Tears of Rangi

Renowned anthropologist Dame Anne Salmond’s new book, Tears of Rangi, is a philosophical and historical exploration of interactions and colliding worlds. Beginning with an inquiry into the early period of encounters between Māori and Europeans in New Zealand, she then investigates such clashes and exchanges in key areas of contemporary life – waterways, land, the sea and people. Our world is defined by maps and calendars – making it seem that this is the nature of reality itself. But in New Zealand, concepts of whakapapa and hau, complex networks and reciprocal exchange, may point to new ways of understanding interactions between peoples, and between people and the natural world. Reporter Pearl Little speaks to Dame Salmond about the book.