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Friday 25 March 2022 5:47pm

FRSNZ-882
Left: Professor Angela Wanhalla and (right) Professor Emerita Barbara Brookes

The History Programme had cause for double celebration last week when two of its academics were elected as Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Head of Programme Professor Mark Seymour (History), says staff are "delighted about Professor Angela Wanhalla and Professor Emerita Barbara Brookes' most recent gongs."

Mark Seymour image
Professor Mark Seymour

"Election as fellows of the RSNZ recognises their field-leading intellectual contributions and highlights the History Programme's quality research. Both are leading scholars in women's history, with Angela having particular expertise in Māori and indigenous women's history.

"In different ways, they have both been pioneering, and their research has significantly shaped how New Zealanders view their pasts. We are proud to be their colleagues."

Professor Emerita Barbara Brookes MNZM
After completing a BA Honours degree at Otago in 1976, followed by a master's and PhD at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, Barbara returned to a postdoctoral scholarship at Otago, gaining a permanent position in the Department of History in 1983.

In 1986, her colleague Dorothy Page introduced the first Honours-level women's history paper in New Zealand. In 2004, Barbara became head of the department, guiding its amalgamation with Art History. She was Head of History and Art History until 2012.

Barbara's innovative and widely published research has gained significant accolades, including the Royal Society Te Apārangi's Humanities Aronui Medal and the 2017 Ockham Award for the best work of illustrated non-fiction. The Royal Society said her engaging and inclusive personal research and scholarly collaborations have "cast a historical lens on topics as diverse as women's caring work, mental health and notions of the healthy body."

Barbara says she was "delighted and grateful to those who put their hard work into the nomination" and also thanked University of Otago staff who supported her historical projects.

"I hope the award allows me to be a voice for the Humanities in the work of the Royal Society. We are at a crucial time with the New Zealand Histories curriculum launch, so it is important that academic historians have their voices heard nationally."

After retiring in 2020, Barbara has continued her research outputs. She recently completed a chapter on 'Sexuality in Post-War Liberal Democracies' for the forthcoming Cambridge World History of Sexualities and is nearing the end of a book project entitled Performing Medicine: Anna Longshore Potts, 1829-1912. She is also working on a paper for a special journal issue entitled "The Maiden Speeches of Iriaka Rātana and Whetū Tirikātene-Sullivan: Text, Contexts, Resonances."

"As part of my wider work on early woman doctors, I gave a paper (via Zoom) at McGill on 19 March – this was part of a symposium on the life and work of Maude Abbott, a Canadian cardiologist about whom I have written. I also have a project on the immigration of my Irish parents and siblings to New Zealand in 1951. So I have lots to do!"

Professor Angela Wanhalla (Ngāi Te Ruahikihiki, Ngāi Tahu)
Professor Angela Wanhalla is an award-winning scholar of gender and colonialism. Her work on interracial relationships has shown how these have been a significant aspect of colonialism in New Zealand and that colonialism was intimate in scale. Using this framework, Angela has successfully broadened understandings of how intimate relations, inclusive of affectionate bonds, sexual violence and the emotional legacies of global war in indigenous societies, are deeply entwined with colonial policy and practice.

Between 2010-2012 she was co-investigator, with Professor Judy Bennett, on an archival and oral history-based research project concerned with exploring the fate of children born of American servicemen and indigenous women in the South Pacific Command during World War II. This project resulted in a book, a website and a documentary film.

Angela has approached these histories in award-winning innovative ways, combining archival research with visual and material culture and oral histories to tell new histories of New Zealand's colonial past from the perspectives of indigenous women and their communities.

She says it was a pleasant surprise to receive the news of being elected Fellow.

"My whānau are really excited and very proud. It is as much their award as it is mine, although it is tinged with some sadness as the person who would have enjoyed this the most, my father, is not with us anymore. He encouraged our love of books and history and I know he would have been enormously proud of this achievement."

Angela says being made a Fellow demonstrates the global significance of humanities research in Aotearoa and at Otago. It specifically acknowledges that Māori women's history – her specialist area – is also world-leading.

"I am so delighted that Māori women's history is getting this level of recognition and feel honoured that I get to join a cohort of amazing Māori women scholars in the Academy."

Angela says having a Professor and Professor Emerita elected in a single year – two of Otago's seven Fellows for 2022 – from History is affirmation of the Programme's strong research record and culture of research success.

"More importantly, I have benefitted from numerous opportunities to collaborate with amazing and world-leading scholars at Otago, such as Barbara Brookes in History, Jacinta Ruru in Law and Lachy Paterson in Te Tumu. Mentorship and collaboration have made a real difference to my research career."

With Professor Lachy Paterson and Dr Sarah Christie (Postdoctoral Fellow in History), Angela co-leads a Marsden-funded project on how Māori communities experienced the Second World War home front (maorihomefront.nz). She is also finishing several book projects, including a monograph on the New Zealand and Pacific war brides who married American servicemen during World War II, to be published in 2023.

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