Kāinga by Paul Tapsell

‘Dare we elevate kāinga as a way of achieving regionalised ecological accountability, and in the process can we bring humanity back into balance with the universe?’

Through his own experience and the stories of his tīpuna, Paul Tapsell (Te Arawa, Tainui) charts the impact of colonisation on his people. Alienation from kāinga and whenua becomes a wider story of environmental degradation and system collapse.

This book is an impassioned plea to step back from the edge. It is now up to the Crown, Tapsell writes, to accept the need for radical change. The ecological costs of colonisation are clear, and yet those same extractive and exploitative models remain foundational today. Only a complete step-change, one that embraces kāinga, can transform our lands and waterways, and potentially become a source of inspiration to the world.

BWB Texts are short books on big subjects by great New Zealand writers. Spanning contemporary issues, history and memoir, new BWB Texts are released regularly, and the series now amounts to well over fifty works.

Paperback, 160 pages, published December 2021.