The "New World" and the New World

It’s interesting to note that immediately outside our window is a symbolically rich space corresponding to the character of colonialism in New Zealand. Now with this post, I don’t mean to condemn the place that has proved a convenient source of food during our time in Wellington. Rather, I just mean to make a few observations.

First impressions of the “New World” supermarket and its solitary signpost pictured above are almost uncomfortable, in the sense that its placement and naming seem almost obscene. From above, the “New World” sign looms over the deep blue waters of the pacific, and from the waters, at the most basic symbolic level, the “New World” not only refers to the market but to the land itself. The “New World” as a phrase is, of course, an inherently western signifier, in that one can imagine Cook sailing to the shores of this bay and envisioning such a label for the island. In this sense, the “New World,” as a symbol, seems to operate by invoking nostalgia for colonial era “discovery” of new land and, moreover, its promise of goods in abundance. This particular “New World” is stocked full of everything one could need at reasonable prices, and its advertisements beckon one to come and invest and reap what is theirs. It is a specifically state-centered perspective which operates on this conception of the “New World” symbol, in that it served as propaganda used to encourage the migration and colonization of New Zealand by Europeans, as evidenced by articles in the Penny Magazine and Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal. And this is why I say that first impressions of the “New World” supermarket are somewhat uncomfortable, because both its naming and its particular placement in the geographical space of New Zealand seem to appropriate this symbolism uncritically. But this appropriation becomes more interesting when one considers what the “supermarket” represents at large.

It’s not a stretch to say that the supermarket—meaning every “supermarket” in abstract—is a pretty good symbol for globalization in general. Indeed, the “New World” is physically unremarkable, in that its contents aren’t significantly different from any other supermarket, and the promulgation of establishments such as these can certainly be considered indicative of a specific kind of economically imperialistic spread. In a very clichéd sense, it is the supermarket—and the big box store, and the chain coffee shop, and so on—that are pitted against the local, community economic landscape. In addition, much of the academic discourse surrounding imperialism in the twenty-first century is focused on this economic variety of it, in the absence of the more explicit colonialism practiced in the era of New Zealand’s colonization.

And at the very least, the “New World” is interesting as an object study in the colonization and historical character of New Zealand, particularly in its position as both a familiar and de-familiarized historical object. That is to say, the “New World’s” position in this landscape is de-familiarized in that it is a symbol of modernity (or maybe even post-modernity) and is thus opposed to New Zealand’s colonial past. At the same time, the “New World” paradoxically invokes New Zealand’s colonial history, while also occupying this role as a symbol of global capitalism.

Is the “New World,” then, uncomfortable because of both linguistic and more concrete political reasons? Maybe. One could argue that this would be reading too much into it, but the realm of the popular, the everyday, and the vulgar, are certainly important to the formation of those unspoken norms and values that Trompenaars defines as culture. Then again, its existence here is certainly not purely negative because, pragmatically speaking, this kind of development provides something that both Maori and Pakeha can use. More precisely, I write to note that historically changing power dynamics may reappear in the modern environment of New Zealand, and that these dynamics reappear in the most mundane of places.