We then explore recent discussion about genes, ethnicity and health in New Zealand. The alternative – but not mutually exclusive – view is that ethnic groups form naturally around people with shared characteristics and that these are then recognised in official data collections. We realise there are various meanings given to the term “cultural construction”, but in this context we align with the view that official ethnic categories are being created through social processes, with historical, political and economic forces shaping the naming of groups. In this discussion we talk about cultural versus biological construction of race or ethnicity. First, we briefly discuss some early “scientific” systems of classifying groups, then move on to current debates about classification. Then, under the broad heading of the Human Genome Project, race and ethnicity, we consider a number of issues. In this paper we initially contextualise the debates with a brief history of New Zealand migration. Although we are not directly focusing on issues of indigeneity in this paper, these issues are inevitably confronted when studying human genetics, as will be shown. European, Māori, Pacific peoples, and, in more recent times, Asian) have some links back to current continental-based “racial” groups which have limited historical validity. Finally, of the six current official level 1 groupings of ethnicity in New Zealand, the four that are used mainly in public policy analysis (i.e. context, genetic testing has become part of genealogy research. 3 Another reason is that, particularly in the U.S. Generally, ancestry is based on biological links. In addition, although New Zealand policy research focuses on the ethnicity variable, in areas such as ethnicity-based scholarships or law and medical school quotas, ancestry rather than ethnicity is generally the way to determine eligibility (Callister 2007). there is an important public policy-related debate about whether “race” is a useful variable in both health research and in medicine. 2 Certainly the term “race” is still used at times in public debates for example, regarding “race-based” social policies, there is a Race Relations Commissioner in the Human Rights Commission, and the Human Rights Commission supports a “Race Relations Day” each year (Callister 2007). We have chosen this topic for a number of reasons.įirst, although New Zealand official statistics have shifted to a self-defined and, in theory, culturally constructed, definition of ethnicity, it is possible that clearly bounded “racial groups” remain in the minds of many New Zealanders, especially when categorising people other than themselves. In this paper we have chosen to expand on the outcomes of the literature review in just one area: the Human Genome Project, race and ethnicity. Some issues of intermarriage, multiple ethnicity and social policy have already been explored in this journal (Callister 2004, Keddell 2007). Topics explored in this review included ethnogenesis the official construction of ethnicity in New Zealand ethnic intermarriage, and related to this the transmission of ethnicity to children and multiple ethnicity ethnic mobility indigeneity the recent growth of “New Zealander” responses in the New Zealand census and genetics, the Human Genome project, race and ethnicity.Įthnic mobility, the New Zealander response and one aspect of indigeneity – being part of an iwi (tribe) – are explored in some depth in this Social Policy Journal collection. In 2008 Statistics New Zealand commissioned a literature review based on the broad question “Who are we?” (Callister et al.
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