ABSTRACT
Between 2002 and 2004, in the picturesque Tasman region of New Zealand’s South Island, a wealthy American migrant attempted to gain permission for a large beachside property development. Residents of the rural community soon organised a vocal campaign of opposition. Spokespersons claimed that the development would increase house prices beyond the reach of ‘local people’, and lead to an ostentatious ‘gated community’ in the midst of a population living on modest incomes. In this chapter I analyse the public outcry surrounding this controversy, placing it within the context of nationwide political debates regarding foreign land ownership and influence. Centrally, I explore how ideas of belonging, ownership and ‘local’ identity were deployed and made visible in ways that excluded a stereotyped version of the American migrant from the moral landscape. Moreover, I show how other American migrants attempted to align themselves with the opposition movement and distance themselves from ‘rich Americans’ and ‘foreign’ cultural values. Such stereotypes, I argue, acted as a foil through which ‘average’ American migrants could both personally and publicly confirm their rights to land custodianship, regional identity and virtuous migrant subjectivity. Such migrant claims relied upon discourses, also expressed by ‘locals’, of heritage, conservation, economic vulnerability and rural industry.
