Kasia R Cook received her PhD from the University of Auckland (New Zealand) in 2017. Her thesis, which was nominated for the prestigious Vice-Chancellor’s prize of best PhD thesis of the year, chronicles the history and growth of the German-Tongan diaspora from 1932 onward, focusing on questions of identity and belonging for modern German-Tongan- and German-Samoan-descent individuals. It was thereafter accepted for publication in Peter Lang’s Germanica Pacifica series. Kasia’s research interests include German-Pacific history and contemporary studies, and identity in the mixed-race and transnational contexts for individuals of European-Pacific Island descent. She is the author of several publications along these lines and contributed a chapter to Farida Fozdar and Kirsten McGavin’s volume on Mixed Race Identities in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, published by Routledge in 2017. Kasia is currently completing research for Germans in Samoa: 1860-1914, a book sponsored by the Samoa Historical and Cultural Trust.

Colonialism, Identity, Feeling of Belonging, Cultural Heritage, Race / Racism, Inter-racial Relations, Emigration, Racial Mobility

History

Polynesia

The Colonial time
20th century
21st century

Tongan