Lucy Mackintosh has been jointly awarded the inaugural Environmental History Book Prize from the Australia and New Zealand Environmental History Network, for her book Shifting Grounds: Deep Histories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
Citation: Lucy Mackintosh, Shifting Grounds: Deep Histories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (Bridget Williams Books, 2021)
This beautifully produced and illustrated book reads deep, multi-faceted histories through sensitive encounters with key places in Aotearoa’s largest city. By centring Māori stories, histories and ontologies, and in holistically exploring geology, ecology and materiality, Mackintosh tells new and complex stories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland as a site of intercultural fluidity and continual making and remaking. Her stories powerfully reveal how colonial and imperial histories invented the ‘empty landscapes’ and ‘wilderness’ settlers allegedly encountered here. Shifting Grounds is a magnificent and accessible contribution to the historiography of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and a beacon of shining possibilities for urban environmental history. It shows how to engage with urban landscapes in deeply productive ways, demonstrating that bringing historical methods and sensitivities to bear on well-known (and lesser-known) places can be very refreshing.
Congratulations Lucy!
More information about the award can be found here.