Book Launch: Rebecca Macfie BWB Texts: Hardship & Hope + Pakukore

Unity Books is delighted to be joining Rebecca Macfie, as she launches her newest BWB Texts, Hardship & Hope: Stories of Resistance in the Fight Against Poverty in Aotearoa and Pakukore: Poverty, by Design (edited alongside Graeme Whimp and Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich)

Hardship and Hope - ‘The people in this book … face the uncertainty and the risks, and choose to wield fierce hope over passivity and cynicism to help shape a better future.’

In papakāinga, schools, marae and communities from Te Hauke to Porirua, Papakura to Aranui, award-winning journalist Rebecca Macfie discovers powerful local responses to poverty.

Expanding on her New Zealand Listener series, Macfie reveals the everyday struggles whanau face across the country and lays bare the systems that perpetuate poverty. Hardship and Hope grounds the national poverty crisis in the lived realities of the people and organisations leading local initiatives to confront injustice and build a fairer future.

Pakukore - ‘Poverty in Aotearoa is not accidental. It is designed into our systems, our institutions, and our policies.’

Poverty is not the result of individual failure or misfortune. It is a product of the design of our economic and institutional systems. Pakukore brings together leading thinkers and practitioners to expose the systemic nature of poverty in Aotearoa and explore pathways for change.

From education, health and housing to government finance, welfare and justice, this book shows how inequality is embedded in the structures of our society. It offers analysis from economists, public health experts, legal scholars, community leaders and those working at the front lines of social need.

Originating from the 2024 conference Pakukore: Poverty, by Design, hosted by the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, this collection is a compelling call to rethink how we understand and address poverty in this country.

Contributors include: Sue Bradford, Huhana Hickey, Callum Katene, Lisa Marriott, Tracey McIntosh, Hana O’Regan, Sarah-Jane Paine, Craig Renney, Bill Rosenberg, Max Rashbrooke, Jin Russell, Miriana Stephens, Nikki Turner.