Sarah Dugdale

Using three of the thirteen ¹ adult novels of distinguished New
Zealand writer Maurice Gee, I begin an exploration of the
'Adventure of Identity' currently being experienced by the dominant
white/settler or Pakeha culture in New Zealand. But rather than an
adventure, which implies something active, even exciting, the journey
being undertaken by the post-settler population of New Zealand is, for
many, more an anxiety about identity. This anxiety remains partially
submerged, often obscured by cultural assumptions and attitudes, but
is revealed in a number of unexpected ways. This chapter begins the
uneasy endeavour of reading the anxiety of contemporary Pakeha New
Zealand identity as it is reflected in these works.

Without diminishing the agency of indigenous New Zealanders, it
does not seem unreasonable to wonder about the effects the processes
of post-colonisation, of writing the colonised back onto the page, may
have had on settler societies like New Zealand. Uneasy questions about
identity and belonging, key tropes in the discourse of post-colonial lit-
erature, have undeniably forced this, the dominant sector of New
Zealand society, into a process of re-negotiating their identity. The
silences and omissions are as interesting as those manifestations of
more overt cultural assumptions and expections, as there appears to
exist a state of mind, a cultural condition, that is distinctly anti-intel-
lectual and anti-risk. The evasionary tactics of avoidance and denial are
the manifestation of a distinctive cultural expression, which appears to
have discouraged and even disabled individual endeavours to articulate
this uneasy site. This is clearly observed in the wider community of

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