‘The State of History’: Oral History, War Memory, and State-Sponsored History in New Zealand, 1945-2008

Abstract

This thesis traces the development of oral history in New Zealand from 1945-2008 through state-sponsored history projects on war. It begins with a discussion of the production of the Official History series about the Second World War by the War History Branch, which was formed in 1945. The War History Branch illustrates the ad hoc nature of the approach to oral history and the selective inclusion of specific personal narratives to support a desired national narrative. A focus on the wider political and public history context of the 1960s through to the early 2000s provides a means of examining how the availability of state funding influences the production of state-sponsored history projects. Developments in the 1980s highlighted the role of archives in the creation of public war memory, and the role of oral history in challenging official narratives around New Zealand’s participation in the First World War. Large-scale state patronage and production of the arts from 1999-2008 enabled oral history to gain prominence as a research methodology as extensive funding foregrounds history-writing within government. The emergence of new history topics from the late 1980s prompted questions about the extent to which the state can shape personal narratives, and indeed whether it is appropriate for the state to do so. Finally, this study addresses the degree to which oral history within state-sponsored history projects fostered a sense of nationhood and national identity in the first decade of the twenty-first century.