Beyond the Scene

beyond the scene
Landscape and Identity in Aotearoa New Zealand
Co-editors Janet Stephenson, Mick Abbott, Jacinta Ruru

Well-known writers, from a range of disciplines, explore the many meanings of landscape...

If a nation could be said to have a dominant passion, New Zealand’s would be its landscapes. Images of spectacular natural features pervade the media – between the pages of glossy coffee-table books, in tourism promotions and on screen as the setting for blockbuster movies - but are these scenes that define its people?

For Beyond the Scene the editors asked eleven writers to choose a landscape that was important to them and to write about it from the perspective of their life experience and knowledge. From farmer to art historian and film critic, geographer and planner to lawyer, from landscape architect to poet and environmentalist – these are diverse voices. Each discusses a very different landscape: from suburban Auckland and rural Waikato to a planned town in Canterbury and much-filmed Otago. Together they investigate the relationship landscape has to identity, community and psyche.

Contents
Foreword Diane Menzies
1 Entering Landscape Janet Stephenson, Jacinta Ruru and Mick Abbott
2 Land, Sea and Sky in Taranaki Maori Songs of Lament Ailsa Smith
3 Of Rocks and Recollections: Our home in the South Waikato Gordon Stephenson
4 Waitaha – A Canterbury poem sequence David Eggleton
5 Eternal Sunshine: The search for spotless landscapes Jacky Bowring
6 Otara and Dannemora: Contrasting landscape and ethnic identities in two South Auckland suburbs Wardlow Friesen and Robin Kearns
7 Films, National Identity and the Otago Landscape Davinia Thornley
8 Outside the Frame: Depicting Auckland's urban landscape Linda Tyler
9 A Cloaked Landscape: Legal devices in Mount Aspiring National Park Jacinta Ruru
10 Patina: People and place in Akaroa Janet Stephenson
11 Travelleing Landscapes: Ngai Tahu rock and and Ngai Tahu identity Lyn Carter
12 A Future with Our Past: Toward a creative practice of heritage in the Coastal Otago
landscape Mick Abbott
13 Landscape’s Generosity Janet Stephenson, Jacinta Ruru and Mick Abbott

beyond the scene
Landscape and Identity in Aotearoa New Zealand
Co-editors Janet Stephenson, Mick Abbott, Jacinta Ruru
Environmental studies, Planning, Geography, Cultural Studies
240 x 170mm, 224 pp, ISBN 978 1 877372 81 0, $45.00
Otago University Press

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