Shifting Centres
Women and Migration in New Zealand History

Edited by Lyndon Fraser & Katie Pickles

New Zealand is an immigrant society, but little has been written about the diverse migrant experiences of women to and within New Zealand. Shifting Centres: Women and Migration in New Zealand History, edited by Lyndon Fraser and Katie Pickles, links the lives of very different women through their experiences of migration.

This is a multicultural study. It includes migration from north to south, from country to country and from rural areas to town. Much of the material is from the twentieth century. Subjects range from Maori urban migration, to refugees from Nazism, and recent Chinese migration. Some of the essays are life stories.

Although diverse, the lives of these women are linked through the common need to adapt to new lives. Shared themes include motivation for migration, the journey, attitudes they experienced in the new environment and the links they maintained with 'home'.

Shifting Centres recovers the voices of migrant women and will contribute to an understanding of cultural difference and ethnic origins in the hybrid society that is Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Review Quotes

'each study makes a very readable selfcontained story of cultural and ethnic understanding' – Dominion Post

'essential reading' – The Press

Contents

In Chapter One, Angela Wanhalla looks at Maori women and waka traditions. She describes women as being cast in particular roles, often as helpers and/or protectors. Otherwise they may be profane, breaking tapu and causing crises.

Using passenger diaries, David Hastings describes the life on board ships destined for New Zealand during the late nineteenth century. Life was regulated according to Victorian values and single women in steerage were effectively locked away for the duration of the voyage. Lyndon Fraser looks at Irish women migrants of the same period, who preserved and adopted certain Old World cultural resources in order to survive in a new environment.

Following World War One, 'surplus' women were sent to British dominions. Katie Pickles argues it was hoped they would solve colonial domestic labour problems and strengthen the empire by contributing to population growth and market development.

Ann Beaglehole examines the oral histories of thirty-two former refugees who fled from Nazi Germany and Austria. New Zealand was not usually a choice but refugees migrated wherever a permit was available. In a climate of suspicion there were varied reactions from the police, neighbours and employers.

The life of Letty Brown, 'a pioneer of Maori West Auckland', is the subject of Aroha Harris's chapter. Harris argues that for Maori, adjustment to city life required community development. Megan Woods expands on this is in the following chapter, looking at Maori migration from country to town in the mid-twentieth century. Migration was a result of a complex and entangled web of labour requirements, state race relations policy, and rural Maori desire for lives in the cities and towns.

The experiences of Pacific Island communities are personalised with the narrative of Emele-Moa Teo Fairbairn. Fairbairn and her palagi husband migrated to New Zealand to offer their children better education. Her husband worked for the children, while she worked for the family back home.

The experiences of Chinese migrants in New Zealand have been the focus of attention recently. Manying Ip looks at the gender imbalances in the Chinese community that existed right up until 1991. This was the result of New Zealand's discriminatory immigration policies and of China's traditional cultural practices, born out of economic necessities.

The final chapter in Shifting Centres looks at German migration experiences in the 1980s and 1990s and the different gender reactions to it. In the oral histories used for this chapter, men told their stories in terms of work experiences and professional success; while the women described their life in terms of emotional experiences.

About the Editors

Lyndon Fraser lectures in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Canterbury. His first book was an award-winning study of Irish immigrants in Christchurch and he is the editor of A Distant Shore: Irish Migration and New Zealand Settlement.

Katie Pickles is a senior lecturer in the Department of History, University of Canterbury. She is the author of Female Imperialism and National Identity (Manchester 2002) and editor of Hall of Fame: Life Stories of New Zealand Women (Christchurch 1998).

Publication Details

Paperback, ISBN 1 877276 32 4, 216 pages. RRP $39.95
Publication Date: August 2002