Member Profile

First Name

Bronwyn

Surname

Labrum

PHANZA Joining Date

1997

Organisation

School of Visual and Material Culture, College of Creative Arts, Massey University

Region

Wellington

Specialities

material culture, museum, clothing, welfare

About Me

I am a long-standing PHANZA member (since 1994!) and am on the Executive Committee. My interest in public history stems from when I was a history curator at Te Papa from 1996-2000. When I subsequently worked at the University of Waikato I had extensive involvement with the Waikato Museum, especially its social history programming and as a member of the Friends Committee. Currently I am the Director of Research in The School of Visual and Material Culture, College of Creative Arts, Massey University, Wellington. www.visualmaterialculture.ac.nz

I have stong links to Te Papa and the History Group at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and have contributed to Te Ara The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. I am also the PHANZA representative on the Executive Council of the New Zealand Historical Association. I am a keen movie buff and love good wine, historical  photography, all kinds of clothing and mid-twentieth century design.

Publications and Research

Books:

with Fiona Mckergow and Stephanie Gibson, eds, Looking Flash: Clothing in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Auckland University Press, 2007

with Bronwyn Dalley, eds, Fragments: New Zealand Social and Cultural History, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2000

Women’s History: Researching and Writing Women’s History in New Zealand (BWB, 1993)

Recent articles and chapters:

‘‘Making Pakeha Histories in New Zealand Museums: Community and Identity in the Post-war Period’, in Simon J. Knell, Suzanne MacLeod and Sheila E.R. Watson, eds, Museum Revolutions: How Museums Change And Are Changed, Routledge, New York & London, 2007, pp.149-159

‘The Boundaries of Femininity: Madness and Gender in New Zealand, 1870-1910’, in Wendy Chan, Dorothy E. Chunn and Robert Menzies, eds, Women, Madness and the Law: A Feminist Reader, Cavendish Publishing Limited, London, 2005, pp. 59-77

with Conal McCarthy, ‘Museum studies and museums: Bringing together theory and practice,’ Te Ara Journal of Museums Aotearoa: Special Issue: Museum Studies in New Zealand, 30:2, December 2005, pp.4-11

Forthcoming publications:

‘The Changing Meanings and Practices of Welfare, 1840s-1990s’, Giselle Byrnes, ed., New Oxford History of New Zealand (2009)

‘The female past and modernity: displaying women and things in New Zealand museums, expositions and department stores, 1920s-1960s’, in Beth Fowkes Tobin and Maureen Daly Goggin, eds, Material Women: Consuming Desires and Consuming Objects, 1750-1950, Ashgate, forthcoming 2010

Current projects:

A book-length study of everyday material culture in post-war New Zealand

A history of colonial dress with colleagues at Massey and Te Papa, Auckland and Otago Museums

 

History

Member for

3 years 36 weeks