Over the past few decades, New Zealand has undergone a unique process of historical reappraisal. Auckland has a deep, rich, and untold history that has been hidden through manufactured colonial narratives and representations of its past. The history of Auckland’s landscape and New Zealand itself becomes a field ripe for re-evaluation. Lucy Mackintosh dispels these narratives by telling stories of Tāmaki Makaurau’s lost but tangible history In Shifting Grounds. Birthed from Lucy’s PhD thesis, the book covers three main locations across Tāmaki Makaurau (Ōtuataua/Ihumātao, Pukekawa/Auckland Domain and Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill) that serve as points of significant relevance in Auckland’s history.
The journey Lucy takes us on begins at Ihumatao and the Ōtuataua stone fields. It is fitting that Ihumātao is chosen as one of the three key places to explain the histories of Tāmaki Makaurau as it carries the entirety of Auckland’s history with it. Layers of volcanic planes tell their own stories if we look close enough. Rich volcanic soils deep beneath the grass birth a landscape that Māori would farm to nourish and feed the growing population of Auckland. It is also a perfect place to begin considering the contemporary Ihumātao occupation. This piece of land continues to reverberate through time as an active and alive participant who does not fall comfortably into our past or present. It simultaneously is and was.
The coming chapters discuss the subtle relations between Pakeha and Māori before and after the wars of 1863. After reading about its history, a nation that likes to boast of having the finest “race relations” in the world comes to terms with a much different reality. Stories of land confiscation and violent wars. Stories of Māori fleeing from their homes. Perhaps the darkness of this history is the very reason it is “forgotten”.
Lucy is meticulous in contextualising the history of Auckland across these time periods. The book explains the chronicles of Auckland’s history across expansive time frames allowing us to understand its story without dismantled and rearranged narratives that are apparent when we separate history into temporal eras. Lucy tells us of destruction to culturally significant Māori spaces. Pukekawa is littered with Victorian-style architecture that swept away longer Māori histories in favour of manufactured Pakeha representations. This is evident in the demolition of sacred urupā/cemeteries to create Auckland’s airport runways. It is unsurprising that some value a flat strip of concrete more than maunga and urupā of our indigenous people.
Much of the history in the book is lost on many who grew up in Auckland. It speaks to a common phenomenon of us as Aucklanders not knowing the history of the city we have grown up in. It speaks to a lack of pre-colonial taught history in our education systems (including UoA). This book should appeal to everyone in Auckland who wishes to know more about the city they live in, for anyone taught only a fraction of our city’s rich history. Shifting Grounds serves as a reminder of the importance of locality. We live and breathe in these environments; it serves to know its history.
The book is grounded in the history of the land. It is not only about what has happened on the land but what has happened to the land itself. The land is its own entity; it is a participant of a history that crosses generations of human action. It illustrates the importance of the earth in Māori culture; that land does not belong to us, we belong to it
Lucy uses these defining landscapes to illuminate Auckland’s connected past, present, and future. The book is an invitation to learn of this. It informs us of significant locations with rich histories that have been ignored in favour of manufactured colonial narratives. Lucy takes the audience on a journey and allows us to see and explore our city with new perspectives and knowledge of its history.
I spoke to Lucy about the book and her inspiration for writing it.
What is your favourite book? And what was the most influential text while writing Shifting Grounds.
Lucy: I have many favourites, but among them would be The Overstory by Richard Powers, and The Hare with the Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Vaal. Both beautifully written books that weave intricate and nuanced stories together with large themes and timeframes, and both of them changed the way I see the world. There isn’t one text that I used more than any others for the book, but one that was certainly important was Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History by Atholl Anderson, Judith Binney and Aroha Harris. You say on Page 8 that “I grew up knowing very little of the history of the city”, and it wasn’t until much later that you became aware of a deeper untold Auckland past. I have felt this experience as well. Does this speak to a distinct lack of taught history within our school curriculums on our local histories?
Lucy: Yes, there has been a lack of teaching of New Zealand history in many schools, though that will be changing shortly with the introduction of the compulsory teaching of NZ history in the curriculum. New Zealand history has been taught at universities for some time, but urban history and local histories continue to be largely overlooked by academic historians. Why did you write the book? Was there a sense of duty or responsibility to tell us of these forgotten histories?
Lucy: I think the places I write about open up different histories of the city — ones that are longer, more complicated and in some cases unresolved. These histories have shaped local communities and the wider city, yet they have not made into published histories of Auckland. Histories forged on the ground reveal different voices and influences in the city — these are histories that may not have been written about, but have been made or built, planted, recorded in names, excavated, or moved around. And those histories can change and challenge some of the stories that have been written about Auckland’s past and its present. They are important to know if we are to understand and reckon with this city’s past. Landscapes can provide one way of bringing the process of place-making and mythmaking into view – certain narratives have been remembered and celebrated, while others have been overlooked or destroyed. They allow you to see how relationships, power dynamics, memory, and erasure have played out on the ground over time.
Ōtuataua/Ihumātao, Pukekawa/Auckland Domain and Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill were the three main locations chosen. You also mention Wenderholm and Albert Park as other examples of Auckland locations with a rich history. Would there be another main area of Auckland, based on your research, that could’ve been a fourth location in the book?
Lucy: I think there are many other places you could write about; this book is just a starting point really for a way of approaching history by starting with what’s under your feet and building upwards and outwards from there. For this particular book, I didn’t want to add a fourth location, as I wanted to delve deeply into each place, and revisit them at a different time and from a different angle for a second chapter on each of them — tackling three places in this way was already enough of a challenge for me! What do you plan on doing next? Is there a desire to unearth and tell more lost stories of Aotearoa? Or will this be a time of rest after a tumultuous year and the release of Shifting Grounds?
Lucy: The book took about 8 years to write (it started as a PhD thesis in 2013), so I’m hoping to have a bit of breather so I can refuel and re-energise for the next research project, though my job at the Museum as History Curator continues to keep me busy!
PHOTO BY Haru Sameshima
