Elizabeth Bowyer

Elizabeth is researching women's interactions with the law and courts in Aotearoa between 1840 and 1920.

Qualifications

PhD in History, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2022

MA in History with Distinction, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2020

BA(Hons) with First Class Honours in History, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2019

BA in History and English Literature, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2018

Profile

PhD Thesis Title: Contractual Engagements: Women, contracts, and the law in settler colonial society c.1840-1920.

Elizabeth has always had an interest in women’s agency in the past, an interest that has led her to studying the history of women’s relationship with the law in Aotearoa New Zealand. After completing her BA and Honours at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, Elizabeth completed her MA thesis Women as Witnesses in the Colonial New Zealand Courts c.1840-1900 in 2020. Her PhD research focusses on women and contract law in Aotearoa from 1840 until 1920. She is interested in how the gendered aspects of the English common law tradition operated in colonial New Zealand, women’s interactions with the law and its courts, and how these interactions changed over time. Elizabeth’s research is situated in wider discourses of law, empire, and settler colonialism.

Supervisors

Publications

Bowyer, Elizabeth, ‘Taking the Stand: Women as Witnesses in New Zealand’s Colonial Courts, circa 1840–1900’, law&history, Vol. 9, no. 1, 2022, pp.1-28.

‘The poor treatment of sexual violence victims in court runs deep in our history’, The Spinoff, 6 May 2021;https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/06-05-2021/the-poor-treatment-of-sexual-violence-victims-in-court-runs-deep-in-our-history