“Nō Tātou Te Toto” / “The Blood We Share”: Māori Television and the Reconfiguring of New Zealand War Memory

Abstract

This article explores the role of Māori Television’s Anzac Day broadcast in reconfiguring languages of memory in New Zealand public war commemoration. An analysis of television, film and documentary content since the launching of the Anzac broadcast in 2004 reveals how Māori experience of war in the 20th century has become a central figuration of remembrance: the structure of the 28th (Māori) Battalion has become a structure of cultural memory. By centring Indigenous orality and ontologies, Māori Television has effected a significant shift in the emphasis of New Zealand Anzac commemoration and constitutional notions of nationhood. In this way, Māori Television offers a case study into some of the ways in which remembrance is shaped by the work of dedicated groups and institutions—in this instance, through Indigenous media producers.