Interconnected Spaces and Materiality: Exploring German Pacific Relations – The project
A research project into Te Papa’s collections exploring the ways our material culture can provide other avenues and insights into shared histories.
The German-Pacific Connections project is an examination of the historical relations between Germany, Sāmoa, and Aotearoa New Zealand, examining how they came about, were fostered, developed, and changed. The aim of this research is to locate German-Pacific relations from the turn of the mid-nineteenth century to the post-Second World War period (1850-1950).
These entangled relations are evident in objects across the Pacific Cultures, Philatelic, History, Photography Collections and Collected Archives. These collections are spaces of contact, movement, exchange, and contest.
We zoom in on specific objects in this project to uncover and explore historical moments which may be obscured among wider narratives. New interpretations of meaning can be found through looking at objects and places as networks of connections.
Postcard, 'Samoa Yielded without a Struggle.', 1914, New Zealand, by The New Zealand Observer, William Blomfield. Purchased 2011. Te Papa (GH023110)
Further Reading
The Imperial German flag: a symbol of colonisation of the body and gender
Papers Past, Newspapers, New Zealand Herald, 4 February 1930 | SAMOAN POLITICS
Amaama, Safua Akeli. ‘A Goodwill Mission?: Revisiting Sāmoa—New Zealand Relations in 1936.’ New Zealand Journal of History 53, no. 2 (2019): 65–82
Schorch, Philipp, Sean Mallon and Nina Tonga. ‘Materialising German -Samoan Colonial Legacies.’ In Schorch, Philipp et al. (2020) Refocusing Ethnographic Museums through Oceanic Lenses. University of Hawaii Press: 121–147
Winter, Christine. ‘Lingering Legacies of German Colonialism: ‘Mixed Race’ Identities in Oceania.’ In Fozdar, Farida, and McGavin, Kirsten, eds. (2017) Mixed Race Identities in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. London: Taylor & Francis Group: 147–161.