PAST CARING ? Women,Work Emotion and EDITED BY Barbara Brookes, Jane McCabe & Angela Wanhalla 3 PAST CARING? WOMEN, WORK AND EMOTION 2 Past Caring? 1 PAST CARING? WOMEN, WORK AND EMOTION Published by Otago University Press Level 1, 398 Cumberland Street Dunedin, New Zealand [email protected] www.otago.ac.nz/press First published 2019 Copyright © the authors as named The moral rights of the authors have been asserted ISBN 978-1-98-853134-2 (print) ISBN 978-1-98-859208-4 (epub) ISBN 978-1-98-859209-1 (Kindle mobi) ISBN 978-1-98-859210-7 (ePdf) A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand. This book is copyright. Except for the purpose of fair review, no part may be stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including recording or storage in any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. No reproduction may be made, whether by photocopying or by any other means, unless a licence has been obtained from the publisher. Editor: Gillian Tewsley Indexer: Diane Lowther Design/layout: Fiona Moffat Cover: Quilt made by Frances Broad, circa 1920, NZ, 138cm x 166cm, GH016392, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa ebook conversion 2019 by meBooks 4 Contents CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 7 INTRODUCTION: Care matters BARBARA BROOKES, JANE McCABE & ANGELA WANHALLA 9 1 CONTEXTUALISING CARING IN NEW ZEALAND BARBARA BROOKES 17 2 ANNETTE BAIER AND SUSAN MOLLER OKIN: Debating the ethic of care and ethic of justice / HEATHER DEVERE 37 3 TINA: Whānau, whenua and care MELISSA MATUTINA WILLIAMS 55 4 IN THE DARKNESS OF NIGHT: Traversing worlds through the concept of ayah care / JANE McCABE 81 5 HELEN SMAILL’S PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM: Traces of care in the mission archive / ANTJE LÜBCKE 103 6 FEEDING THE FAMILY: Pākehā and Māori women in rural districts, c.1900–1940 / KATIE COOPER 135 7 STITCHING THE GENERATIONS TOGETHER: Clothing and care / BARBARA BROOKES, KATIE COOPER, HEATHER DEVERE, JANE McCABE, BRONWYN POLASCHEK, MARGARET TENNANT & ANGELA WANHALLA 162 8 ‘PRIVATE SMITH, OF U.S.A., & MISS BROWN, OF N.Z.’: New Zealand’s American war children 1942–45 ANGELA WANHALLA 177 9 THE MOTHER ALONE: Solo mothers in New Zealand cinema BRONWYN POLASCHEK 197 10 ‘THEY THINK I CARE NOT’: Taking account of Takau Rio Love / ROSEMARY ANDERSON 219 11 HELPERS, REFORMERS AND MUDDLERS: Social work and the professionalisation of caring / MARGARET TENNANT 237 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Women, work and care VIOLETA GILABERT 261 CONTRIBUTORS 271 INDEX 274 5 PAST CARING? WOMEN, WORK AND EMOTION 6 Acknowledgements ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS T he foundations of this collection lie in Making Women Visible, a national conference on women’s history held at the University of Otago in February 2016. Jane McCabe and Angela Wanhalla co-organised the event with Katie Cooper, Jane Adams and Sarah Christie, ably supported by Radhika Raghav, Violeta Gilabert and Emma Gattey. In an elegant and compelling opening keynote address, Barbara Brookes traced the history and meaning of women’s caring work in the past and present, and her address inspired this volume. Past Caring? seeks to make care and care work in New Zealand’s past visible. It offers different vantage points on women’s history and its resonances now, as politicians, commentators and the public debate matters that are important in the lives of New Zealand women, ranging from child poverty to pay equity, both of which have care dimensions. A year after the conference the editors and invited contributors to Past Caring? came together at the Hocken Collections to workshop the book. This was made possible through generous financial support from the Centre for Research on Colonial Culture, a University of Otago Research Centre. We thank the centre’s director, Tony Ballantyne, for his support of both events as well as of this volume. In organising the workshop and this volume we have accrued many debts. We would particularly like to acknowledge the assistance and support we received from Sue Lang of the Department of History and Art History, and from staff at the Hocken Collections. Contributors at the workshop benefited from the expertise of invited commentators whose input was essential in shaping the volume: 7 PAST CARING? WOMEN, WORK AND EMOTION Vicki Spencer, Annabel Cooper, Jacqui Leckie and, especially, Beatrice Hale who, in her role as keynote commentator, provided a thoughtful and inspiring summary of the papers and the workshop theme, ‘Caring Histories’. This volume also benefited from the generous comments of two expert readers whose enthusiastic and insightful response to the collection helped the editors and contributors to think about care in new ways. We want to acknowledge the support of Rachel Scott at Otago University Press for encouraging us in this project. And finally, we thank the contributors for taking up the challenge of thinking and writing about past caring. 8 Introduction INTRODUCTION: Care matters Barbara Brookes, Jane McCabe & Angela Wanhalla C are comes in many shapes and forms. It can be a state of mind; it can evoke a depth and intensity of feeling; while to describe someone as caring is to conjure images of solicitude, love and devotion. To care is to look after others. It is a relational practice: to provide and receive care is to express a bond between individuals or groups. Care is also a practice that involves physical work associated with ideas about responsibility and duty; it is something undertaken to benefit the health and wellbeing of others. Sometimes care is a physical, emotional and financial burden, but it also encompasses loving attention. It is essential to social warmth and individual wellbeing. It takes thought, attention and time to maintain relationships. Care is literally stitched into every aspect of our lives. It is woven into our key social institutions, such as the family, and it is embedded in societal expectations around state provision of health and welfare. In fact, care is so vital that it has been taken for granted and has often gone unnoticed in historical and philosophical enquiry – yet it raises profound questions about gender, justice and morality. Is it just, for example, that caregiving falls disproportionately to women? Thinking through these issues – how to integrate women’s traditional work of caring into philosophical debates about caring and justice – is at the heart of Heather Devere’s discussion of two New Zealand philosophers, Susan Moller Okin and Annette Baier, both of whom brought a feminist eye to questions of morality that acknowledged dependency on others. For Okin, ‘a just future is one without gender’: in that future, caring would be done by all, and this would lead to a new politics 9