Academic Subject Adviser (History)
Māori Students' Liaison Officer
Postgraduate Co-ordinator (MA and PhD)
Ngāi Te Ruahikihiki, Ngāi Tahu
Contact details
Room 2S4, Arts 1 (Burns) Building
Tel +64 3 479 8462
Email angela.wanhalla@otago.ac.nz
Academic qualifications
2005: PhD University of Canterbury
2001: MA University of Canterbury
1999: BA(Hons) University of Canterbury
Research interests
Angela specialises in Māori, New Zealand, colonial and women's history. She has published extensively on the history of gender, race and marriage in New Zealand and Pacific history. This includes Matters of the Heart (2013), a national study of interracial marriage in New Zealand covering 200-years of history, research on Māori women and shore whaling in early southern New Zealand, and a collaborative project on the social impacts of American servicemen in the South Pacific during World War II, which led to a co-edited book, Mothers’ Darlings (2016). With support from a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship, Angela researched and wrote Of Love and War (2023), which focuses on the New Zealand and Pacific war brides who married Americans and settled in the United States.
Angela has continued to undertake research on World War II. From 2019-2023 she co-led a collaborative project with Emeritus Professor Lachy Paterson (Te Tumu) on the Māori Home Front during the Second World War, supported by a Marsden Grant. With Dr Claire Macindoe she is currently investigating the relationship between war service and health, focusing on Māori servicemen’s access to medical care during and after the Second World War.
Read more about the Māori Home Front project
Courses taught
- HIST 107 New Zealand in the World from the 18th Century
- HIST 242 Histories of Crime and Punishment
- HIST 246 Activist Histories: Contesting Settler Colonialism
- HIST 353 Practising History
Areas of research supervision
Cross-cultural encounters, colonialism and race in nineteenth century New Zealand, Māori history, gender, marriage, the family and the history of sexuality.
Publications
Wanhalla, A. (2023). Of love and war: Pacific brides of World War II. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 252p. Authored Book - Research
Wanhalla, A., Christie, S., Paterson, L., Webb, R., & Newman, E. (2024). Te Hau Kāinga: The Māori home front during the Second World War. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 282p. Authored Book - Research
Wanhalla, A. (2013). Matters of the heart: A history of interracial marriage in New Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 231p. Authored Book - Research
Wanhalla, A., Ryan, L., & Nurka, C. (Eds.). (2023). Aftermaths: Colonialism, violence and memory in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press, 312p. Edited Book - Research
Paterson, L., & Wanhalla, A. (2017). He Reo Wāhine: Māori women's voices from the nineteenth century. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press, 372p. Authored Book - Research