Recorder of hidden Aboriginal history to address conference

NOHANZ Conference Press Release 28 March 2011 Media Release 28 March 2011

Recorder of hidden Aboriginal history to address Rotorua conference.

An Australian historian who has helped record the largely undocumented subject of Aboriginal shearers will be a keynote speaker at a conference next month.

Lorina Barker, an associate lecturer at the University of New England in New South Wales will be among the presenters at the biennial meeting organised by the National Oral History Association of NZ (NOHANZ). In 2008 Ms Barker made a film about shearers in Bourke district in north-west New South Wales, where she grew up.

The film celebrates the contribution of Aboriginal workers to Australia’s pastoral industries and is also part of the research for Barker’s PhD in family and community history. Teresia Teaiwa, a poet and senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington will also address the conference about her research interviewing three generations of Fijian women who have served in the British Army or Fijian Military Forces.

NOHANZ President Rachael Selby says both keynote speakers support the conference theme: ‘Voices of Identity in a Globalised World’. ‘In an increasingly interconnected world, there’s a growing interest in cultural identity and personal roots, and oral history can play a key role in this.’ Rotorua oral history pioneer, historian and author the late Don Stafford will be honoured at an event during the conference. The conference begins on Saturday 2 April, at Distinction Rotorua, and runs through to Sunday. The Don Stafford retrospective will be held on Saturday evening.

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