Developing “The Essentials of Good Citizenship and Responsibilities” in Maori Women: Family Life, Social Change, and the State in New Zealand, 1944-70

Abstract

New Zealand’s welfare state made unprecedented provision for the indigenous people of New Zealand. The Department of Maori Affairs employed Maori welfare officers to inculcate “the essentials of good citizenship and responsibilities” and to promote social change in a period when Maori were becoming one of the most highly urbanized indigenous peoples in the world. Female Maori welfare officers worked with women and children, devoting attention to the general standard of living of Maori families, as a “good home” was increasingly recognized as “the source of all social progress.” This article analyses some of the meanings of a “good home” and good citizenship and identifies how the particularities of this New Zealand case study illustrate a number of international trends in this period.