title: Developing the Te Aroha district until c.1910

authors: Hart, Philip

abstract: When the Aroha Block was opened to Pakeha settlers, they found what to them was a wilderness with a great potential. Some of those seeking farms were miners, and as mining faded they encouraged the government to establish special farm settlements for them. But before the land’s potential could be tapped, it had to be surveyed, purchased from the Crown (often using the deferred payment scheme, as at Te Aroha West), and drained, a process fraught with difficulties and, it was charged, incompetence. Some land speculators were attracted to the district because the new goldfield provided a market for produce. As it took years to construct good roads, the Waihou River was the main means of moving people and produce. Once the river was snagged and the swamps were drained, a new problem arose: silting, solved for a time by planting willows along its banks. Over time, bridges replaced punts, and in 1886 the railway arrived.
After surviving harsh conditions when developing their land, farmers were able to provide a wide range of agricultural produce to local and regional markets. Kauri gum was dug, fleetingly, and the flax industry waxed and waned, but the arrival of dairying in the 1890s was an important step forward in the successful development of the district. In time, the first settlers could look back on their achievements and rejoice in the myth (and the reality) of the hardy pioneer.

text: Developing the Te Aroha district until c.1910 When the Aroha Block was opened to Pakeha settlers, they found what to them was a wilderness with a great potential. Some of those seeking farms were miners, and as mining faded they encouraged the government to establish special farm settlements for them. But before the land’s potential could be tapped, it had to be surveyed, purchased from the Crown (often using the deferred payment scheme, as at Te Aroha West), and drained, a process fraught with difficulties and, it was charged, incompetence. Some land speculators were attracted to the district because the new goldfield provided a market for produce. As it took years to construct good roads, the Waihou River was the main means of moving people and produce. Once the river was snagged and the swamps were drained, a new problem arose: silting, solved for a time by planting willows along its banks. Over time, bridges replaced punts, and in 1886 the railway arrived.
After surviving harsh conditions when developing their land, farmers were able to provide a wide range of agricultural produce to local and regional markets. Kauri gum was dug, fleetingly, and the flax industry waxed and waned, but the arrival of dairying in the 1890s was an important step forward in the successful development of the district. In time, the first settlers could look back on their achievements and rejoice in the myth (and the reality) of the hardy pioneer.

year: 2016

title: Editorial

authors: Coleman, Claire

abstract: Frequently marginalised and maligned, the arts in education are often positioned as a nice-to-have “extra” for students but not academically vital or significant (Ross, 1975). However, as artificial intelligence replaces the traditional workforce in numerous industries, creativity, and the arts, often seen as a conduit for creativity, have attracted renewed interest. Many educators consider the arts essential for their ability to engage and activate responsive critical thinking, possibility thinking and develop flexible learners ready to adapt to an unknown job market. National and international research documents the transformative potential of embedding quality arts processes and learning experiences across the curriculum (Biesta, 2013; Catterall, 2009; Ewing & Saunders, 2018). Recent enthusiasm for 21st-century skills has seen the arts welcomed into STE(A)M (science, technology, engineering, arts, and maths) education as part of a drive to remain economically competitive in an increasingly automated world (Geisinger, 2016; Land, 2013).

text: Editorial Frequently marginalised and maligned, the arts in education are often positioned as a nice-to-have “extra” for students but not academically vital or significant (Ross, 1975). However, as artificial intelligence replaces the traditional workforce in numerous industries, creativity, and the arts, often seen as a conduit for creativity, have attracted renewed interest. Many educators consider the arts essential for their ability to engage and activate responsive critical thinking, possibility thinking and develop flexible learners ready to adapt to an unknown job market. National and international research documents the transformative potential of embedding quality arts processes and learning experiences across the curriculum (Biesta, 2013; Catterall, 2009; Ewing & Saunders, 2018). Recent enthusiasm for 21st-century skills has seen the arts welcomed into STE(A)M (science, technology, engineering, arts, and maths) education as part of a drive to remain economically competitive in an increasingly automated world (Geisinger, 2016; Land, 2013).

year: 2022

title: Alternative anthropologies: Kete aronui from the Waikato

authors: McCormack, Fiona

abstract: As three anthropologists working at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, Aotearoa (New Zealand), we experience anthropology in our daily work in the context of our local histories, communities and politics. While many anthropologists are familiar with the critiques of anthropology that play out in the USA or Europe, the narratives and practices of anthropology from places such as New Zealand are less well known. We argue that these local, diverse experiences of anthropology can enlarge our international understandings and imaginations of what anthropology can be, as well as the challenges it may face.

Anthropologists working in New Zealand today face the same plethora of academic pressures as those found in their counterparts in North America, Britain and Europe; pressures instigated by decades of neoliberal reform, managerialism, and the impact of new entrepreneurial and corporate models of universities that shape everyday identities and social relationships (Shore 2010). Similarly, the critique of anthropology as a discipline rooted in colonial imperatives and practices, resounds in a society whose imperial history and settler colonial present continues to imprint on educational institutions, pedagogy and research. In New Zealand, no neat historical trajectory marks a path from extractive research, wherein Indigenous knowledge and ways of life are pottled for export to the empire’s core, to one based on mutuality, co-creation and the indigenisation of anthropological knowledge.

text: Alternative anthropologies: Kete aronui from the Waikato As three anthropologists working at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, Aotearoa (New Zealand), we experience anthropology in our daily work in the context of our local histories, communities and politics. While many anthropologists are familiar with the critiques of anthropology that play out in the USA or Europe, the narratives and practices of anthropology from places such as New Zealand are less well known. We argue that these local, diverse experiences of anthropology can enlarge our international understandings and imaginations of what anthropology can be, as well as the challenges it may face.

Anthropologists working in New Zealand today face the same plethora of academic pressures as those found in their counterparts in North America, Britain and Europe; pressures instigated by decades of neoliberal reform, managerialism, and the impact of new entrepreneurial and corporate models of universities that shape everyday identities and social relationships (Shore 2010). Similarly, the critique of anthropology as a discipline rooted in colonial imperatives and practices, resounds in a society whose imperial history and settler colonial present continues to imprint on educational institutions, pedagogy and research. In New Zealand, no neat historical trajectory marks a path from extractive research, wherein Indigenous knowledge and ways of life are pottled for export to the empire’s core, to one based on mutuality, co-creation and the indigenisation of anthropological knowledge.

year: 2025