From 1880, the performer Lio Medo embarked on a career as a phrenologist in colonial New Zealand and – later – Tasmania, fleeing controversy and another name. As a man of African descent, Medo laboured under heavier cultural baggage than his white brethren, not least because of a recurrent minstrel trope. Originating in the US, the joke of the ‘lack phrenologist’ sailed to Australia with minstrel troupes, sheet music and newsprint, constantly confronting real-life Black phrenologists such as Medo. A performer’s awareness and skill in navigating such representations created opportunities, even while these caricatures perpetuated oppressive racial myths. Men such as Lio Medo therefore plied popular science within a paradox, the signifier of skin attracting attention that added to the usual phrenological work of winning improved social status. For Lio Medo, signs of identity emanated not just from a top hat and a gold watch, but from his very body.

Phrenology mediated everyday moments in Aotearoa New Zealand. It became associated with the spiritual leadership and healing practised by Māori tohungas and featured in the tactics of a stage performer during a tense diplomatic exchange in Te Rohe Pōtae (the King Country) in 1878. Meanwhile, for members of the colonial government and its administrators – both Māori and Pākehā – phrenology became a symbol of the irrational and anti-modern, a smear on the idea of progress at a time of debate over Māori survival. Phrenology’s critics were right to apprehend the authority that it garnered. As an appropriated European ’science’, it became one among various practices and technologies that shaped evolving Māori cultures and polities. Although moments of phrenological encounter are pebbles in the broader terrain of Māori life during this period, they nevertheless illuminate the questions that Māori were forced to ask themselves when navigating an upturned world

Oceania comprises those islands scattered through the Pacific Ocean bounded by Australia and Papua New Guinea to the west, the Hawaiian Islands to the north, New Zealand to the south, and Easter Island to the east. Although there are many cultures and nations in Oceania, psychological assessment as practiced today developed mainly in Australia and New Zealand. The history of testing and assessment in the chapter on Oceania is thus a history of testing and assessment in Australia, in New Zealand, and in the islands that in the twentieth century fell into the sphere of influence of those two countries. The chapter on Oceania seeks to briefly sketch the development of testing and assessment, its successes, and its limitations.

The airing of the documentary Style Wars on public television in 1984 was a seminal moment in the adoption of hip-hop style art by urban youth in Aotearoa New Zealand, particularly young M?ori and Pasifika men in Auckland and Wellington. Today, non-commissioned art is not the preserve of a specific ethnic or cultural group, indeed, a research paper written for the Ministry of Justice found “little evidence to suggest that graffiti writers are a distinct subgroup among young people”. Askew One (Elliot O’Donnell) is probably the best-known Auckland street artist. The works of BMD, the most prominent Wellington street artists, adorn many of the capital’s walls. Other often-encountered pseudonyms include “Component, Eeks, Ghstie and Yelz”. Kerryn Pollock observes: “Street art is male-dominated, but some women have gained recognition for their work, including Diva, Misery (Tanja Thompson), Flox (Hayley King), Erin Forsyth, Xoe Hall and Mica Still.” Yarn bombing is also common, notably in Wellington, and, because it is perceived as feminine and non-threatening, widely accepted across generations.