In/visible Sight
The Mixed-Descent Families of Southern New Zealand
by Angela Wanhalla
Bridget Williams Books
RRP $39.99 240 x 170 mm portrait, 220 pages

The role of interracial intimacy in forging new societies has been researched widely in several colonial settings. But in New Zealand far more is known about the interaction between Mäori and the Crown – about government relationships, patterns of resistance, and processes of land dispossession – than about the experiences of individuals, families and communities.

Angela Wanhalla sets out to explore this less visible side of colonialism by tracing the history of interracial marriage. She locates her story in southern New Zealand, a part of the country where such relationships were most prevalent, and centres it on the community of Maitapapa, on the Taieri River, where her great-grandparents were born.

Southern Ngäi Tahu engaged with the European newcomers on a sustained scale from the 1820s, encountering systematic settlement from the 1840s, and fighting land alienation and erosion of resource rights from the mid-nineteenth century. The evolving social world was one framed by marriage practices, kinship networks and cultural practices – a world in which interracial intimacy played a formative role.

In exploring this history through a particular group of family networks, In/visible Sight offers new insights into New Zealand’s colonial past. Marriage as a fundamental social institution in the nineteenth century takes on a different shape when seen
through the lens of cross-cultural encounters. The contours and ambiguities of living as mixed descent in colonial New Zealand emerge vividly from this engaging history.

About Angela Wanhalla
Recipient of the prestigious Rowheath Trust Award and Carl Smith Medal in 2008, Angela Wanhalla (Ngäi Tahu) lectures in history at the University of Otago. She is currently engaged in a research project on interracial marriage in New Zealand, 1769–1969, funded by a Royal Society of New Zealand/Marsden Grant. Publishing in international as well as New Zealand periodicals, Angela Wanhalla draws on a strong theoretical framework for her writing on Mäori society.