Book Forum: Catherine Comyn, The Financial Colonisation of Aotearoa (2022)

Abstract

Catherine Comyn’s The Financial Colonisation of Aotearoa (2022) examines the centrality of finance in the colonisation of Aotearoa, from the sale of Māori lands and the first colonial emigration scheme to the founding of settler nationhood and the enforcement of colonial grievances. Moving from the formation of the New Zealand Company in the 1830s to the Hokianga Dog Tax Uprising at the close of the nineteenth century, this book reveals the inextricability of finance and colonialism. In this forum, Arama Rata, Jane Kelsey, and Simon Barber offer their thoughts on Comyn’s book and use it as a prompt to think about the legacies and ongoing ruptures of financial colonisation. The forum concludes with Comyn’s response to their readings of the book.