“My Poppa, He Was One of My Biggest Role Models: How Young Māori Men Negotiate Racism and Identity in the City”

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Abstract
In this article I explore how some young Māori men makes sense of Māori masculinities. In particular, I explore the complications and contradictions young Māori men negotiate within a sociocultural context shaped by colonisation, racialisation and marginality (alongside sexism, ableism and other forms of structural marginalisation). Taking a Kaupapa Māori approach, I constructed data poems as a form of pūrākau (Māori storywork) from interviews with twenty-two young Māori men between the ages of 16 and 24. These data poems, Māori men and Role models , explore young Māori men accounts of how Māori masculinity is represented socially, as well as constructed within whānau (extended families). My analysis of the poems then explores how particular constructions of Māori masculinity be(come) naturalised, including Māori men as physical and Māori men as deviant . I explore how these dominant masculine subjectivities function to reproduce the current social inequities and power hierarchies. Moving beyond these limiting identity possibilities, I also highlight how young Māori men construct alternative identity possibilities beyond the norms of Māori masculinity currently available to them. These disruptions are achieved through counter-storying, humour, and takatāpui (LGBTQ+ Māori) identities. The conclusion of the article then offers some reflections on how to challenge and move beyond the limiting masculine norms for Māori men.

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