Keynote Speaker - Damon Salesa

Damon Salesa

Damon Salesa is Associate Professor of Pacific Studies, at the University of Auckland.  He was educated at both the University of Auckland and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and received his doctorate in 2002.  He trained as an historian, but works across disciplines and into the present, and has published widely on the Pacific, New Zealand, empire, race, migration, politics and colonial policy.  From 2002-2011 he worked at the University of Michigan, leaving as Associate Professor of history and American Culture.  His recent book, Racial Crossings: Race, Intermarriage and the Early Victorian Empire (Oxford, 2011; paperback 2013), won the Ernest Scott Prize in 2012.  He was one of the authors of The New  Tangata o le Moana: New Zealand and the People of the Pacific which was jointly edited and authored with Sean Mallon and Kolokesa Mahina-Tuai (Te Papa Press, 2012). 

Damon will be taking us into Pacific New Zealand, one of the fastest growing NZ-born populations in New Zealand.