Description
New Zealand is a nation that exists on Pacific Islands, but does not, will not, perhaps cannot, see itself as a Pacific Island nation. Yet turning to the Pacific, argues Damon Salesa, enables us to grasp a fuller understanding of what life is really like on these shores.
After all, Salesa argues, in many ways New Zealand's Pacific future has already happened. Setting a course through the `islands' of Pacific life in New Zealand – Otara, Tokoroa, Porirua, Oamaru and beyond – he charts a country becoming `even more Pacific by the hour'. What would it mean, this far-sighted book asks, for New Zealand to recognise its Pacific talent and finally act like a Pacific nation?