Mining the Memories
Join us for a talk about the process of writing a memoir.
Seminar Series: “How to write about a life: current (auto)biography and memoir in Aotearoa New Zealand”
Presenter: Graeme Aitken
This seminar will trace the process I went through in the period leading up to and the writing of a memoir about my life, much of which was spent at the inter-face between the Pākeha world and te ao Māori. It will recall the emotionally driven roller coaster, coming from generating a torrent of memories that I had not gone looking for.
I will discuss the quality and accuracy of my recollection of events, some of which dated back more than 60 years. Memory work was linked with evidence checks via personal and public archives, ephemera and photographs. Fact checking in turn generated more memories. Internet research gave access to a goldmine of historical records. Back copies of newspapers and magazines, books, other publications of various kinds, clips from films and television programmes, old photos, research documents, official government papers, and Waitangi Tribunal reports.
Whatever the case, the biggest thing I learnt about my memories, that you have two perspectives on the past. The one that I had when events happened and the one I am using now to filter and order memories.
Graeme Aitken has worked extensively in and around issues relating to Māori and their land and other Treaty rights.
His roles have included:
- working for the Office of Treaty Settlements when it was first established in the early-/mid-1990s
- setting up Māori Focus Units in prisons in the mid/late 1990s
- advising Moriori and other Treaty claimants in the early 2000s
- assisting Te Puni Kōkiri with reviews of Te Ture Whenua Māori Act, the Māori Community Development Act, and Māori economic development policy
- involvement in reviews relating to legislative frameworks for kōhanga reo and Māori in local government
- stints back at the Office of Treaty Settlements in 2007 and 2018.
Graeme also spent two years in Melbourne in the mid-2000s as the Manager and Lead Negotiator for the State of Victoria, responsible for progressing native title claims. He enrolled in the Victoria’s Institute of Modern Letters writing programme in 2022 and graduated with a master’s degree in early 2023.