Past, present, future

Understanding the legacy of New Zealand's complicated past will be made easier by research from the University of Otago's Centre for Research on Colonial Culture (CRCC).

Department of History and Art History Professor Tony Ballantyne says that, since its inception in 2012, the "flagship" research centre has striven to offer greater understanding of colonialism's impact.

"Colonialism remains a central fact in New Zealand's history and, in many ways, casts a dark and difficult shadow on our contemporary political and social life. So much of the current political debate and contestation in this country is, actually, really about colonialism and how we deal with its legacies."

The centre was established to provide a focal point for a long tradition of collaborative humanities research at Otago, and to provide leverage for new research initiatives through a sequence of symposia, conferences and workshops. The centre's research is based on input from 14 academics representing several disciplines, including Māori Studies, Education, English, Gender Studies, and History and Art History.

Collaboration is central to the centre's commitment to re-examining the colonial past. Perspectives from different disciplines enable the centre to open up new horizons on the past, especially illuminating the texture of everyday colonial life rather than just focusing on "macro-level" economic and political trends.

"How does the colonial past remain an important presence in our day-to-day life now? Unless we reckon with the material consequences and lasting cultural consequences of these relationships, we cannot move forward."

Accordingly, a conference jointly held with Toitū Otago Settlers Museum earlier this year focused on colonial objects (such as taiaha, medicine chests or family portraits) as "pathways to the past". The conference, which was attended by 125 historians, archivists and heritage professionals, showed that there is an enduring interest in the story of New Zealand's settlement.

"Museum objects offer tangible links with the materials and media of the past and the way people lived. They continue to have a resonance now and offer important windows into family histories and also the everyday struggles many faced as they made homes here."

CRCC members have also worked closely with the Ministry of Justice, holding a symposium for the Constitutional Advisory Panel. During the Constitution Conversation, eight members provided historical insights into the complex background to many constitutional, political and legal arrangements that underpin New Zealand's contemporary political structures, and they reflected on the relevance of that knowledge in future understandings of New Zealand's constitutional arrangements.

"As this country moves ahead, we are always going to be dealing with the fact that New Zealand was a British colony, and through that process there were winners and losers. In many ways, our culture remains deeply imprinted with our relationship with Britain. In the late 19th century we became the farm for the British Empire and agricultural production established the foundations of the current economy. How we negotiate those legacies in terms of future constitutional and social change is very important."

The centre has quickly built strong links with other institutions and is running research events in the coming months with the National Library and the Monash Indigenous Centre. In June 2014, CRCC and the University of Sydney will jointly run a research symposium exploring the visions of the future that were developed in the colonial period, assessing the influence of competing ideologies in shaping patterns of political and economic development.

Such initiatives are important because they open up multiple ways to understand the past and perhaps point to various paths into the future.

"The Waitangi Tribunal has been an important forum for the state and iwi Māori to come together and talk about the difficulties of the past, and to establish new foundations for looking towards the future.

"I think those kinds of conversations cannot only operate at a political level, they need to operate at a broader cultural level too. The CRCC enables some of those discussions and opens up some new questions.

"How does the colonial past remain an important presence in our day-to-day life now? Unless we reckon with the material consequences and lasting cultural consequences of these relationships, we cannot move forward."