This is the fourth in a series of papers Te Puni Kōkiri commissioned to contribute to the development of our work around Oranga Māoritanga – Cultural Vitality.
This paper is intended to contribute to a larger dissertation on cultural revitalisation. It examines the notion of culture, Māori identity and its normalisation as a distinguishing feature of an inclusive New Zealand identity. It looks at the conflation of culture with biology as a hangover of our early engagement with ideas of the superiority of British culture. Discussing contemporary examples it contends that it is not culture itself that requires revitalisation but the values that underpin culture.