Giselle Byrnes

Senior Lecturer

BA; MA (Waikato)
PhD (Auckland)

Contact details

Lectures in

HIST 111: Colonial Encounters: Pacific Experiences

HIST 227: Maori and Pakeha in the Nineteenth Century

HIST 419: A Topic in Historiography and Historical Method 1: History and Theory

HIST 420: A Topic in the History of Race Relations in New Zealand: Contexts of the Treaty [not offered in 2007]

PBHY 501: Issues in Public History 1: What is Public History? [not offered in 2006]

Contributes to HIST 112: Introduction to New Zealand History.

Research Areas

• New Zealand history, especially Maori-Pakeha cultural interaction
• New Zealand intellectual and cultural history;
• Post-colonial histories
• The Treaty of Waitangi and the Treaty claims process
• Colonial exploration and travel

Current research

Giselle's research interests broadly address colonial and post-colonial relationships. She is particularly interested in examining the ways in which Europeans came to occupy New Zealand and what the conditions of continued occupancy might be.

Giselle's doctoral research was an alternative reading of the European colonisation of New Zealand during the latter half of the nineteenth century, with particular reference to the work of land surveyors and scientists. The work of surveyors was the subject of her recent book, Boundary Markers: Land Surveying and the Colonisation of New Zealand (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2001). This book challenges the assumptions informing orthodox stories of settlement and suggests that the surveyors' naming, taming, marking out and mapping of the land were assertions of colonising power. It considers the agency of land surveyors as cultural mediators, particularly their contact and interaction with Maori and their use of Maori mapping methods.

Giselle's current research project is a study of the historical narratives produced by the Waitangi Tribunal as part of the current Treaty claims process. Specifically it asks: how are the published reports of the Waitangi Tribunal changing and challenging existing understandings of New Zealand history, specifically the history of Maori-Pakeha relations in the years since 1840? Is the Waitangi Tribunal writing history? What is the role of history in the Treaty claims process? What kinds of histories are being produced? The book also considers Treaty history as a distinctive type of public history.

Recent publications

• The Waitangi Tribunal and New Zealand History, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2004
• Boundary markers: Land surveying and the colonisation of New Zealand, Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2001

Contributions to Books

• 'New Zealand', essay entry in Jennifer Speake, ed., Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia, vol. 2 G to P (3 vols), New York: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2003, pp. 848-851
• 'Claims of the Past: Maori, Pakeha and the politics of settlement', in Wayne Rumbles and Paul Havemann, eds, Prospects and Retrospects: Law in History, Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference of the Australia and New Zealand Law and History Society 2001, Hamilton: University of Waikato, 2002, pp. 155-163
• 'Jackals of the crown? Historians and the Treaty claims process', in Bronwyn Dalley and Jock Phillip, (eds), Going public: The changing face of New Zealand history, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2001
• 'Surveying Space: Constructing the Colonial Landscape', in Bronwyn Dalley and Bronwyn Labrum, eds, Fragments: Essays in New Zealand Social and Cultural History, Auckland University Press, 2000, pp. 54-75

Articles

• 'Past the Last Post? Time, causation and Treaty claims history', Law, Text, Culture, Special Issue: Making Law Visible: Past and Present Histories and Postcolonial Theory, vol. 7, 2003, pp. 251-276
• 'The New Zealand Experience: Outcomes, research and institutional arrangements', Balayi: Culture, Law and Colonialism, vol. 5, 2002, pp. 25-41
• 'A dead sheet covered with meaningless words?' Place names and the cultural colonization of Tauranga, New Zealand Journal of History, vol. 36, no. 1, 2002, pp. 18-35
• 'Jackals of the Crown?: Historians and the Treaty Claims Process in New Zealand', The Public Historian, vol. 20, no. 2, Spring 1998, pp. 9-23
• 'Surveying--The Maori and the Land: An Essay in Historical Representation, New Zealand Journal of History, vol. 31, no. 1, 1997, pp. 85-98
• 'The Colonial Scribe: Shortland's Southern Journey and the Calligraphy of Colonisation', History and Anthropology, vol. 8, no. 4, 1994, pp. 207-35

Page Top