Historicising the ‘Big O.E.’: New Approaches to New Zealand Tourists and Travel Writing Abroad

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AbstractNew Zealand scholars only began to focus on New Zealanders’ leisured travelling abroad in the last decade, far more recently than scholars from other former British settler colonies commenced research on past travellers from their nations. New Zealand research sits within a nexus of popular assertions or stereotypes about the importance of travel for the development of New Zealand culture, and about the national characteristics of New Zealanders. This article outlines the trends which have emerged within this small pool of literature, and argues scholars who have researched the O.E., or overseas experience, have tended to look ‘inwards’ at pre‐existing local understandings of the value of travel, while scholars considering other models of travel by New Zealanders have more often turned their attention ‘outwards’, using post‐colonial frameworks. I argue that between these strands of scholarship lie many opportunities for further research on New Zealand international tourists and travel writers, and that this scholarship is necessary in order to adequately reflect upon the importance which has been attributed to New Zealanders’ travels by historians and public commentators.