Unpacking the Kists The Scots in New Zealand by Brad Patterson, Tom Brooking & Jim McAloon
KEY POINTS • First in-depth study of NZ’s Scots migrants
• Thorough and interdisciplinary
Hardback with jacket 228 x 152 mm, 412 pp 6 maps, 24 tables, 7 diagrams ISBN 978-1-877578-67-0
Historians have suggested that Scottish influences are more pervasive in New Zealand than in any other country outside Scotland, yet curiously New Zealand’s Scots migrants have previously attracted only limited attention.
A thorough and interdisciplinary work, Unpacking the Kists is the first in-depth study of New Zealand’s Scots migrants and their impact on an evolving settler society.
The authors establish the dimensions of Scottish migration to New Zealand, the principal source areas, the migrants’ demographic characteristics and where they settled in the new land. Drawing from extended case studies, they examine how migrants adapted to their new environment and the extent of influence in diverse areas including the economy, religion, politics, education and folkways. They also look at the private worlds of family, neighbourhood and community, customs of everyday life and leisure pursuits, and expressions of both high and low forms of transplanted culture.
Contributing to international scholarship on migrations and cultural adaptations, Unpacking the Kists demonstrates the historic contributions Scots made to New Zealand culture by retaining their ethnic connections and at the same time interacting with other ethnic groups.
AUTHORS Brad Patterson was formerly director of the Irish–Scottish studies programme at Victoria University of Wellington. Tom Brooking is professor of history at the University of Otago. Jim McAloon is associate professor of history at Victoria University of Wellington. With Rebecca Lenihan, University of Guelph, and Tanja Bueltmann, Northumbria University Unpacking the Kists contributes to the ongoing international scholarship on migrations, cultural adaptations, and legacies. Moreover, it demonstrates how there can be productive collaborations between academic historians, genealogists and local historians and community history societies.
This is a first-rate study, and a pleasure to read. John C. Weaver, Department of History, McMaster University, author of Sorrows of a Century: Interpreting suicide in New Zealand 1900–2000
