Exploring the past to reimagine the future: Dr Catherine Knight’s An Uncommon Land

Award-winning environmental historian, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University alumna and Honorary Research Associate with the School of People, Environment and Planning, Dr Catherine Knight has recently released the groundbreaking new book An Uncommon Land: From an ancestral past of enclosure towards a regenerative future.

Drawing on the stories of her own ancestors, who settled on confiscated lands in Waikato, Dr Knight examines the legacy of land enclosure and the erosion of the commons, which, alongside the ascendency of private property, shaped Aotearoa New Zealand's landscape as well as its social and economic systems.

The book challenges readers to reflect on how some ancestral values were abandoned during colonisation, focusing especially on the concept of commons, that is, the shared use of land and its associated resources. Dr Knight argues that in the stories of her ancestors lie both the roots of the planetary crisis we face today and the seeds of a more regenerative, equitable future.

“To contemplate a society that values social connection over material accumulation is not radical. It is a return to the values many of our ancestors once held,” she explains.

“Is it really so extreme to contemplate a society which carefully regulates the use of common resources, lives within limits, and values social connection rather than the accumulation of material possessions, when these were commonplace features of our own ancestors’ lives just a few generations ago?”

Dr Knight will talk to the history of commons, their enclosure, and the potential for a regenerative, wellbeing-centred economy in a seminar at the Manawatū Massey campus this month. The event, which is open to all, will be held at midday on Thursday 24 July in the Social Sciences Tower, room 3.07, and can also be attended via Zoom. This is part of a wider book tour, details of which can be found on Dr Knight’s Substack An Uncommon Land.

Dr Knight invites the Massey whānau to attend the event, as she believes her book will be of interest to those working in a broad range of research spheres including the social sciences, climate, environment and agriculture.

Dr Knight is grateful to the staff at Massey Library, who provided her with an invaluable service while researching the book, without which she wouldn’t have been able to write it.

For more about the book or to view the trailer, visit catherineknight.nz/an-uncommon-land.