A ritual of integration: Power, elections and cultural reconstruction among Mexican migrants in New Zealand

Abstract

Drawing on four years of ethnographic research, this article explores the political integrative dynamics of members of the Mexican community in New Zealand. It illustrates how political cultural reconstruction occurs at the center of two opposing political worlds and results in contextual understandings of the role one is expected to play in a new polity. In this context, voting is collectively understood as a ritual through which people express their good character, gratitude and appreciation toward New Zealand. However, in the broadest possible sense, further political involvement is seen as an intrusion in the internal affairs of an alien nation.