013

‘Gagné presents a classic anthropological study of participant observation and ethnography… Being Maori in the City is an important book that adds richness to the relatively sparse literature on urban Maori.’

Lily George, Sites New Series vol 10:01:2013

‘Natacha Gagné adeptly weaves together ethnographic analysis, historical context, and social anthropology to craft a book whose structure and organization uniquely mirrors the heteroglossia, complexity, and multilayered experiences of the Maori.’ Katherine Lambert- Pennington, TAJA: The Australian Journal of Anthropology, vol 25:01:2014

‘Being Maori in the City is a helpful book, a modern anthropology to aid academic understanding of modern Maori lives and circumstances in Auckland. It is an effective addition to the current literature that contemplates Maori identities and urban Maori lives.’ Aroha Harris, The Journal of Pacific History vol 49:02:2014

‘Gagne makes a compelling argument regarding the importance of an anthropology concerned with ordinary, superficially apoliticized indigenous city people.’

Fiona McCormack, Journal of Pacific Affairs, vol 87:03:2014

‘This earnest work provides reader with an up-close and personal account of some of the everyday experiences of Maori city dwellers… Anthropologically, the work is useful to any socio-scientific research being carried out on minority people living in urban centres.’

Marama Muru-Lanning, The Contemporary Pacific vol 27:01:2015

‘Natacha Gagné has produced a thorough and well-theorized piece of work that will serve as a useful introduction to anyone interested in the identities and politics of Indigenous people living in an urban setting.’

Belinda Borell, Aboriginal Policy Studies vol 4:01:2015

“Natacha Gagné is a gifted writer who has conducted excellent fieldwork and data assembly for this book. She provides a valuable corpus of knowledge by which to test and compare Māori and indigenous urban-life circumstances cross-culturally and cross-generationally. As such, Being Maori in the City could become a pivotal publication on which much needed future scholarship can develop.” Paul Tapsell, Professor and Chair of Māori Studies, University of Otago

“Being Māori in the City is a serious advance in state-of-the-art research, re-invigorating New Zealand anthropology as it explores the realities of urban life for Māori today. Combining the intimacy of long-term participatory research with the relative objectivity of an informed, well-trained anthropologist, Natacha Gagné proves that this classic anthropological approach is the discipline at its best. Her book makes an important contribution both to Māori studies and to urban anthropology in New Zealand, adding significantly to an area that has been little explored in social anthropology.” Eleanor Rimoldi, Senior Lecturer, Social Anthropology Programme, Massey University

“In this informative book, Natacha Gagné uses the framework of ‘universes of meaning’ to understand the wide and diverse sets of urban-based Māori relationship dynamics. This method captures and contextualizes the different situations of identity-dynamics quite effectively, and it will make this book of interest to those in a wide range of academic disciplines.” Lynette Carter, Programme Co-ordinator, Indigenous Development, and Senior Lecturer, University of Otago