Join author Richard Shaw as he takes us through his new book, The Unsettled (2024, MUP), which is based on responses he received to an earlier account of his great-grandfather’s participation in the invasion of Parihaka and the farming of confiscated land in Taranaki.
Richard will reflect on the reasons why troubling aspects of our settler-colonial pasts might not feature in our family stories, explore the tensions between these forgotten histories and the orthodox settler narrative, and describe what is being done by some of those who are unsettled by what has taken place here in the name of settlement.
Richard Shaw is a professor in the politics program at Massey University, where he teaches courses in New Zealand politics and executive government. His formal research interests focus on the roles and influence of political advisers, and his publications include The Edward Elgar Handbook on Ministerial and Political Advisers (2024, Ed.), Core Executives in Comparative Perspective: Governing in Complex Times (2023, with Kristoffer Koltveit) and Ministers, Minders and Mandarins: An International Study of Relations at the Executive Summit of Parliamentary Democracies (2018, with Chris Eichbaum). He is increasingly interested in matters closer to home and heart, including the territory covered in The Forgotten Coast (MUP, 2021) and The Unsettled (MUP, 2024).