The Journal of New Zealand Studies

Digital Literary Landmarks of Aotearoa New Zealand

David Ciccoricco — 2023-08-23

Digital literary forms in and of Aotearoa New Zealand have yet to be adequately historicised, and such works – and their authors – risk being lost to New Zealand’s literary history. Addressing the added challenge of doing history in the digital age, I offer an analytical survey of early digital literary works in or of NZ based around the categories of fiction, poetry, performance, and videogames. Cultivating a digital literary history serves us well not only in situating individual works of creative media in our collective cultural heritage but also in situating New Zealand amid broader networked culture.

“Eyes are eyes & can’t be neglected”: A New Insight into Frances Hodgkins?

Vickie Hearnshaw — 2023-09-07

An aspect of the Anglo-New Zealand artist Frances Hodgkins (1869–1947) which has been largely overlooked by art historians is the challenges that she faced with her eyesight, particularly from the 1930s onwards. These are documented here, using her letters to family and friends. The article then applies findings in the pioneering studies of art and ophthalmology by Patrick Trevor-Roper and John S. Werner to a selection of Hodgkins’ paintings of the period. Links are made between her use of colour – which earlier writers have described as lyrical and “rapturous” – and the strong probability that she was suffering from cataracts.

Craik’s The New Zealanders: A Formative Case of Meaning-Construction

Paul Moon — 2023-08-23

From the 1820s, there was a surge in the number of books about New Zealand being published in Britain. George Craik’s The New Zealanders (1830) serves an exemplar of how many of these works – which tended to be more popular than academic – not only provided British readers with information about New Zealand and its indigenous people, but which also contributed to processes of meaning-construction that both reflected current trends in interpreting the non-European world, and to some extent anticipated new ways of understanding the indigenous other.

The Return of Tūtaepatu Lagoon

Martin Fisher — 2023-08-23

Tūtaepatu lagoon has been an important Ngāi Tahu mahinga kai/food gathering site for over 300 years. Following the formal colonisation that began in 1840, Ngāi Tahu meant to reserve the lagoon from the 1848 Kemp’s Deed purchase but this was not done. This article sets out the ways in which control of this mahinga kai was wrested from the control of Ngāi Tūāhuriri hapū in the mid-nineteenth century and managed by Pākehā local and central government authorities throughout the twentieth century until it was finally returned as a part of the Ngāi Tahu Treaty settlement in the 1990s. The importance of political power at both the local and central government level was fundamental to its eventual return.

Frank Thomas Moore: The Messiah of Johnsonville

Lyman Tower Sargent — 2023-08-23

Most, probably all, Christian countries produce one or more messiahs. Some of these messiahs immigrated to settler colonies to escape religious persecution, others emerged from the indigenous people who had been introduced to Christianity, and yet others were the descendants of settlers.[i] Many attracted followers and some of these established intentional communities where their teachings could be put into practice, and some of this activity resulted in new religions, few of which lasted beyond the death of the messiah.[ii] Most preached that a better world would result from the adoption of their teachings.

Floating Frontiersmen and Illicit Informal Economies in Britain’s Antipodean Colonies

Kristyn Harman — 2023-08-23

In the 1840s, Britain’s New Zealand and Vandemonian colonies underwent significant transformations that proved to be turning points in their histories. New Zealand became a crown colony in 1840, while the convict colony of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) was the site of a unique experiment in penal discipline. Against this backdrop, Spanish-born and American-raised black whaler Emanuel Lewis traded oceanic voyaging for a terrestrial-based Antipodean lifestyle. This urban-based floating frontiersman subsequently became embroiled in three court cases. Intimate readings of these cases reveal how several unofficial economies were flourishing at the time in New Zealand and Van Diemen’s Land, and link life on the land in the port cities of Auckland and Hobart into a global maritime network within which Lewis functioned as a node.

Following through: the value of tracing British settlers across time and space

Margaret Galt — 2023-08-23

Many statistics about British settlers in New Zealand come from death certificates. This article suggests, then trials, a longitudinal database by linking the records of 1,860 first generation settlers. They had high levels of internal migration before leaving Britain and between 20 and 30 percent lived in another country before they arrived here. Between 12 and 19 percent of them left, though only after 16 years on average. But return migration was only between 5 and 8 percent, a fraction of the estimates for Australia and the United States. Rather most men sought greener pastures elsewhere, notably Australia.

Landscape through creative eyes: Strands spun by Doris Lusk, Charles Brasch, Bill Sutton, Lyell Cresswell and David Griffiths

Penny Griffith — 2023-08-27

This article explores previously undocumented connections between a group of New Zealand landscape paintings and the resulting poems, music and performance. This unplanned creative sequence, spanning 1964-2008, is the work of significant national cultural figures: Doris Lusk, Charles Brasch, W.A. Sutton, David Griffiths with The Ogen Trio, and Lyell Cresswell with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Questions arise around the meaning of creative interpretations of nature and landscape, the interface between different formats, and challenges in confirming the identity of artworks. The watercolours (several held in major institutions) and poems are reproduced, together with other supporting images and documentation.

'A man of few words’: A.D. McGavock, Director of Forests, New Zealand State Forest Service, 1931 to 1939

Michael Roche — 2023-08-23

Alexander McGavock was Director of Forests from 1931 to 1939 but remains comparatively unknown in comparison to his predecessor and successor. Using valedictory and obituary observations as a guide, aspects of McGavock’s early career in Lands and Survey and later move to the State Forest Service are scrutinised in order to better appreciate his impact as Director of Forests.

Asian tauiwi and tangata whenua: Māori-Asian relationships and their implications for Aotearoa New Zealand’s constitutional future

JingJing Wang — 2023-08-23

This article traces the history of migration by Asian peoples to Aotearoa New Zealand and examines how their relationships with Māori has evolved and been influenced by the social, economic and political climate. Although Asian and Māori communities have often been pitted against each other by mainstream narratives, they share many common values and are natural allies – including in constitutional transformation. Despite perceptions to the contrary, there is strong compatibility between recognising te Tiriti and supporting Aotearoa’s ethnically and culturally diverse population. I argue that honouring te Tiriti is a foundational step towards addressing injustice and supporting all those who live in Aotearoa.

Contributors Bios

Peter Whiteford — 2023-08-23

Bios of contributors of articles and book reviews.

Empire City: Wellington becomes the capital of New Zealand

Brad Patterson — 2023-08-23

It is one of those quirks of historiographical fate that while Wellington was chosen as the site of the New Zealand Company’s ‘first and principal settlement’, becoming the colony’s capital and seat of government within 25 years, it has fared relatively poorly at the hands of professional historians. Despite a plethora of publications on particular suburbs, families, businesses and social institutions, soundly-researched overviews of the evolution of the city and its hinterlands have been at a premium.

Shifting Grounds: Deep Histories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

Jonathan West — 2023-08-23

Shifting Grounds is a history of three places: Pukekawa / Auckland Domain, Maungakiekie / One Tree Hill and the Ōtuataua Stonefields at Ihumātao. Such tight focus is matched by a simple, elegant structure: each place is explored across just two times, mostly of a few decades – ‘narrative moments’ (p.13), as Lucy Mackintosh calls them. Only one of six substantive chapters, on Ihumātao and the Ōtuataua Stonefields, surveys change over centuries, from c1350-1840.

Histories of Hate: The Radical Right in Aotearoa New Zealand

Chamsy el-Ojeili — 2023-08-23

The contemporary far-right is an extraordinarily complex, diverse ideological and political ecosystem: Christian, atheist, and pagan; violent and parliamentary; nationalist and civilisational; fear- and hate-laden and utopian; individualist and communitarian; traditionalist and accelerationalist; statist and libertarian; progressivist and declinist. Histories of Hate, edited by Matthew Cunningham, Marinus La Rooij, and Paul Spoonley demonstrates that such multiplicity is a feature of the history of the far-right in this country.

Gaylene’s Take: Her Life in New Zealand Film

Laurence Simmons — 2023-08-23

Three mothers dominate filmmaker Gaylene Preston’s new autobiography. One is Tui her mother, the person in the family who coped (“she is very strong in me. I have to fight her off constantly but she travels with me always.”); another is her mother’s mother Elsie (“she had a very personal relationship with Jesus.”); then there is Gaylene herself as mother to Chelsie (“my best ambassador.”), and towards the end the mother to her own mother suffering with dementia.

Anderton: His Life and Times

Len Richardson — 2023-08-23

David Grant’s life and times study of Jim Anderton raises fundamental questions about the nature of the New Zealand Labour Party that he first explored in his study of “Big Norm”. Central to both biographies is the issue of leadership and its connection to the collectivist notions that have underpinned the Labour Party since its inception. From Harry Holland, a leader who did not believe in leadership, to the arrival of the eloquent David Lange (1983− 1989) this collectivist ethos remained dominant if somewhat eroded by the experience of office and underlying social change.

Anzac Nations: The Legacy of Gallipoli In New Zealand And Australia 1965 – 2015

Steven Loveridge — 2023-08-23

Adapted from his doctoral thesis, Rowan Light’s Anzac Nations examines the changing position of Anzac commemoration in Australia and New Zealand between 1965 and 2015. This period opens at a time when Anzac Day attendance rates were in decline, the 50^th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings were marked by relatively limited proceedings on the peninsula and predictions that the event would pass alongside the greying veterans of Gallipoli were heard on both sides of the Tasman.

Mediating Aotearoa

Hidehiro Nakao — 2023-08-23

The title, Mediating Aotearoa, intrigues. Dieter Riemenschneider calls himself a “mediator,” and explains his role as “someone deeply engaged in reading, analysing, teaching, writing upon, and translating into German literary representations of other cultures, or of acquiring and disseminating insights into their distinct character, historical and poetic traditions, and aesthetic make-up.”

Editor's Introduction

Peter Whiteford — 2023-08-27

Introduction to the issue.