Keynote speakers
Professor Lachy Paterson
KeLachy Paterson is a professor in Te Tumu: School of Māori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies at the University of Otago where he teaches te reo Māori and Māori history.
His primary research has involved niupepa (Māori- language newspapers) of the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, exploring the social, political, and religious discourses promulgated within these publications.
His publications include a monograph on mid-nineteenth-century Māori-language newspapers, Colonial Discourses: Niupepa Māori, 1855–1863 (Otago, 2006), He Reo Wāhine: Māori Women’s Voices from the Nineteenth Century (Auckland, 2017) coauthored with Angela Wanhalla, and a co-edited collection with Tony Ballantyne and Angela Wanhalla, Indigenous Textual Cultures: Reading and Writing in the Age of Global Empire (Duke, forthcoming).
Keynote address:
'Ngā Niupepa Māori: Māori-language Newspapers, and why they are important today'
The distinctive nature of Māori society and of colonialism in New Zealand resulted in te reo Māori being used as a civic language well into the twentieth century, not just between Māori, but as a means to facilitate communication between the government and Māori. New Zealand has one of the largest repositories of indigenous printed & manuscript material in Australasia and Oceania, on a par only with Hawai’i. For the nineteenth century alone there are 1500 one-off Māori-language print-publications, and 48 periodicals.
It is these periodicals, both nineteenth and twentieth century, known as niupepa, that this presentation will be addressing, first providing an overview of the topic, before exploring why these publications are important today. This includes for linguistic research, and modern language teaching, but the main thrust of the talk, with a number of examples, will be on how the newspapers can not only provide different textures to our histories, and new windows through which to view the past, but can also, due the the high level of Māori engagement with niupepa, allow the voices of ancestors to “speak” again.
Dr Sue Anderson
Sue Anderson is Lecturer in Aboriginal Cultures and Australian Society at the University of South Australia.
She is immediate past President of Oral History Australia, was editor of its Journal from 2011 to 2018 and is the current President of the International Oral History Association.
She has worked for over 25 years with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities as an oral historian, archaeologist, and cultural consultant, specialising in oral history, Indigenous culture and Australian history.
Her co-authored book, Doreen Kartinyeri: My Ngarrindjeri Calling (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2008) was oral history-based because this was the only way of telling the story from an authentic voice.
Her current research is a $523,000 ARC grant-funded project: Songlines of Country: Baiame, the Mundaguddah and the Seven Sisters.
Keynote address:
'Aboriginal oral history and the book in the digital age’
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures have been maintained by oral tradition for millenia. While technically Aboriginal peoples have not had written language, knowledge transmission has occurred not only through stories passed down but also through painting, engraving, song, dance and ceremonies. The holistic nature of Indigenous cultural immersion means that all these genres represent what westerners regard as the ‘book’ and can be said to comprise both ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’.
Since 1788, however, Aboriginal peoples have been forced, both overtly and insidiously, to adopt the written form, mostly in English, where their voices have been muted. Nevertheless, many have not abandoned traditional ways of being, knowing and doing.
In comparison, western oral historical practice, which has gathered momentum since the 1960s and 1970s, has involved the recording of the stories of marginalised peoples, giving a voice to the oppressed, in their own words and with the cadences, emotions and sensitivities of humanity.
Until the digital era, however, these recordings have not been easily disseminated to the wider community. Only those with time and enthusiasm can sit listening to hours of oral history recordings, and when recordings are transcribed and written down many of the nuances of the voice are lost.
With rapidly evolving technological advances there is now much more opportunity for Aboriginal people to again tell their own stories in their own ways with their own voices and for the narrators themselves, as well as researchers, to access and retrieve those stories much more easily. This paper will discuss some of the ways this can benefit everyone in the twenty-first century.