Geography Department > Faculty > Brian J. Murton
Brian J. Murton
Brian J. Murton, Professor Emeritus
Research Interests: colonialism; historical geography; cultural landscape;
India, New Zealand.
Phone: (808) 956-8467
Email: bmurton@hawaii.edu
Background
B.A., University of Canterbury, New Zealand, 1961.
M.A. University of Canterbury, New Zealand, 1962.
Ph.D., Geography, University of Minnesota, 1970.
Research interests
I am interested in how landscapes and societies were transformed as the result of conjuncture of sets of processes involving issues of entitlement, empowerment, and political economy, informed by a strong dose of cultural theory and mulled by a concern for indigenous perspectives.
My current research deals with various aspects of resource rights and land loss issues in New Zealand, where I am working on several Waitangi Tribunal claims. While the research agendas wre established by the Maori groups involved, the products have to be of a rigor to witstand the professional scrutiny of Crown historians and lawyers. It is a type of advocacy research directly related to issues of social justice which must meet all the demands of academic scholarship, but which must be culturally sensitive and related to key Maori values. The demands of this research has forced me to reassess my own research philosophy, which was essentially of a humnaist nature with a strong materialist basis, and which had become increasingly "post" over the years. It has helped that I am of Maori descent. Although I was not brought up Maori, I have received much help from whanau (family) in coming to grips with Maori research.
Many of my students' research interests reflect my concerns about land and resource rights, and what happened to entitlements, especially access and control, and what is involved in questions of "self-determination" among First Nation/Indigenous/Fourth World peoples. I also supervise students working on general cultural geographic and resource issues.
My Southern Indian research has been temporally put on hold, although I intend to return to it in a year or two. This work has dealt with land control, resource allocation, as well as the emergence of commercial activities in the interior part of Tamilnadu in the medieval and early modern periods.
Teaching and Advising
At the upper division undergraduate level I teach a course on the cultural landscape. My graduate seminars usually focus on how cultural and historical geography that contribute to the understanding of contemporary issues in the Asia Pacific region. My students work on topics such as development and evaluation of an agro-ecosystem rating matrix; representations of children's work in ethnographic, development, and travel literature in Nepal; Public participation in Australian forestry management; co-management of National Parks with Native People in Canada and the United States; knowledge networks and tree management in India; nature conservation and nature tourism in internationally protected areas. Over the years I have supervised over 30 M.A. and 10 Ph.D. students to successful degree completion.
Publications
I have between 50-60 publications dealing with various aspects of this research. Key ones include:
"Key People in the Countryside: Decision Makers in Interior Tamil Nadu in the Late Eighteenth Century", The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 10 (1973), pp. 157180.
"Territory, Social Structure and Settlement Dynamics in Tamil Nadu Before 1800 A.D.", Pacific Viewpoint, 17 (1976), pp. 322.
"Waituhi: A place in Maori New Zealand", New Zealand Geographer 34 (1979), pp. 2433.
"Maori Territory", in W. B. Johnston and P. G. Holland (eds), Southern Approaches: Geography in New Zealand, N.Z. Geographical Society (1987), pp. 91117.
"Event and Context; Frameworks for the Analysis of the Famine Process" in H. G. Bohle, T. Canon, G. Hugo and F. N. Ibrahim (eds), Famine and Food Security in Africa and Asia, Bayre uther Geowissenschaftsliche Arbeite (1991), pp. 167185.
"Commercial Manufacturing in southeastern India in the Early Modern Period", in H. J. Nitz and R. Butlin (eds), The Early Modern WorldSystem in Geographical Perspective, Steiner Verlag (1993), pp. 366-382.
"Toward A Deconstruction of the Land Categories in the Late Eighteenth Century British Records in Southern India" in Akhtar, R. (ed.), Contemporary Approcahes to Indian Geography (Essays in Honour of Professor Mohammad Shafi). New Delhi: APH Publishing (1997), pp. 101-108.
The Emergence of Sedentary Agriculture in Interior Tamilnadu in the Thirteenth Century" in Hall, Kenneth B. (ed.), New Horizons in South Indian Studies. New Delhi: Oxford University Press (2000), pp. 157-180.
