Tag Archives: New Zealand Historical Association

12/03/2013

Scholarly Publishing Houses in New Zealand

By Aaron Barth

Since having returned from the South Pacific, and now back on the northern Steppe of North America, I have been rummaging through all the pieces of paper one accumulates while on short or long journeys. I came across the flyers, handbills and handouts that speak to the various scholarly publishing houses in New Zealand. Before my New Zealand trip, these were off my radar. And I figured since I didn’t know about them but do now, I’d share the findings and provide links. There is Bridget Williams Books, Auckland University Press, and Otago University Press. There, of course, are more (this is not exhaustive). But this is a start.

During the New Zealand Historical Association conference, a panel of editors from these scholarly and academic presses spoke to where scholarly publishing has been, where it is today, and where it might go tomorrow. This, I know, is an excellent idea for any scholarly conference, since the only way scholars can disseminate their research is by getting it published. And to get something published requires one to get to know the editors in charge of the publishing houses. And so on.

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11/21/2013

Chinese Pacific World History

By Aaron Barth
Henry Yu provides the final keynote lecture.

Henry Yu provides the final keynote lecture at the New Zealand Historical Association Conference.

On Friday morning, Henry Yu provided the final keynote lecture at the New Zealand Historical Association conference. Yu’s lecture title was, “The Cantonese Pacific: Anti-Asian Politics, and the Making and Unmaking of White Settler Nations.” Yu talked about the 19th century Chinese migrants specific to the social history of ideas. He explained the notion of Gum San, the namesake that Cantonese migrant gold workers gave to the places they imagined themselves eventually arriving at. Gum San signified an idea rather than a place, and they would travel to these goldfields with the psyche of making it: before we can act, we must first have an idea of action. In some cases the workers returned to their homelands, or their villages, ideally with money that allotted them control over their own destinies. In other cases they always envisioned returning, but remained in their non-homeland locales throughout New Zealand, Australia, and North America. It was great to hear Yu talk about all of this.

My notes from the Henry Yu talk.

My notes from the Henry Yu talk.

Yu’s work fills in large gaps in Pacific and world history, and I thought about at least four things during his talk. The first had to do with the Chinese graves that I remembered visiting a couple years ago while in Deadwood, South Dakota, this of the early Chinese gold miners and service industry workers in the Black Hills. The second has to do with the Chinese labor force that built large segments of the railroad throughout the American West. The third had to do with analogies to contemporary migrant workers entering the business of mineral extraction in western North Dakota. And the fourth had to do with how much easier it was for a migrant laborer to travel across national and imperial boundaries before the nation-state created elaborate bureaucracies to inhibit this (largely in the name of race and nation, at least by the turn of the 20th century).

But I don’t have much time to digress on all of this because I need to get over to the Settlers Museum in Dunedin.

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11/21/2013

Memory and Remembrance in New Zealand

By Aaron Barth
Explaining the various locations of the Dakota, Nakota and Lakota on the northern Great Plains, North America, to the Kiwi and Aussie attendees at the New Zealand Historical Association biennial conference on November 21, 2013, at University of Otago, Dunedin, south island New Zealand. A New Zealand scholar later said he was fascinated by this because he'd never seen such a map. This meant to me that another global knowledge-transfer had been achieved. This map comes from Mark Diedrich, "Mni Wakan Oyate (Spirit Lake Nation): A History of the Sisituwan, Wahpeton, Pabaska, and Other Dakota That Settled at Spirit Lake, North Dakota" (Fort Totten, North Dakota: Cankdeska Cikana College Publishing, 2007), 47.

Explaining the various locations of the Dakota, Nakota and Lakota on the northern Great Plains, North America at the New Zealand Historical Association biennial conference on November 21, 2013, at University of Otago, New Zealand.

Before I head off to another day of conference papers this morning, I thought I’d do a short recap of the session I attended and presented in yesterday afternoon, representing North Dakota State University and the Center for Heritage Renewal here at the University of Otago, the southern-most university in all the world.

Each presenter has 10-15 minutes to work with, and this is always the challenge of presenting: it’s how to communicate a rather complex idea to an audience — in this case on the other side of the world — using the allotted time parameters. My talk must have resonated with the other attendees and presenters, including George Davis and John Moremon (we chatted a bit after the talk).

I got what I came for, too: my goal was two-fold, the first to present a case-study history on one US-Dakota site of memory and mourning on the northern Great Plains (complete with the history of “official” and counter-official remembrance), and then ask Maori and Kiwi scholars to direct me to various sites of remembrance that resulted from the 19th century British-Maori wars. Of the latter, these conversations are continuing, so I’ll round out this blog post so I can get to those said conversations today.

My presentation was followed by George Davis, who considered the remembrance of ANZAC Day memorials, or how memory groups conceive of the physical and mental landscapes, in this case relative to the First World War. And the final presenter came from Aussie John Moremon, who considered how the Aussie and New Zealand government helped (or didn’t help) WWII veteran Calvin Coghill’s relatives through the grieving processes after finding out that Calvin had been killed in action in the European Theatre. Geoff Watson chaired our panel discussion, dutifully keeping all of us within our time limits.

George Davis explains the symbolism of the memorial wreath of ANZAC day.

George Davis explains the symbolism of the memorial wreath of ANZAC day.

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11/20/2013

Live Blogging from the NZHA

By Aaron Barth

I’m currently sitting in on Patrick Coleman’s talk entitled “Transnational Orangeism” at the New Zealand Historical Association’s biennial conference in the very antipodes at the University of Otago, Dunedin, south island New Zealand. The Orange Order was a militant organization that rose out of anti-Catholic sentiments in Ireland in the late-18th century. The order reached back into history to grab hold of the memory of William of Orange’s victory over King James. The former was protestant, the latter Catholic. It was a battle that was couched in religious terms, not only about politics and power, but the overlap of religion, politics and power.

Patrick Coleman considers the Orange Order in world history.

Patrick Coleman considers the Orange Order in world history.

The Orange order was global, and they established lodges throughout the world (Canada, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, etc). Patrick used the historical figure of Edith O’Gorman (1842-1919), using historical biography to explain how the ideas of this particular movement moved across the world. Edith was famous amongst her 19th century Orangeists because she escaped nun-hood, converted to protestantism, and went on to give public talks about her self-described struggle.

The use and consideration of using historical biography to discuss world historical events has been a theme of several historical talks at this conference. Maya Jasanoff chatted yesterday about her work which considers Joseph Conrad and his novels as windows into the marginal territories of the global British Empire at the turn of the 19th century. So without going too much further into all of this, I’ll press “Publish” on the blog post and put my computer away to redirect my focus on this next talk. 

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11/17/2013

Waking Up in New Zealand

By Aaron Barth

It’s the first morning in the Southern Hemisphere, this in Dunedin, New Zealand. One is quickly reoriented to the reality that November 18, 2013 is summer in this hemisphere, and this means the days are longer than the November 15 days on the northern Great Plains of North America. Obvious, right? But not so much until experienced.

Matt and Molly stand below a modest Lord of the Rings statue at the airport in Auckland, New Zealand. The Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand.

Matt and Molly stand below a modest Lord of the Rings statue at the airport in Auckland, New Zealand. The Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand.

We are a group of 5 from North Dakota. This includes Tom Isern (North Dakota State University) and Suzzanne Kelley (New Rivers Press, Minnesota State University Moorhead), who will be attending and presenting at the New Zealand Historical Association‘s biennial conference (I’ll be presenting at this conference, representing North Dakota State University too; much more on that in the coming days). It’s also great to have Molly (my girl) and her brother, Matthew, along, as they are going to drop in on some of the conference activity but direct most of their energies to take in the New Zealand south island senses of place.

Our group originated from Fargo (Matthew got a ride from his sister, Mira, over from Valley City that morning). Our friend Jay Krabbenhoft took us to Fargo’s Hector airport, and we boarded a flight to Chicago; then to Los Angeles; and then to Auckland, this in the northwestern north island of New Zealand; then one last flight to Christchurch in the northeastern part of the south island. From there the flights stopped, and we took to automobile. At the airport, Tom and Suzzanne’s friends Kevin and Margaret O’Connor met us, and we grabbed lunch and chatted with our welcoming party. Tom and Kevin have known one another for over two decades, and they had deep conversational backdrop to draw from.

Old collegiate souls Kevin and Tom catch up at lunch in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Common collegial souls Kevin O’Connor (l) and Tom Isern (r) catch up at lunch in Christchurch, New Zealand.

After that it was a drive from Christchurch to Dunedin where the University of Otago is located (the southern-most university in all the world). We stopped a couple places along the way, including the port town of Oamaru. The city itself has done a fantastic job of rehabilitating and restoring the port warehouse district into a place of bike shops, breweries, taverns, pubs and eateries.

At the beach in Oamaru, we also saw a penguin refuge (it was the first time I got to view a beachside penguin refuge — totally off my radar up until this point). The penguins were nowhere to be seen, but it’s really hit or miss when they are there. (Note: New Zealand has a great variety of flightless birds, as the island lacks predators that find them tasty). So from Oamaru, we drove down to Dunedin, checked into our lodging, caught a bit of late dinner, and then let our heads hit the pillows.

Molly and I on the penguin refuge beach in Oamaru, New Zealand.

Molly and I on the penguin refuge beach in Oamaru, New Zealand.

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