Postgraduate Students

Steven Gardiner, BA (Hons), MA (Auckland)

Pakeha Representations of Maori Racial Hybridity in New Zealand 1885-1921

Steven's PhD thesis will investigate how Maori racial hybridity was considered by Pakeha New Zealand society through various textual forms of cultural dissemination. The period to be examined correlates with an historical period identified with the advent of centralised party politics, transformations in concepts of nationhood and national identity, and changing configurations of Maori leadership where identifiably 'half-caste' leaders emerged who were fluent in the English language and highly familiar with Pakeha culture. This is critical in terms of the expression and articulation of the responses to the aforementioned political and cultural processes that were occurring. For the purpose of this thesis racial hybridity is broadly defined to include both cultural and biological formations in recognition of the slippery and fluid definitions of racialised categories. Consistencies and contradictions, continuities and disruptions between and within the various terminologies and disseminating formats will be examined. Sources will be drawn from published and unpublished political and cultural discourses, official records, print culture and literature supplemented by local and international secondary treatments of this area of research.

Contact: garst852@student.otago.ac.nz

Supervisors: Dr Angela Wanhalla, Associate Professor Tony Ballantyne, Dr Lachlan Paterson (Te Tumu School of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies)

Conference Presentations

• "The Multiple Identities of Sir James Carroll: Discourses of Politics, Culture and Identity in New Zealand, 1891-1912," Interracial Intimacies: New Zealand Histories Symposium, University of Otago, 19-20 June 2009.
• 'Half-full or half-empty? The historiography of Maori/Pakeha hybridity', New Zealand Historical Association Conference: Centre and Periphery, Massey University, Palmerston North, 27-29 November 2009.

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