TY - JOUR
T1 - The Celebritization of Indigenous Activism
T2 - Tame Iti as Media Figure
AU - Cupples, Julie
AU - Glynn, Kevin
PY - 2019/11/1
Y1 - 2019/11/1
N2 - In recent years, a number of indigenous activists have gained celebrity status in ways that carry interesting implications for contemporary cultural politics. This article focuses on the celebrification of Tame Iti, arguably Aotearoa/New Zealand’s best-known Māori activist, within a wider cultural context characterized by intensifying media convergence, an expanding politics of decolonization, and the continuing elaboration of global indigenous mediascapes, including the Māori Television Service. We draw on forms of conjunctural analysis to explore how wider historical forces and social dynamics come to be embodied in particular flesh and blood individuals, who are thereby constituted as resonant media figures, who operate as both objects and agents of struggle, and who at once intervene in and shape, while also being shaped by, key terrains of contemporary discourse and cultural politics.
AB - In recent years, a number of indigenous activists have gained celebrity status in ways that carry interesting implications for contemporary cultural politics. This article focuses on the celebrification of Tame Iti, arguably Aotearoa/New Zealand’s best-known Māori activist, within a wider cultural context characterized by intensifying media convergence, an expanding politics of decolonization, and the continuing elaboration of global indigenous mediascapes, including the Māori Television Service. We draw on forms of conjunctural analysis to explore how wider historical forces and social dynamics come to be embodied in particular flesh and blood individuals, who are thereby constituted as resonant media figures, who operate as both objects and agents of struggle, and who at once intervene in and shape, while also being shaped by, key terrains of contemporary discourse and cultural politics.
KW - Aotearoa/New Zealand
KW - celebrity
KW - conjunctural analysis
KW - decolonization
KW - indigenous activism
KW - media convergence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85071505236&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1367877919854179
DO - 10.1177/1367877919854179
M3 - Article
VL - 22
SP - 770
EP - 787
JO - International Journal of Cultural Studies
JF - International Journal of Cultural Studies
SN - 1367-8779
IS - 6
ER -