Mothers' darlings: Children of indigenous women and World War Two American servicemen in New Zealand and South Pacific societies

Associate Professor Judy Bennett, Dr Angela Wanhalla
Marsden Standard Project, 2010-2012

Like a human tsunami, World War II brought two million American servicemen to the South Pacific where they left a human legacy of some thousands of children, most born out of wedlock. Histories of these indigenous, colonized mothers and their children are missing from standard accounts of New Zealand and other Pacific Islands. Our research project aims to recover this neglected human element of the massive demographic transformations that the war induced. It will interrogate the nature of wartime intimate encounters, colonial, institutional and racist barriers to stable relationships and marriage, the fate of children and grandchildren, and long term effects of mixed parentage. This research will deepen our understanding of New Zealand society and the origins of postwar Pacific immigrants as well as the constraints and opportunities that a world war presented to young people interacting across cultures in the South Pacific. More broadly, it will also contribute to global understandings of the demographic, familial and social consequences of World War II.

Further information on postgraduate opportunities associated with this Marsden is available here.