Difficult Subjects—Researching the Perilous and Unknown Seminar Series
A series of six seminars focusing on difficult subjects, presented by six different presenters.
Uncovering Covert History
Presented by Richard Hill and Steven Loveridge
2 April 2025
Co-authors of Secret History: State Surveillance in New Zealand, 1900-1956, Richard Hill and Steven Loveridge are now working on a follow-up volume covering security intelligence in the years from 1956 to 2001. In this seminar, the Stout Research Centre’s Director, Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich, will engage in discussion with Richard and Steven. The session will interrogate the various challenges of researching the history of counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism in New Zealand. There will be generous time for audience discussion.
Richard S. Hill is an Emeritus Professor at the Stout Research Centre. Among his outputs are four books in the History of Policing in New Zealand series, and two on Crown-Māori relations in the twentieth century.
Dr Steven Loveridge is an adjunct Research Associate at the Stout Research Centre. His published work includes some major studies of New Zealand society during the First World War, and work on diplomatic history and security intelligence.
No Idle Threat—On dangerous ground investigating Aotearoa New Zealand’s Covid-19 response
Presented by Violet Blue
9 April 2025
No research is without risks. But high-stakes research goes next-level when the topic is a lightning rod for misinformation and disinformation, politically conflicting narratives, hostility and violent threats, potential for misuse, erasure by authoritarian regimes, medical gaslighting, systemic racism, and greater than average risk to research subjects. The heart of this seminar examines ongoing research for a forthcoming book documenting the first three years of Aotearoa’s Covid-19 response against a backdrop of global events and an increasingly volatile political and social landscape. This talk diagrams the unique challenges of researching a politicized pandemic that touches a boggling array of areas including history, health science, political science, media and communications, health equity, sociology, fieldwork, and more. Those challenges require a researcher to also be a threat modeler to protect results, individuals and at-risk populations, as well as the researcher herself; we’ll also look at countermeasures and steps taken to mitigate risks. Finally, a dive into examples of potential social, political, equity-based and inclusive outcomes from taking on this high-risk project–and why we, as researchers, can’t walk away from high-risk storytelling.
Violet Blue is an author and journalist from San Francisco, who is a visiting scholar at the Stout.
View a recording of the seminar on Panopto.