Page 263 - Constructing Craft

‘Maori International Holdings’ was formed and although it struggled financially

initially, it did undertake marketing exercises and may have encouraged the
Department of Māori Affairs to take an exhibition of Māori craft to Hawaii in 1984. It

was the beginning of the attempts to bring Māori craft to the world and a means of
rewarding Māori craftspeople financially.

Throughout the 1980s the commercialisation of Māori craft increased as tourist

numbers grew and New Zealanders attempted to format a ‘national identity’ that

included aspects of Māori culture. Māori craft, or at least representations of Māori
craft, became widely available in craft shops across New Zealand with both Māori

and Pākehā openly displaying craft such as carved pendants, earrings and other

forms of adornment. The increasing interest in Māori craft took place during a period
in New Zealand’s economic history that one writer called the ‘third era’ – the 1980s

and 1990s – when ‘the new political economy opened a plethora of opportunities for
17
Maori skills and entrepreneurship.’ Geoffrey Bertram was discussing the wider
economy but he could well have been talking about the movement of Māori craft
from a largely rural and isolated environment into the mainstream New Zealand

craft world.

The commercialisation of ethnic craft is often presented as a wholly negative

development, but the effects could be both negative and positive. These factors
include whether a culture was vital or declining and whether the commercialisation

was driven by internal initiatives or sponsored from the outside. This produced four
different types of commercialisation.

Culture Source of Initiative

Spontaneous Sponsored

Vital Complementary Encroaching

commercialisation commercialisation

Declining Substitutive Rehabilitative
commercialisation commercialisation

Table: Four types of commercialisation and their characteristic dynamics. Source: Erik
Cohen, 'The Commercialization of Ethnic Crafts', Journal of Design History.

Constructing Craft