What does it mean to be a good settler?
Richard Shaw shed light on this question while talking about his newly-published book The Good Settler: Essays From Other People's Lands at WORD Christchurch Festival 2026 on Sunday 6 September.
His conversation with host Helen Brown was friendly, humorous, relaxing and thoughtful. Applause frequently erupted from the audience throughout the session.
The conversation began with a discussion of the book cover, which features a photograph of a man mowing a lawn. Shaw explained the historical sale of sections of New Zealand land, including areas that later became Wellington, to prospective immigrants in Britain in 1839. For him, the lawn is an iconic image that symbolises how the land was taken from Māori, assigned a market value and sold. He believes that the lawn is also central to people's imagination of how the unlanded country was supposed to look like.
Putting The Good Settler alongside with his previous works, The Forgotten Coast and The Unsettled, Shaw explained the factors that prompted him to set up a personal journey of discovery into settlers' history, including his own family stories. He recalled a historical football team photograph featured in the book which had been hung on the wall of his family house for many years. After his father died and part of the photo frame came apart, he realised that the photograph had been waiting all those years to tell a story. In particular, his great-grand father, who appeared on the photograph, was almost entirely absent from stories his families told him.
When asked to share settler stories, Shaw elaborated on the divergence between the big overarching narrative and Irish immigrants' experiences described in the second essay of The Good Settler. According to him, many Irish settlers came to New Zealand in search of a better life after losing their tenant farms at home and having few other options. However, the immigration programme of 1886 promoted a heroic narrative of settlement that obscured the realities of Irish settlers' experiences. He commented that many stories were selectively ignored or left out. He had become increasingly interested in the stories that lay outside this established framework.
Talking about the settlement of Taranaki, Shaw was critical. He explained that colonisation was presented as an opportunity for Pākehā settlers to bring the positive aspects of civilisation to New Zealand. However, the whole of Taranaki was later confiscated under the New Zealand Settlements Act. Shaw argued that confiscation was stealing.
In his younger years, he did not fully know or understand what had happened on this land and, as he admitted, carried an "uninformed prejudice" until he began writing the trilogy. He believes that these historical stories were wiped off by design rather than forgotten by accident.
Regarding the target audience of his trilogy, Shaw light-heartedly acknowledged comments accusing him of "Pākehā bashing". He understood the difficulty of challenging people's creation stories and believed that the purpose of his books was to help people understand what happened in the past. He hoped that readers would engage with these conversations and discussions and become part of an ongoing dialogue about New Zealand's history.
Setting his books within a growing body of literature on colonial inheritance, Shaw was optimistic and believed that people of his generation, who have lived through modern New Zealand history, are now more comfortable confronting ideas lying outside established historical narratives. At the same time, he argued that these discussions need to take place first, as they can eventually lead to policy changes and addressing subtle forms of racism.
Shaw carried on discussion of several essays and statements in The Good Settler.
In the essay of "We're All Equal Here", Shaw drew readers' attention to historically reoccurring events to remind them of the fact that the colonisation legacy is still alive. Then, he encouraged the audience to think about our responsibility for this history. He holds that we are talking about treating people in a uniform fashion and in the same way after Māori were subjected to unequal treatment for generations and continued to experience its effects today. He argued that this is not equality at all. It is much easier to treat people differently to deal with inequality and leave space for those who were historically disadvantaged. He therefore advocated,
Stop talking about equal treatment and start getting out of the way.
He commented on alliance and said,
We just stand alongside. Sometimes, we need to stand behind, support and know our own place. Knowing my place is so crucial to me. Knowing where I am and the place from which I came to this land, and how I came to my story.
I also think, for the issue of alliance, I just walk away from there... leave labels behind and engage. The notion of alliance is always used to talk about relationships with Māori, but I also think about the relationship to my own story.
Shaw was also uneasy about the phrase of "one people". He described the historical event of signing The Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) in 1840 and argued, based on historical evidence, that William Hobson did not say "we are one people" but rather spoke the reo Māori phrase, "He iwi tahi tātou." He noted that some Māori academics have argued that the phrase is better understood as "We are peoples together" rather than "We are one people."
When asked about the idea of guilt, Shaw holds that we should think about our responsibilities rather than merely going through the feeling of guilt. He suggested,
Maybe, the first thing to do is to read The Waitangi Tribunal and work out your place, even it is just an executive summary.
Speaking about colonisation and Pākehā identity, Shaw criticised ways of knowing that tend to place us in the gaze of the outsider. He encouraged people to tell their own stories, reflect on themselves, and understand how they came to be here, rather than treating Māori merely as objects of study.
Regarding the nationhood, Shaw insisted on the importance of telling and knowing more complete and truthful stories about the country's past.
Shaw also showed a strong interest in engaging with educators and said that he wished he had more opportunities to share these stories and realities with younger generations.
The question-and-answer session was short but thought-provoking. Shaw further elaborated on the meaning of being a "good settler" implied in the book's title. He emphasised the importance of knowing your place, having good intentions, and taking responsibility.
When asked how his great-grandchildren might read this book in the future, Shaw said that he hoped it would be found in a second-hand bookshop. In other words, they would not need to read it because the issues it addresses would no longer exist or be relevant.
To achieve that vision, can we be good settlers now? What are our responsibilities? I am sure many audience members left feeling inspired by Professor Richard Shaw's honest, daring, philosophical, and engaging reflections on humanity, morality, and history.
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