Relationships are the glue that holds the world together. As the author shows, this common belief applies to ancient Greece as much as to contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this anthropological study dedicates itself to the topic of friendship - this flexible type of sociality that has become increasingly significant in people's lives throughout the world. At the core stand the friendship conceptions and life-worlds of Maori and Pakeha actors in New Zealand. By tracing out people's "friendship worlds" in their wider societal context, the author takes up current debates surrounding issues of identity and sociality, indigeneity and diversity. By furthering our understanding of the social dynamics of friendship in New Zealand, the study not only contributes to the growing field of friendship research, it also reveals important implications for the understanding of group relations in a postcolonial, so-called "multicultural" society.
Dr. Agnes Brandt studied ethnology, sociology and psychology in Berlin and Auckland. After several research stays in New Zealand, she received her doctorate from the University in Freiburg i. Br. She currently teaches and researches at the Institute for Ethnology at the University of Munich.
Ronald G. Asch is Professor of Modern History at the University of Freiburg.
Sabine Dabringhaus is a junior professor of non-European history at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau.
