Shortlisted for the General Non-fiction Award at the 2021 Ockham NZ Book Awards
Selected by the New Zealand Listener as one of the best books of 2020!
Featuring on Top 10 2020 vision
'Our selection of Top 10 books that offer insights into the year that was 2020, curated by our librarians for the Auckland Libraries Top 100 list.'
On the The Women's Bookshop Faves & Raves 2020.
'I met Alison at the cauldron of political action in Auckland in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In this journey of discovery about ‘being Pakeha’ in Aotearoa New Zealand, she challenges herself to wrestle with the complexity of ‘Maori being’ and the unsettling idea of becoming Pakeha i roto i tenei ao rereke. This is an honest and disruptive interrogation of white privilege and power relations in Aotearoa.' – Ripeka Evans, social justice advocate
'One of the most critical Pākehā books to come out this year is undoubtedly This Pākehā Life: An Unsettled Memoir by Alison Jones. Shortlisted for the Ockham NZ Book Awards, This Pākehā Life is truly a vital read for all those who consider themselves allies to tāngata whenua. Alison Jones can interrogate whiteness in a universally approachable way.' – Anna McAllister, Pantograph Punch
'I have been recommending this book to everyone. And those who have accepted my recommendation are now recommending it to others. Its story may at first seem to be a modestly low-key one, but it quickly proves to have a powerful impact, with resonances that will be personal for every reader.' – Lindsay Shelton, Scoop Review of Books
'She maps a rough path toward a Pākehā identity that avoids the dead-end positions of guilt and blame and ignores shallow branding exercises associated with national identity ... Instead, she models a renegotiation of 'Pākehā-ness' in relation to Māori that is respectful, honest and, she suggests, positive.' – Sally Blundell, North & South
'I enjoyed this book on so many different levels that it is hard to unpack them. It is a scholarly memoir, addressing an issue of profound importance for Aotearoa New Zealand, as we embrace our past in order to create a new and better future, and it is also a work of social history, interesting in itself to a New Zealander, but extraordinarily so to someone like me, who found resonances of my own experience in so many of its instances.' – Nesta Devine, NZ Journal of Educational Studies
'The results feel more like a book of wisdom and experience rather than being preachy social commentary or heavy-handed writing; the reader is allowed to deeply dwell in all the novelties of twentieth century New Zealand society and upbringing while still feeling like they have just read a forceful account of identity, whiteness, and relationship.' – Andrew Clark-Howard, Metanoia
'I am relieved to read an author who professes doubt rather than certainty, awkwardness rather than ease; who asks questions and offers diffident answers; who relates anecdotes pointing to failure, bafflement, disappointment and occasional success. As Alison Jones says towards the end of This Pākehā Life, "My position was not – and is not – a confident one."' – Tim Upperton, NZ Listener
'She asks a lot of hard questions that Pākehā New Zealanders need to ask themselves and so I think it's brave and bold to be able to do that ... this is just the beginning of a conversation that's going to keep going on.' – Jenna Todd, 95bfm
'This Pākehā Life is an important and timely invitation for Pākehā to look more deeply into the psychology of identity and belonging, using Jones’s own life as a starting point. By sifting through her history, set against the political and cultural time in which she has lived, the personal becomes universal.' – Caroline Barron, Kete
'“The desire for redemption is a powerful urge,” Alison Jones writes of the Pakeha “need for recognition that we are not ‘all bad’ in our history”. In this searingly honest, bighearted, erudite and compellingly humble memoir, Jones contends that understanding “the details of our history is a good place to start”.' – Stephanie Johnson, NZ Herald
'Will the Māori language blossom if many more Pākehā jump on the reo waka? Not necessarily, writes Alison Jones.' – E-Tangata
'The word ‘unsettled’ in the sub-title of Jones’ challenging and often courageous memoir, This Pākehā Life: An unsettled memoir, deliberately invokes the inescapable history of colonial settlement and dispossession in Aotearoa New Zealand that we all must acknowledge and that provides the connecting thread of Jones’ story.' – Wendy Parkins, Landfall Tauraka Review
It's an insight into New Zealand's social history and Māori-Pākehā relationships, and what she describes as "the ambivalence we Pākehā often experience in our relationships with Māori." An invitation for Pākehā to look at ideas about identity and belonging, it's also Alison's own story, the daughter of working-class British migrants growing up in Dannevirke.' – RNZ Nine to Noon
'An educator who has probed some of the earliest encounters between Māori and European says calling herself Pākehā is a way to affirm her ongoing relationship with Māori.' – Waatea News
Read 'This Pākehā life' in E-Tangata
Read 'Becoming Pākehā' on Newsroom
