Frith Driver-Burgess

Frith's Master's research is an investigation into 19th century Māori reading, examining the representation of texts in Te Reo translation and Māori reactions.

MA in History

I te timatanga ko te kupu.

Frith grew up in the faded mining town of Thames, surrounded by the Hauraki gulf, hills honey-combed by mine shafts, and thousands of books in both English and Māori. She went on her first Treaty protest march aged six with her kura kaupapa classroom, a first encounter with New Zealand's past as a contested and ubiquitous part of the present, and from which an interest in New Zealand history and the written word was a natural progression. This led to a degree in History and English Literature (with Honours) at Victoria University of Wellington in 2012. After some time working in public libraries and doing primary research into missionary writings and Te Reo newspapers, Frith returned to the subject of Māori Print History with her MA.

Her Masters research involved a primary sources investigation into Māori reading in the 19th Century, examining the representation of imported texts (in poetry, theatrical, educational, religious and epistolatory forms, among others) in Te Reo translation, and Māori readers' reactions to these texts. The research was particularly interested in cultural borrowing between texts, and their points of familiarity or difference to readers of Te Reo. It also examined readers' reaction to oral and written texts, and how foreign texts were read, transferred, adapted, and adopted by Māori readers to their New Zealand context.