The Meeting Place - A New Zealand History Blog

VUW History Programme Seminar, Friday 3 May 2013  The History Programme at VUW warmly invites you to attend a seminar by Dr Vincent O'Malley, HistoryWorks: Te Riri ki Waikato: The Waikato War revisited This year marks the 150th anniversary of the invasion of Waikato, rightly described by Alan Ward as ‘the climactic event in New Zealand race relations’ history. It is tempting to assume that, between James Cowan’s sprawling narrative and James Belich’s more contemporary, concise and insightful analysis, we know all we need to about that conflict. In fact, there is a great deal more that can be explored. Drawing upon recent research for the Waitangi Tribunal’s Te Rohe Potae inquiry, Vincent O’Malley will discuss some of his new (and sometimes surprising) findings concerning the war, its origins and aftermath.  Vincent completed his PhD in NZ Studies at VUW in 2004 and has published widely in the area of Crown and Māori historical relationships, i...

Later this year I will be attending a conference at the University of Bern, Switzerland, on the theme of 'Cooperation under the Premise of Imperialism'. Many of the papers to be presented at the conference will be exploring the role of indigenous agents in imperialism throughout Africa and Asia. In my case, I will be discussing the role of kupapa in New Zealand history. I hope to write more about this later on, but meanwhile, by way of providing some insight into my main arguments, what follows is the abstract to my paper. +++++++++ The term ‘collaboration’, used in its historical sense, carries unquestionably pejorative connotations. One thinks immediately of those who collaborated with the Nazi regime during the Second World War. Depending on one’s cultural context, the Campbell’s role at Glencoe might also come to mind, or any number of other examples of groups seen as acting in a manner contrary to the national interest. In the New Zealand context, the label i...