Island Time : New Zealand's Pacific Futures

The task of living in modern New Zealand - and especially in modern Auckland - is not just to understand how to live with different peoples, but how to adapt to the future that has already happened.

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?

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