Religion and State Ritual: Political Theatre and Public Lament in Secular Aotearoa
Presenter: April Boland
In ostensibly secular Aotearoa New Zealand, state rituals such as the Anzac Day Dawn Service and the Ko Tātou, Tātou We are One event in 2021 reveal a complex engagement with religious symbolism during public moments of lament. These instances of 'Theatrical Religion,' an analytical frame posed in this research, reveal how sacred language is woven into public rituals, shaping a shared national identity. Despite the state’s secular stance, Christianity subtly influences these ceremonies through strategies like softening its ‘explicitness’; using te reo Māori; pluralising it by integrating other faith traditions; or embedding it in seemingly non-religious motifs. Through these theatrical negotiations, sacred concepts facilitated a contemporary, post-Christian, multicultural, imagined national community, lending itself to a civil religion that relied on de-confessionalised forms of Christianity; alongside an imagined identity of Aotearoa New Zealand as idyllic, peaceful, and inclusive. Despite a secular identity, Christian language, staging, and moral imaginations remain pertinent in post-Christian Aotearoa New Zealand.
April Angela Boland is currently a PhD candidate in the School of Science in Society. The research presented in this seminar formed her Master’s thesis in Religious Studies, submitted in 2023. It is the product of her background in both comparative Religious Studies, and as a long-time theatre practitioner.
April was the recipient of the Buchanan Scholarship in New Zealand History and Society 2023.