Richard Shaw

‘Where once I saw a view as I drove around the Taranaki coast along State Highway 45, I now see confiscated land from an invasion road. The creation story I used to subscribe to, the one in which hard-working people came here and settled the land, now jars. Weirdly, even the lawn looks different. The form of things just won’t...

The Unsettled explores what it means to own your past. After Richard Shaw published his acclaimed memoir The Forgotten Coast in 2021, he connected with Pākehā individuals possessing long settler histories. These individuals were beginning to confront the truth behind their families' 'pioneer stories', questioning the foundations of aggressive acts of colonisation and land confiscation upon which these narratives were...