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Brief bios of contributors.

This is a bumper issue of the journal with ten articles on a variety of topics and approaches. It begins with 'Closing the Gaps' by Lisa Marriott and Nazila Alinaghi, an update of an earlier article 'Indicators of Inequality for Māori and Pacific People' that has been one of the most frequently cited articles published in the journal.

Comparatively little is known about the content and form of family memory among Pākehā (New Zealanders of European descent) in contrast to the centrality of whakapapa/genealogy in mātauranga Māori. To address this lacuna, the Marsden-funded research project "The Missing Link" recorded oral history interviews with sixty multigenerational families descended from European migrants who arrived in New Zealand before 1914. We asked our participants what they knew about their family past, the stories that had been passed down, and why particular ancestors interested them. The analysis of these oral history interviews is in progress. This article focuses on the decision to employ a mixed methods research methodology, including an analytical conceptual framework drawn from memory studies, and draws some preliminary conclusions regarding the Pākehā family as a mnemonic community.

An underlying theme in this issue is that of place and environment, but the articles build upon a wide range of conceptual approaches, locations, human activities and agency. We begin with Jonathan West's article on New Zealand lakes. An environmental historian, and J.D. Stout Fellow at the Stout Research Centre in 2019, West's research comes at a critical juncture when the declining quality of freshwater is the focus of intense national debate and argument. As West points out, the pollution in our lakes is the result of the farming practices and the residential uses of the land around them and resolving or mitigating problems decades in the making is going to pose very difficult questions for us all.

Bios of contributors.

Brief bio of contributors.

List of Contributors.

Editorial

Bios of Contributors

We begin this issue with the text of the W.H. Oliver lecture, given in Wellington by Emeritus Professor Lydia Wevers on 7 November 2017. Lydia recently retired as the Director of the Stout Centre at Victoria University and during this time she played leading international and national roles as both a literary historian and advocate for the Humanities. Her lecture focuses upon colonial Pākehā and the community of Dickens readers in New Zealand, demonstrating the scholarly insights that emerge from literary approaches to historical understanding.

In this issue of the journal we include articles that encompass social, literary and political history.

In this issue of the journal we include articles that encompass social, literary and political history.

The theme of this issue could almost be described as that of 'rediscovery': of the importance of climate and environment in narratives of transition or change; of memory and Māori Treaty settlements; of long buried treasures in the natural world; or a text by a well-loved and highly respected New Zealand author.