The Meeting Place - A New Zealand History Blog

Back in March this year I launched Unsettling: Aotearoa New Zealand History , a   brand new history newsletter on a dedicated email newsletter platform.  In my first post , I talked about how I saw this as an extension of my goal to help raise awareness of Aotearoa New Zealand history. But also, since the past permeates the present in so many ways, how I expected from time to time to also introduce a historical lenses to contemporary debates.   I’ve done that with various issues, including the odious Treaty Principles Bill , cuts to the historian roles at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, the outrageous assault on basic legal principles represented by the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Amendment Act and other matters.     But I have also traversed a range of other topics, from the  invasion of Parihaka , He Whakaputanga (the 1835 Declaration of Independence of New Zealand),   the Waitangi Tribunal’s 50 th anniversary , the 1852...

I have recently been developing an Aotearoa New Zealand History workshop that will cover Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty but also explore Māori and Tangata Tiriti relations much more broadly, from the late eighteenth century through to today, showing how this history continues to resonate in the present.   The workshop can be delivered online or in-person. And by way of rewarding premium subscribers to my newsletter, I am offering free and exclusive access to the very first online workshop.  Everyone who is a paid subscriber to Unsettling: Aotearoa New Zealand History as at 26 June 2025 will receive a Zoom link to the workshop to be held the following day at:  10.00am-12.00pm NZT Friday 27 June 2025  Just sign up as premium subscriber before then for access and that’s it. All I would ask in return is that, if possible, you provide feedback afterwards on the workshop so that I can make any necessary tweaks or adjustments for future sessions.   Meanwhile if ...

In the past year I have taken part in a number of different talks and other events alongside other participants. Here I post links to those available online, organised chronologically. In February I took part in a podcast with Phil Quinn and Shane Te Pou ahead of Waitangi Day.      In March I took part in a webinar for the Tiriti-Based Futures online symposium alongside Dr Liana MacDonald and Richard Crawford on 'Aotearoa New Zealand Histories: Diving into a Contested Past'.   In April 2024 I gave a seminar as part of the induction day for new Fellows of the Royal Society Te Apārangi alongside 21 other Ngā Ahurei a Te Apārangi Fellows and Ngā Ahurei Honore a Te Apārangi Honorary Fellows elected to the Academy of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in its 2023 intake.   In September I appeared on The Hoon with Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale . In September I also appeared on RNZ Afternoons show hosted by Jesse Mulligan for the Bookmarks segment . Also in September, I ...

Aotearoa New Zealand has come a long way in the past few years in its efforts to engage with its history in a more upfront and honest manner. For those of us who have campaigned for such a change, this is not before time. This new-found willingness to move beyond a rose-tinted approach to the nation’s past in which anything uncomfortable or considered to reflect poorly on the Pākehā majority is shunned and ignored has taken considerable effort and is still very much a work in progress. Confronting the often bloody and brutal realities of colonial dispossession of Māori has come as a shock for many non-Māori New Zealanders brought up to believe that they lived in a country with the greatest ‘race relations’ in the world. A more robust and truthful understanding of that history is to a large degree dependent on the education system. And while there is good news on this front, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the campaign has been a long and at times difficult one.   ...