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Item Knowing, belonging & becoming-with the Ōruawharo : an ethnography of a river : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Anthropology at Massey University, Albany Campus, Aotearoa, New Zealand(Massey University, 2025-11-17) Joensen, ClareThis thesis is situated in the northwest of Te Ika-a-Māui, the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand along the Ōruawharo river, a salty tidal tributary of the Kaipara Harbour. For over a hundred and fifty years, the Ōruawharo and surrounding district have been storied by a dominant ‘settler’ narrative which maps onto place, as names, text, histories, monuments and civic apparatus. However, this is not the only story of the Ōruawharo. There are multiple stories, multiple ways of knowing the river; knowings which produce different belongings. As such belonging to a place is always a process of becoming, and this becoming is produced relationally, as a series of “withs”, with both humans and non-humans. These becoming-withs produce embodied ways of knowing which in turn, remake place when given the opportunity to be known by others. This thesis aims to bring to light the unknown, hidden and subordinated Ōruawharo knowledges in order to reveal multiplicities and develop new ways of thinking about place. This is Pākehā research done inbetween Māori and Pākehā worlds in a Māori-Pākehā place; a form of research which comes with its own set of troubles. As it is a Pākehā imperative to decolonise (Shaw 2021b), I stay with the trouble (Haraway 2016), and through a level of discomfort, produce small decolonising acts in written text, public speaking roles and through the curation of an exhibit. Decolonising actions, spurred on by this thesis, have then led to others as people come to know more, including that which cannot be unknown. Drawing on knowledges generated with boats (boat ethnography), people (interviews and casual conversations), texts (archives, books, texts, journals, letters and documents), the curation of an exhibit and a wide range of encounters in my community, I debunk knowing place as a singularity and demonstrate the value of knowing place differently through these methods. Ultimately, this ethnography of a river offers a multiplicity of knowings-with and in doing so, shifts human-centric and settler-centric narratives with tendencies to dominate. With dynamism, knowing, becoming and belonging are shown as relational, embodied, in amongst the withs, ever in motion, shaping lives and reshaping place, place as seen, imagined, felt, understood, experienced and remade.Item Language, ideology, and identity : referencing Maori in biographical collections : in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Massey University(Massey University, 1997) White, TomThis study will examine how Maori are textually represented in the construction of New Zealand. It will do this by comparing texts of collected biography, dating from the late nineteenth-century until the present. Obviously this use of Maori is not unique to reference biography, but this thesis will largely focus on the texts 1 "Text" in this study will take on a wider meaning than "book". Following Derrida, a text will be seen as going beyond the apparent borders of single entities to the other writings that inform the production of meaning in single writings. See, Derrida, Jacques, 'Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences', Writing and Difference, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. at hand not the wider cultural practices that may lie behind them. The focus on the "text" at expense of "context" reflects the underlying belief that the making of the Maori culture has largely been a textual act. 2 This approach toward cultural invention can be broadly categorised as "constructivist". See, Tilley, Virgina, 'The Terms of the Debate: Untangling Language About Ethnicity and Ethnic Movements', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 20:3(1997), pp.497-522. Texts do not reflect wider political or academic procedures, they construct them. This thesis will look at this phenomenon in the specific location of the reference biography genre. The texts chosen to form the basis of this study, may appear an arbitrarily selected group with very little that would encourage a natural comparative study. However, as the study progresses the affinities these works have in their modes of textual production will be illustrated. At this point it will be enough to state that these texts all collect together multiple biographies, in the broadest sense of the word, under a national title. Most are concerned with constructing a Maori biographical object in this textual site. [From Introduction]Item Portrayals of the Moriori people : historical, ethnographical, anthropological and popular sources, c.1791-1989 : a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History, Massey University(Massey University, 2016) Wheeler, ReadMichael King’s 1989 book, Moriori: A People Rediscovered, still stands as the definitive work on the Moriori, the Native people of the Chatham Islands. King wrote, ‘Nobody in New Zealand – and few elsewhere in the world- has been subjected to group slander as intense and as damaging as that heaped upon the Moriori.’ Since its publication, historians have denigrated earlier works dealing with the Moriori, arguing that the way in which they portrayed Moriori was almost entirely unfavourable. This thesis tests this conclusion. It explores the perspectives of European visitors to the Chatham Islands from 1791 to 1989, when King published Moriori. It does this through an examination of newspapers, Native Land Court minutes, and the writings of missionaries, settlers, and ethnographers. The thesis asks whether or not historians have been selective in their approach to the sources, or if, perhaps, they have ignored the intricacies that may have informed the views of early observers. The thesis argues that during the nineteenth century both Maori and European perspectives influenced the way in which Moriori were portrayed in European narrative. Moriori, in accordance with the prevailing theories of race were deemed to be inferior to Maori, and therefore Europeans. However, the thesis argues that despite this there does exist a literature that holds Moriori in a more favourable light and that a shift in perspective was occurring sometime before 1989.Item Hitler's death squads : an historiographical and bibliographical analysis of the Einsatzgruppen : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University(Massey University, 2000) Semmens, MarkOn 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler became German chancellor. Hitler and the party Nazi's (or Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei) arrival in power ushered in a brutally repressive period in Germany history, especially for Jews. The Nazis began with the 1935 Nuremberg Race Laws which classified the population, according to a three tier system. "Aryans", who were ascribed full German citizenship and rights, were at the top. "Mischlinge", or persons of mixed descent who did not practice the Jewish faith, received limited rights and formed the middle tier. "Jews" formed the bottom tier and had three Jewish grandparents, or had two grandparents who practiced the Jewish faith. They formed the bottom tier. They were deprived of German citizenship on the basis that only persons of German blood could be citizens. Over the next four years, the state forced Jews out of various vocations and professions and a series of decrees in 1937 resulted in the forced "aryanisation" of many Jewish businesses. The Kristallnacht followed this in 1938 when thugs destroyed and looted Jewish synagogues and shops. German Jews were fined for the resulting damage which effectively stripped many of their remaining assets. By the end of 1940, Germany had conquered most of Europe and took advantage of this to forcibly move large numbers of Jews from both Germany and occupied countries to Poland. With a seemingly endless need for Lebensraum. Germany began its ill fated Operation Barbarossa in the summer of 1941. This is generally believed to have marked the beginning of the "Final Solution" or extermination phase. The primitive part of the extermination phase is commonly accepted to have begun with special motorised units called Einsatzgruppen.. These units rounded up Jews, forced them to dig pits and then executed them with either single shots or automatic fire. Numbering approximately 3,000 personnel and divided into four units, they policed the Russian front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The Einsatzgruppen were ad hoc groups which bought together personnel from different security organisations and the Waffen SS. The psychological difficulties experienced by Einsatzgruppen personnel in killing women and children resulted in the use of gas vans. These gas vans are widely believed to be the precursor to the Polish extermination camps and their gas chambers. Thus, the Einsatzgruppen play a pivotal role in the Holocaust. The difficulties they experienced resulted in the setting up of the infamous camps in Poland.Item Memory, history, nation, war : the official histories of New Zealand in the Second World War, 1939-45 : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirement of the Doctor of Philosophy in History, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand(Massey University, 2012) Bell, Rachael ElizabethThe Official Histories of the Second World War are the largest historiographical project in New Zealand's history. They are still used as core reference texts for individual battles and for the war as a whole. The War Histories were intended to fill a wide range of roles. They were to be 'at once a memorial, a souvenir, an interpretation of events and a record of experience in certain specialised fields'. The conflicting nature of these roles created a double dichotomy within the War History project, between an affirmative national memory and an empirically accurate history on the one hand and between the critical evaluation of campaigns and the recognition of service and sacrifice on the other. This thesis examines this dichotomy through a framework of memory, history, nation and war. It uses four case studies from the War History series, Journey towards Christmas, by S.P. Llewellyn, 23 Battalion, by Angus Ross, Crete , by Dan Davin and Battle for Egypt, the Summer of 1942, by J.L. Scoullar, to consider the extent to which the tensions between the roles of the Histories influenced their production and their place as contemporary histories in post-war New Zealand. While the War Histories represent the largest repository of information on New Zealand in World War Two, the thesis contends that to use the series now as reference works only is to miss a significant opportunity. The War Histories were Official, but they were also contemporary and collective in their production. Each volume in the series is a valuable historical text in its own right, and can be read and deconstructed as representative of both the individual and society that produced it.Item 'A most creditable production' : Chronicles of the N.Z.E.F. (New Zealand Expeditionary Force), 1916-1919 : their publication and utility for historical research : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Defence and Strategic Studies at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand(Massey University, 2011) Carr, Carolyn JaneThis thesis examines the Chronicles of the N.Z.E.F. (New Zealand Expeditionary Force) that were published during World War I from August 1916 until January 1919, and their usefulness for historical research. The thesis explores how they were published, their purpose and the role of the editor Clutha Mackenzie. The content for a sample of issues that cover New Zealand’s participation in the First Battle of the Somme (1916) and the Third Battle of Ypres (1917), also known as Passchendaele, is analysed and the contributors and correspondents identified. The same sample of issues are studied in detail and compared and contrasted to ascertain how these battles are written about in the Chronicles and how useful this material might be for historical research. The thesis finds that the Chronicles mostly succeeded in meeting its three aims. These were to be a means of communicating with the New Zealand troops in all theatres of the war and in the United Kingdom as well as with the people back in New Zealand, to provide a record of how the money raised in New Zealand to support the troops was being spent, and to be a medium for the literary efforts of the troops. Assisted by some influential supporters, both civilian and to a lesser extent the military authorities, the editor played a key role in starting the Chronicles and in all aspects of their production, including funding, content and distribution, which ensured their continuous publication for more than two years. As a source for historical research the thesis finds that they do not add to the existing battle narratives about the New Zealanders’ part in the Somme and Passchendaele. However the variety of detail on army organisation and everyday life at the front provides a rich and largely under-utilised source of material for social and cultural studies. They also offer a window through which to view the thoughts and feelings of the New Zealand soldier in the First World War.Item Revisiting James Cowan : a reassessment of The New Zealand Wars (1922-23) : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand(Massey University, 2010) Wood, GregoryWidely differing perceptions of the early twentieth century New Zealand writer James Cowan have led to confusion over how he should be best remembered – as a journalist, an historian, or a combination of both. Most of the previous scholarly assessments of Cowan have focused on his greatest achievement, The New Zealand Wars (1922-23), and not sought further connections with his other works to reveal the existence of a coherent historiography. This thesis fleshes out Cowan’s historiography by including and reviewing three other books in his oeuvre, two written immediately before the release of The New Zealand Wars (The Maoris of New Zealand and The Adventures of Kimble Bent), and one shortly afterwards (The Maoris in the Great War). All four books contributed in their own unique way to an early goal of Cowan’s to write a history of Maori-Pakeha interaction and reconciliation following the turmoil of the New Zealand Wars of the nineteenth century. They also reveal a progressive attempt by Cowan to write history of a suitable standard to ultimately earn him the dual status of firstly, ‘oral historian’ and secondly, ‘public historian’, that is, ‘an historian writing outside academia’. The terms did not exist in Cowan’s era, so his research methods must be considered advanced for the time. My subsequent review of Cowan’s major work The New Zealand Wars shows that his writing transcended journalism in its creation, and has led to this reassessment of Cowan as a much more significant writer for his era than has been accorded to him so far.