Papers by Felicity Barnes
Business History, 2017
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Intern... more This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence Newcastle University ePrints-eprint.ncl.ac.uk Barnes F, Higgins DM.
New Zealand's London: The metropolis and New Zealand's culture, 1890-1940
... research. I also benefited from a University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship, and as a recip... more ... research. I also benefited from a University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship, and as a recipient of the Eric and Myra McCormick Scholarship in History. Research in general was made easier through the assistance of a number of librarians and archivists. Philip Abela, at ...
Amanda Scardamaglia puts a colourful past on display
History Australia
Bill Massey's Tourists in the Big Smoke: Rethinking the First World War's Role in New Zealand's National Identity
Journal of New Zealand Literature, 2015
In July 1919, a young soldier captured an unexpected image of New Zealand's First World War e... more In July 1919, a young soldier captured an unexpected image of New Zealand's First World War experience. Herbert Green had volunteered for service in December 1916 at age 23, and like so many other New Zealanders, he served on the Western Front. But by 1919, the fighting was long over. So his photograph is not of the battlefields, trenches, and camps that have come to comprise the conventional visual catalogue of New Zealand at war. Nor was it taken in Egypt, or at Gallipoli, or on the Western Front, the accustomed locales for that war. Instead, Green's photograph was taken in London: in Piccadilly Circus, to be exact.London is rarely included in our histories of war, but for the soldiers who fought it, the city was central. Early in 1916, the focus of New Zealand's war shifted, from Egypt and the Dardanelles, to Europe. There, the shock of Gallipoli was to pass into the unrelieved attrition of trench warfare on the Western Front, and this is where the majority of New Zea...
The Journal of New Zealand Studies
, at the Colonial Conference in London, the premiers of the white self-governing colonies met wit... more , at the Colonial Conference in London, the premiers of the white self-governing colonies met with members of the imperial government to reconcile two apparently conflicting objectives: to gain greater acknowledgement of their de facto political autonomy, and commitment to strengthening imperial unity. 1 The outcomes of this conference tend to be cast in constitutional and political terms, but this process also renegotiated the cultural boundaries of empire. The white settler colonies sought to clarify their position within the empire, by, on the one hand, asserting equal status with Britain, and, on the other, emphasizing the distinction between themselves and the dependent colonies. 2 In doing so they invoked and reinforced a hierarchical version of empire. This hierarchy, underpinned by ideas of separation and similarity, would be expressed vividly in the conference's outcomes, first in the rejection of the term 'colonial' as a name for future conferences. These were redesignated, inaccurately, as 'imperial', not 'colonial', elevating their status as it narrowed their participation. 3 'Imperial' might be metropolitan, but 'colonial' was always peripheral. Whilst the first Colonial Conference, held in 1887, had included Crown colonies along with the self-governing kinds, 4 20 years later the former were no longer invited, and India, or, more precisely, the India Office and its officials, was only a marginal presence. 5 As wider participation declined, imperial government involvement increased. From 1907 the conference was to be chaired by the British prime minister. This pattern was repeated in changes to the Colonial Office itself. The self-governing colonies used the same conference to press for a separate dominion, not colonial, form of imperial administration. But it was not only the status of the conference that would be elevated by a touch of imperial rebranding. Canadian Premier Sir Wilfrid Laurier noted, 'We have passed the state when the term 'colony' could be applied to Canada'. 6 Canada was not alone. It was generally acknowledged amongst all conference participants that their particular colonies-Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, the Cape Colony, Transvaal and Natal-had also transcended the colonial state. Something new was required, and the
Helen Bones tackles the expatriate myth
History Australia
In 1940, as part of New Zealand’s centennial celebrations, literary critic Eric McCormick was tas... more In 1940, as part of New Zealand’s centennial celebrations, literary critic Eric McCormick was tasked with writing the first survey of New Zealand’s progress in ‘letters and arts’. He found little worth celebrating: local literary production was, in his opinion, ‘evidence of the lack in New Zealand of all but the minimum conditions necessary for the creation of literature’. As proof of New Zealand’s inhospitable cultural climate, he noted that Katherine Mansfield, the country’s most celebrated writer, had fled to London at the first opportunity. There, in the suitably cultured atmosphere of the metropolis, ‘New Zealand’s greatest writer found the conditions she needed for self-expression (E.H. McCormick, Letters and Art in New Zealand, Wellington: Department of Internal Affairs, 1940: 141–42, 32). The trope of New Zealand as a cultural wasteland, from which its brightest talents had to escape if they were to shine, has become an enduring shibboleth in our cultural history. Indeed, the exile and expatriation of artists and writers, doomed to live ‘between two worlds’, has become an integral part of many former colonies’ nationalist narratives, a marker of cultural immaturity only overcome with the establishment of an authentic local literary culture. However, in a fine new book, based upon her earlier PhD thesis, Helen Bones argues that these familiar tropes are in fact myths. Expatriation and exile were not the colonial condition, nor was New Zealand sour soil for cultivating the arts. Rather, she suggests, these myths took hold as part of the process of creating a national literary canon. As historians in other fields have found, the demands of nation-making have distorted the past. To make her case, Bones has analysed the publishing careers of 118 authors known to have been active between 1890 and 1945. The results make interesting reading. Despite New Zealand’s apparent lack of the minimum conditions, fewer than half left. The rest wrote in New Zealand. It seems their location made little difference: more than half the writers stayed home, yet three-quarters of all novels produced were published in England. Drawing on work that emphasises the importance of connectivity and mobility in colonial societies (including work on colonial reading worlds), such analyses lead Bones to posit the existence of a ‘colonial writing world’. She pursues this idea across eight chapters, starting by re-establishing the existence of cultural life in colonial New Zealand. Bones argues that ‘the depth and pervasiveness of artistic pursuits in New Zealand has rarely been acknowledged’ (26). One part of this process is setting aside the canon, and older nationalist
Lancashire’s ‘War’ With Australia: Rethinking Anglo-Australian trade and the cultural economy of empire, 1934-6
Following the recent cultural turn in economic history, this article resurrects a forgotten imper... more Following the recent cultural turn in economic history, this article resurrects a forgotten imperial trade war between Lancashire and Australia to explore the nature of the cultural economy of British Empire in the interwar period. New work has emphasised the importance of Britishness as the basis for co-ethnic networks that helped underwrite imperial expansion through the nineteenth century. However, the welcome new focus on culture’s significance has, curiously, tended to obscure its dynamic interaction with the economy. Economic activity did not simply benefit from culture, as concepts like co-ethnicity suggest, but also helped to produce that culture. As result, the meanings of Britishness mobilised by trade were never stable, even in the heart of empire itself. This article focuses on a boycott of Australian produce started by grocers in Lancashire cotton towns in 1934, in response to new Australian tariffs on imported cotton goods. Tracing the cultural meanings constructed fro...
Lancashire's ‘War’ with Australia: Rethinking Anglo-Australian Trade and the Cultural Economy of Empire, 1934–36
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2018
Following the recent cultural turn in economic history, this article resurrects a neglected imper... more Following the recent cultural turn in economic history, this article resurrects a neglected imperial trade war between Lancashire and Australia to explore the nature of the cultural economy of the British Empire in the interwar period. New work has emphasised the importance of Britishness as the basis for co-ethnic networks that helped underwrite imperial expansion through the nineteenth century. However, this welcome new focus on culture’s significance for economics has, curiously, tended to obscure its dynamic interaction with the economy. Economic activity did not simply benefit from culture, as concepts like co-ethnicity suggest, but also helped to produce that culture. As result, the meanings of Britishness mobilised by trade were never stable, even in the heart of empire itself. This article focuses on a boycott of Australian produce started by grocers in Lancashire cotton towns in 1934, in response to new Australian tariffs on imported cotton goods. Tracing the cultural meanings constructed from the very first planting of cotton in Australia, through to the boycott and its aftermath, exemplifies the dynamic and contingent nature of Britishness generated through trade.
Brand image, cultural association and marketing: ‘New Zealand’ butter and lamb exports to Britain, c. 1920–1938
Business History, 2017
This article examines the branding and marketing strategies of New Zealand Producers Boards which... more This article examines the branding and marketing strategies of New Zealand Producers Boards which were established in the early 1920s to coordinate the export of butter and lamb to Britain. The brand ‘New Zealand’ featured prominently in the promotion of lamb exports to Britain, whereas much more emphasis was placed on the ‘Anchor’ brand for butter. Because the ‘Mother Country’ was by far the biggest single export market for New Zealand butter and lamb, the branding and marketing activities of the Boards emphasised the strong cultural affinity that existed between Britain and New Zealand. Drawing on the relevant branding and marketing literature, the Boards’ annual reports, and reports by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, we show that ‘New Zealand’ and ‘Anchor’ conveyed the fundamental message of a shared British identity.
Bringing Another Empire Alive? The Empire Marketing Board and the Construction of Dominion Identity, 1926–33
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 2014
ABSTRACT
‘Familiar London’: New Zealand travel writing and the imagined metropolis, 1890–1940
Studies in Travel Writing, 2010
History Compass, 2005
In the aftermath of the recent London underground bombings the media almost immediately drew upon... more In the aftermath of the recent London underground bombings the media almost immediately drew upon the Blitz in an attempt to provide some historical context to these events. These comparisons were largely baseless; yet the coverage in New Zealand certainly suggests some historical context is necessary. These events exposed a quiet legacy of empire: the continued significance of the metropole in New Zealand's cultural life. This paper explores that legacy through the lenses of 1940 and 2005, and argues for a further reconsideration of ‘contact zones’ in the centre and on the periphery.
Books by Felicity Barnes
New Zealand's London: A Colony and Its Metropolis
Reviews by Felicity Barnes
Studies in settler colonialism: politics, identity and culture
Settler Colonial Studies, 2013
Always Almost Modern: Australian Print Cultures and Modernity
Australian Historical Studies, 2015
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Papers by Felicity Barnes
Books by Felicity Barnes
Reviews by Felicity Barnes