In/Visible Sight: Māori–European Families in Urban New Zealand, 1890–1940

Abstract

This article examines the multiple ways in which persons of mixed descent were invisible in most New Zealand cities during the first half of the 20th century. It is argued that living as mixed descent was a highly visible experience during the 19th century, but this increasingly gave way to invisibility during an era of state-sponsored assimilation. Invisibility was a strategy for survival and success in the mainstream society, but was often accompanied by cultural loss. It is argued that oral histories, in conjunction with the family photograph album, provide an important way in which to recover lost histories, and that the descendants of persons who disappeared into urban New Zealand in the first half of the twentieth century are employing the family photograph album to assert their Māori identity and overcome a history of dispersal and loss.

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Notes on contributors

Angela Wanhalla

Angela Wanhalla is a lecturer in New Zealand and Maori history at the University of Otago. Her research focuses on the intimate of colonialism in the nineteenth century. A graduate of the University of Canterbury, she is currently preparing a manuscript on the history of intermarriage in southern New Zealand.