The second Māori student to enrol at the University of Oxford, Mākareti (Maggie Papakura; Margaret Pattison Staples-Browne) studied anthropology in the intellectual epicentre of the British Empire from 1927-1930, participating in transnational academic networks through writing about her own people. The resulting work was published posthumously as The Old-Time Maori (1938), now acclaimed as an unprecedented work of Māori autoethnography. Developing a voice for Māori from the vantage of 1920s Oxford, Mākareti defended Māori history and culture from colonialist discourses within the discipline of anthropology. This voice reverberates stronger today than perhaps at any time since publication. This paper canvasses the magnitude of Mākareti’s project of Indigenous resistance writing (a keenly targeted, interdisciplinary revisionism); the material conditions of this knowledge production (financial constraints, Mākareti’s social and intellectual life in Oxford, and the support of key figures within the Department of Anthropology); and the commemoration of Mākareti within and beyond Oxford.
An online presentation in 64 Banbury Road.
Departmental Seminar Series Hilary Term 2026
Theme: Hidden Histories of Oxford Anthropology
3pm, Fridays of Weeks 1-8, Lecture Room at 64 Banbury Road
Convened by Paul Basu, Clare Harris, David Pratten, Alpa Shah
