Negotiating a bicultural past: an historiographical 'revolution' in 1980s Aotearoa/New Zealand

This paper analyses the evolution of the discourses of history in New Zealand during a decade of rapid social transformation that witnessed particularly intense historiographical activity. Its focus is upon the period between the publication of the first and the second editions of the Oxford History of New Zealand in 1981 and 1992, and upon a subject central to New Zealand's development---race relations. It is contended that the New Zealand historiography of race relations constitutes an exception in the context of settler countries' narratives of national history, and modern developments of this exceptionalism are explained. As well as providing an examination of the process of historiographical redescription of the past, the paper investigates the relationship between institutional/political developments and the emergence and progressive consolidation of a new interpretative orthodoxy of the history of race relations in New Zealand. Starting in the 1970s, and especially during the 1980s, the country witnessed what could be referred to as a 'historiographical revolution' on this subject. A process of comprehensive reappraisal was brought about by a group of scholars who profited from the intersection of exceptional circumstances: a historiographical tradition exploring the uniqueness of the New Zealand experience and the emergence of a perceived interethnic partnership, and a dramatically changing social and then political climate.