What it means to own your past
After Richard Shaw published his acclaimed memoir The Forgotten Coast in 2021, he made contact with Pākehā with long settler histories who were coming to grips with the truth of their respective families’ ‘pioneer stories’. They were questioning the foundation of aggressive acts of colonisation and land confiscation on which those stories had been constructed.
The Unsettled weaves those stories with Shaw’s own and features New Zealanders who are trying to figure out how to live well with their own pasts, their presents and their possible futures. They may be unsettled, but they are doing something about it.
It is an indispensable companion for the journey towards understanding the complex and difficult history of the New Zealand Wars and their ongoing aftermath.
