Invisible - New Zealand’s history of excluding Kiwi-Indians

A HARD-HITTING EXAMINATION OF EXCLUSION AND RACISM IN AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND

This galvanising book, written by researcher and writer Jacqueline Leckie, uncovers a story of exclusion that has rendered Kiwi-Indians invisible in the historical narratives of the nation. Invisible shares stories of resilience while also revealing the real impact that racism has on the lives of Indian New Zealanders.

Despite our mythology of benign race relations, Aotearoa New Zealand has a long history of underlying prejudice and racism. Over the course of the twentieth century, discrimination against Indians in Aotearoa New Zealand slowly changed at the legislative level, but this did not mean an end to racism, which persists in many guises. Casual racism has been one of the most painful challenges to Kiwi-Indians, and one of the most difficult to erase; stereotyping and everyday hostility has impeded many from settling and making a livelihood here.

In Invisible, Jacqueline Leckie’s research presents a history of inequality and hurtful discourse against Kiwi-Indians, making this an essential contribution to the conversation on racism and diversity in New Zealand.

Through selected documents, newspapers articles and photos dating back to the early nineteenth century, Invisible shares the experiences of Indian migrants and their descendants, opening the eyes of the reader to the complicated racist past that so many Indian people have had to endure.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Jacqueline Leckie is a researcher and writer based in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Her books include Indian Settlers: The Story of a New Zealand South Asian Community (2007), To Labour with the State (1997), Colonizing Madness: Asylum and Community in Fiji (2020), and A University for the Pacific: 50 Years of USP (2018).

She is an adjunct research fellow with the Stout Centre for New Zealand Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, and conjoint associate professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Newcastle in Australia. She is a fellow of the New Zealand India Research Institute, and an affiliated researcher with the Centre for Global Migrations at the University of Otago. Her research has concerned the Indian diaspora, development, gender, ethnicity, mental health and work within the Asia–Pacific.