JC Beaglehole Lecture: Aroha Harris
“Aroha-nui to all” – grandmothers history and great loves
Grandmothers are one of the great facts and great loves of my life. I hold them closely, fiercely. In response to a 2024 call from Te Pouhere Kōrero for essay proposals on the centrality of whānau wellbeing to Māori historical and contemporary realities, grandmothers showed up in force. They are creators and keepers of archives; horticulturalists, nurses, activists, and writers; coaches and educators; carers, leaders, and role models. Nana, Nan, Kāni. Tūpuna. This presentation will walk through a selection of vignettes related to the wellbeing of whānau. Throughout, I will ponder the grandmothers and grandmotherly
influences at play, how they act on my practice as an historian, and the ways they bind me to another great love: Māori History.
Aroha Harris (Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi, MNZM) is an Associate Professor of History at Te Pūtahi Mātauranga o Waipapa Taumata Rau, Faculty of Arts and Education at the University of Auckland. Significant among her publications are Hīkoi: Forty Years of Māori Protest (2004), the award-winning Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History (2014), a collaboration with Emeritus Professor Atholl Anderson and the late Dame Judith Binney, and the essay collection co-edited with Melissa Matutina Williams, Maranga! Maranga! Maranga! Essays from Te Pouhere Kōrero (2024). Aroha is a former President of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, a founding member of Te Pouhere Kōrero Māori historians’ collective, and former President of the New Zealand Historical Association. She was a Waitangi Tribunal member from 2008 to 2023.
Wiremu Maihi Te Rangikāheke memorial lecture
Arapine Walker, Te Rangikaheke Bidois, Toro Bidois, Akuira Walker, Sandy Walker and Te Whai Matauranga Smith will present ‘Kāore he mea i waiho noa e ōku tupuna te tini raupeka kia waimarie ai.’ (‘My ancestors did not leave things to chance, they did things with purpose and for good reason.’) Preregister here.
For full details of these named lectures and a list of previous presenters see:
Wiremu Maihi Te Rangikāheke memorial lecture
Mana and flax roots news: weaving together Māori and Pacific histories
In response to the widespread racism in Auckland and New Zealand, the Mana newspaper was launched in June 1977 to “reflect the lives and opinions of the Māori and Pacific Island communities in New Zealand, and to provide information and news in Polynesian languages about New Zealand and the countries of the Pacific.’ (16 June 1977:4). From June 1977- May 1978, Mana became a convergence site of allyship against Indigenous land alienation, dawn raids, Te Reo marginalisation, workplace discrimination and a nuclear Pacific threat. This panel reflects on the philosophy of Mana imbedded in the newspaper text and the work of Whāea Vapnierka Kupenga: the Māori and only wāhine editor of Mana. Specifically, it discusses articulations of whakawhanaungatanga and manaakitanga on the page and Indigenous curatorial processes required to honour this legacy. It also looks at the parallels between missionary codification of Pacific languages and the language of AI algorithms. Ultimately, this panel demonstrates the types of socio-linguistic archival work that can be done with and in Indigenous and Pacific languages.
Speakers
Andrea Low (‘Ōiwi, Tongareva ,Sāmoa, iTaukei, Scotland) is the associate curator, contemporary world at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum, where she co-curated the exhibitions Tāmaki Herenga Waka: Stories of Auckland and Mana: Protest in Print. She is a regular contributor of articles and publications that trace histories of Pacific peoples in Aotearoa and wider Pacific. The entanglements of history, colonialism, Indigeneity, biography and diaspora are central to her research interests. Andrea is a Council member of the Polynesian Society and reviews editor for Waka Kuaka and is also on the advisory board of Marinade: Aotearoa Journal of Moana Art and Oceania review editor for Museum Worlds.
Paula Legal (Pākehā (Dutch, Danish, UK), Tainui, Ngāti Awa is the associate curator, heritage publications for documentary heritage at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum. She has worked in collection development for a number of libraries, with a particular interest in heritage material. Enabling access to taonga (treasured objects) and facilitating community connection is a core tenet of her mahi (work). Most recently she has co-curated the exhibition Mana: Protest in Print.
Wanda Ieremia-Allan (Sāpapali’i, Fusi Safotulafai, Saoluafata, Vaie’e and Lalomanu, Sāmoa) is the associate curator for, Pacific documentary heritage at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum. Her recently completed PhD study focuses on the early-twentieth century literary cultures in the London Missionary Society periodical O le Sulu Samoa. Her research interests include nineteenth and early twentieth century Pacific language periodicals, Pacific textual cultures, Pacific missionary women’s writing, Indigenous archives and Samoan literary histories. Most recently she has co-curated the exhibition Mana: Protest in Print.
New Public Histories and Participatory Public Art
Socially engaged public art has been an important contribution to the task of restorying dominant place histories and methodologies. There are rich synergies in creative practices of Aotearoa and Australia at the intersections of Indigenous-led research, critical settler history and local place activism and advocacy. This multi-stage wānanga brings together three artist-researchers and creative practitioners from Aotearoa and Australia, who offer engaging examples of critical and alternative approaches to history through creative practice.
The events begin with a morning guided hīkoi (walk). As we walk and talk with/in the central city, near the University of Auckland campus, we will explore walking-based art practices as a mode of doing public history, community sources of knowledge, and cyclical histories of place. Later in the morning, a wānanga and facilitated discussion will highlight key examples of the artist-researchers’ practices, the way they source and share under-represented histories of place. In conversation, we discuss art as a vehicle for truth-telling and new public histories, working with different forms of publics, historical sources and interdisciplinary methodologies. Attendees will be able to actively participate and share experiences. The programme will end with a shared kai event, drawing on themes of food sovereignty, knowledge transfer and legacies of colonialism to practice ‘he rau ringa a oti ai, many hands making history.’
Please note, pre-bookings will be made available for the hīkoi and shared kai events.
Contributors
Angela Kilford (Te Whanau A Kai, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu) is a designer and artist with a background in textiles. Her inspiration comes from Māori concepts and knowledge. Her most recent works have explored the whakapapa of local ecology and the lesser-known connections between living and non-living entities. These ideas are examined and expressed through walking, performance, collaborative making, large-scale public installations and writing.
Amy Spiers is an artist, curator, writer and researcher living and working in Country of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Boon Wurrung peoples in Narrm (Melbourne, Australia). An ARC DECRA Senior Research Fellow at RMIT School of Art (2022-24), engaged in research that explores the capacity of public and socially engaged art to critique and positively transform present society, and how such art practices might generatively address difficult colonial histories and social relations between Indigenous and settler peoples in Australia. Awarded Australian Research Council 2024 Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) for the project: The hard work of decolonisation: Truth-telling Australia’s colonial past with art by non-Indigenous artists.
Driven to see social justice for Māori and wider under-represented communities, Grayson Goffe (Te Āti Awa, Taranaki) is the director of Whakamanatia, a Kaupapa Māori-based community group that nurtures identity to nourish community, working on various social enterprise such as ‘Te Paparahi toi Māori’ and ‘Boil Up Crew’. He developed Mauwai alongside two other directors that exists to enhance wellbeing & self-determination by co-creating learning environments that value lived experience, culture, identity and creativity. Grayson believes in the transformational potential creative practice/process can have within a community, enabling individuals to reimagine, disrupt and rebuild our future both collaboratively and equitably.
Mikayla Journée’s research on place-based art histories from Aotearoa draws on art historical and oral history methodologies. Her work explores themes of place, mapping, legacies of colonialism, socially engaged practice, intercultural collaboration, oral place histories, art activism and ethics of care. She is University of Auckland’s History Innovation Fund Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2025) and was awarded Faculty of Arts Teaching Excellence Award – GTA in 2024. She has a career background in museum public programming, public space activation and GLAM sector governance.
The New Zealand Historical Association 