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“I've Never Looked at Someone and Thought What Colour They Are”: Contact Theory and Interracial Friendship in New Zealand

Little is known about the micro-level social processes that give rise to the ‘contact effect’, a reduction in levels of prejudice and stereotyping resulting from interpersonal contact between members of different races or ethnic groups. Reporting findings from a qualitative study, this paper challenges the notion that interracial friendships will necessarily lead to empathy and decreased stereotyping. In interviews, Māori and Pakeha (white New Zealanders) describe race as invisible in close friendships, but also as the basis around which a great deal of ‘relationship management’ occurs. Contradictory discourses of trust and closeness on the one hand, and guardedness and self-regulation on the other, point to the complexity of these relationships. The potential for open communication, exchange of knowledge, reductions in anxiety and threat perception, and the development of affection are thus constrained. The findings suggest that the normative social context along with structures of intergroup relations provide an omnirelevant milieu in which interracial friendships occur and are managed, consequently moderating the effects of contact.