1. THE PACIFIC FESTIVAL SPACE AND THE ILLUMINATION OF ROOTS AND ROUTES
Jared Mackley-Crump, Otago University, Dunedin, NZ

2. THE MIGRATION OF PACIFIC PEOPLES TO NEW ZEALAND:
Small number of pre-Second World War migration and historical relationships between New Zealand and Pacific nations facilitated large-scale migration of the 1960s/1970s
Post-Second World War diversification of New Zealand economy created labour shortages in some industries
Primarily from Samoa, Tonga, Niue, the Cook Islands, FIji, and Tokelau
Smaller numbers from Tuvalu, Kiribati, and other Pacific nations (French Polynesia other parts of Melanesia)

3. Main Sites of Early Pacific Communities in New Zealand
Far North (Kaitaia and Whangarei)
Auckland
Central Plateau
(Rotorua, Tokoroa, Hamilton
And Hawkes Bay)
Main Sites of Early Pacific Communities in New Zealand
Wellington
Landing Page, from here click into each link for profile of festival. Other pages: history – containing a short essay about the history of festivals in NZ, how and why they developed; other festival – multicultural festivals in NZ, incl significant ones in Akld, Porirua, etc. Mention of intl festivals; about – a background of project and acknowledgement of people, etc.
South Island
(Christchurch, Dunedin
and Invercargill)

4. Pacific Festivals of New Zealand
Far North Pasifika Festival, Kaitaia (2006- )
Auckland Secondary Schools Maori and Pacific Islands Festival (‘Polyfest’) (1976- )
The Pasifika Festival, Western Springs, Auckland (1993- )
Pacifica Living Arts Festival, West Auckland (1994- )
Pacific in the Park, West Auckland (2005- )
North Shore Pasefika Festival, North Shore (2006- )
Enua Ola Festival, West Auckland (2010)
Moana Pasifika Festival, South Auckland (2010- )
Tu Tangata, Wellington (1979- )
South Pacific Festival, Wellington (C )
Northern Schools Polyfest, Porirua (C1985- )
Tu Fa’atasi Festival, Wellington (1994, ‘96 & ‘98)
Catholic Schools Polyfest, Wellington (????)
Pacifically Wellington (2002- )
Positively Pasifika Festival, Wellington (2008- )
Tai Tokerau Pasifika, Whangarei, (2004- )
Pacific by Nature, Hamilton (200?- )
Nesian Festival, Hamilton (2009- )
Pepe Pasifika, Hamilton (2009- )
Polyfest, Rotorua (????)
Mini Pasifika, Rotorua (2009- )
Polyfest, Tokoroa (????)
SPacifically Pacific, Napier/Hastings
(2003- )
Pasifika Fusion, Palmerston North (2005- )
Wairarapa Pacific Festival, Masterton (2008)
Primary Schools Cultural Festival, Christchurch (1981- )
Pacific Arts Festival ( )
SPacifically Pacific Festival, Christchurch (2001- )
Otago Early Childhood and Schools Maori and Pacific Islands Festival, Dunedin
(1990s - )
Murihiku Early Childhood Education and Schools Cultural Festival, Invercargill (2009- )
Pacific Festivals of
New Zealand
Landing Page, from here click into each link for profile of festival. Other pages: history – containing a short essay about the history of festivals in NZ, how and why they developed; other festival – multicultural festivals in NZ, incl significant ones in Akld, Porirua, etc. Mention of intl festivals; about – a background of project and acknowledgement of people, etc.

6. THE PASIFIKA FESTIVAL, WESTERN SPRINGS, MARCH 2011
Clip from ‘Tagata Pasifika’ (aired 17 march)

7. CONNECTING WITH PACIFIC ROOTS:
‘we tend to do things more modernly, we forget about our culture, and when we dance we realise, hey, that’s where we belong’
‘It’s like you’re going on a journey every time you perform, and it’s a really really good feeling, especially when it’s your own tradition. I mean, we don’t do it everyday, even though we’re Fijian, but when you get to do something with your own culture, it makes you feel better about yourself, your identity. You kinda feel like you belong somewhere’
‘so they know who they are and that they’re not just Kiwis, but Samoan, Tongan…and that’s blood, and it’s important for them to know who they are so they don’t get lost in the world’

8. CONNECTING WITH PACIFIC ROOTS
Epeli Hau’ofa (1993)
The Pacific as a ‘Sea of Islands’, a vast interconnected kinship network
Festivals represent the most highly visible public manifestations of the ‘Sea of Islands’ operating within New Zealand, and of its connection to and place within it
They represent the bending together of roots and routes to construct alternative public spheres (Clifford 1994, p. 308)

9. CONNECTING WITH NEW ZEALAND ROOTS
New Zealand as a Pacific nation
The notion of having two ‘two homes’:
I’d say I have two homes. It’s definitely here, but also in Sāmoa. Home in New Zealand for me is where I grew up most of my life, but going back to where my parents were born and where they grew up, that also felt like part of me.
New Zealand ‘allows me to be the sort of Tongan that I am’

10. CONNECTING WITH NEW ZEALAND ROOTS
Duffy on Deleuze and Guattari: ‘in a similar way that rhythm orders sounds into a musical structure, so mapping space through repeated signs is a means of establishing possession’ (2000, p. 55)
Festivals alter the spaces in which they take place, recoding and territorialising them, and providing a conduit to a relationship to place
Pacific festivals create transcultural, multilocal notions of belonging; they are ‘territorialising beacons of belonging’
They are the most highly visible manifestations of not only New Zealand’s place within the Pacific, but of the place of the Pacific, and of Pacific peoples, within New Zealand
Pacific festivals establish new roots in New Zealand

11. POPULAR MUSIC AND ROOTS/ROUTES
Popular music asserts the notion of both being ‘of the Pacific’, highlighting ancestral roots, while also being rooted within and belonging in a New Zealand context (e.g. Zemke-White 2000, 2001; Pearson 2004; Henderson 2006).
Contemporary musics in the festival space reflect the contemporary realities of Pacific peoples in twenty-first century NZ:
That’s what it’s all about. We’re in 2010 now…tradition is good, but we’re in New Zealand and we need to know that our young ones, not all of them stick to tradition. They like some of it, some of that old culture is good, and it’s there. But they also want to see the new stuff as well.
I think it’s important to have that part of the festival, because not everyone is a weaver, and being Pacific doesn’t mean that I’m going to be performing cultural dancing…we need to have that kind of platform for them as well, otherwise it will be just some kind of dance festival…it breathes so much more when kids have their platform as well 

12. POPULAR MUSIC AND ROOTS/ROUTES
King Kapisi: I figured out how important it is to represent culture and heritage when you’re onstage…If we don’t do things like that, then we just become part of the pop culture…I believe that we’re from here, we have to portray and give the listener a different story to what the rest of the world is telling them’
Awa, Nesian Mystik: ‘a lot of Pacific Islanders haven’t even gone back to the Islands. So, for them, [our performances] let them know that that’s ok, like, still be proud, still walk tall’
Ryan, Ardijah: ‘For me, I love the whole day, because it’s part of the [migrant] dream. It’s like, if you were here in the beginning when our people were getting bagged and put down, and called coconuts and losers, and then you see it now, I’m just happy, so content, that celebrating who we are as a people within our own country too as well’.

13. CONCLUSION The Pacific Festival space is a space where the importance of ancestral and cultural roots is balanced alongside those more recently established, roots that illuminate connections across diasporic routes