Tom Isern, of North Dakota State University, and a board member of H-Rural,
filed this report while traveling in New Zealand and Australia:
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To H-Rural:
Many of us, I suspect, have been told (by spouses and others close) that we
are becoming our subjects of study. This may be true, as my recent
experience shows that practitioners of rural history and rural studies
partake of the spirit of rural hospitality.
For the past nine weeks I have been traveling New Zealand and Australia in
search of rural history--presenting some papers, lecturing around, hitting
some libraries, wrapping up some previous lines of work and scouting out new
ones. (Work assisted by a Returning-Fulbrighter grant from the N.Z.-U.S.
Educational Foundation.) Let me mention some of the scholars of matters
rural on whom I imposed in the course of this expedition.
Tom Brooking, of the University of Otago (southernmost university in the
world), Dunedin, I was happy to find, is wrapping up his biography of the
land reformer Jock McKenzie. Tom hosted my visit to Otago, where I also
found the staff of the Hocken Library most helpful. Not only did I stay
with Tom and Trish at their house for a few days, but they also gave me use
of their crib in Central Otago, a region where I hope to conduct future
field work. Central is a fascinating place where traditional pastoralism
and entrepreneurial horticulture are coming together in dynamic, exciting,
and disturbing ways.
At Massey University (Palmerston North) I found rural historian James Watson
also putting to bed a book project--his history of transport in New Zealand.
We hope to throw in together on some future work on agricultural aviation in
New Zealand and North America. I don't think I imposed quite so heavily on
James as I did on the Brookings, but he and his wife Judy were equally gracious.
In Cairns I met up with H-Rural subscriber Dawn May, of James Cook
University--Cairns, and her husband Trevor. I know what you're thinking
when I mention visiting Cairns, and yes, we did get out on the Reef, but
there was plenty of tropical agriculture to see there, too. Dawn took us
through the cane country to Port Mossman, and we spent a whole day up on the
tablelands, a region brought into dairy culture early in this century and
now undergoing diversification along lines that seem, to a boy from Kansas,
marvelously exotic. From this visit, too, I carried away a copy of Dawn's
new book, from Cambridge U. Press, on aboriginal labor in the cattle industry.
It was H-Rural subscriber Matthew Tonts who introduced me to Roy Jones, Head
of the School of Social Sciences and Asian Languages at Curtain University
of Technology, Perth, and Roy hosted me for a seminar at Curtin. The
discussions with Roy and his colleagues were fascinating and useful to me,
and I also had the chance to spend a couple of days exploring the Western
Australian wheat belt. I was much taken with Perth and with Western
Australia and have resolved to make WA the locale of some future research.
I'll write proper letters of thanks to these folks, but the point of this
note is that all these experiences underline to me some matters that were
under discussion on the list a couple of months ago--having to do with the
benefits of international participation in H-Rural. These
cross-pollinations enrich us all.
Tom Isern
North Dakota State U.
isern@plains.nodak.edu