SAANZ Conference 2024

Chair: Marcelle Dawson

Jessica Gray 
Sociology in Action: Shaping Cities, Communities, and Humanity Beyond the Academy
 
Sociology extends far beyond the confines of academia, playing a crucial role in shaping the world today and preparing for the future. Academic rigour in sociology must be adaptable, applying lessons from the past to address present-day challenges such as urbanization, social cohesion, and human development. This paper draws on the author's work as an applied sociologist with a background in psychology and investigative journalism, focusing on the intersection of sociology with everyday life. Drawing from research on people, place, and identity, as well as experiences in the Eastern Bay of Plenty and advocacy for international conflict resolution, the presentation highlights the practical impact of sociology in diverse settings. By examining these real-world examples, the author demonstrates that sociology is not merely an abstract academic discipline but a vital tool for designing future cities, shaping communities, and addressing global issues. This argument challenges the notion that sociology is a “nice to have”; rather, it asserts that sociology is essential for crafting human-centric, resilient spaces. The presentation envisions possible futures for sociology beyond the academy, advocating for a discipline deeply connected to real-world applications, grounded in both theory and practice.


Mike Grimshaw 
LinkedIn sociology?  Annotative sociology as daily practice for the digital era.

What does it mean to undertake sociological thought and commentary on a public platform like LinkedIn?
Over the past couple of years, I have undertaken an experiment of – drawing from the notion of practice from art school – posting at least twice a day, 7 days a week, sociologically-informed annotative commentary to articles from a variety of sources, on LinkedIn.

I have quickly assembled (currently) 824 connections (that is those who my posts and comments get alerted to and who follow me in some way) and I average somewhere between 12000-15000 impressions (views/reads) of my posts a week. Some individual posts receive up to 7000 views a week alone. My posts often get reposted to new audiences. On top of this I write sociological commentary pieces for the website Plain Sight that also get re-posted on the Point of Order blog. I am – from within the academy – undertaking and crafting a practice of public sociology to an expanding public audience.
This paper discusses the possibilities of public-facing digital era sociology that can provide commentary and subversive engagement with where people are.


Lynda Hills
Could we be wrong?

While coming off life support after overdosing and jumping off a bridge, I remember thinking “they were wrong” – they being the institutions of Psychiatry and the Church. Fifteen years later, and now I’m wondering “could we (sociology) be wrong?”. In my presentation, I will argue that the reason sociology is failing to make an impact outside of the academy is that it is disconnected from the very people it should be serving. Valuable sociological knowledge is unable to be accessed by someone experiencing akathisia as I was. Akathisia is the devastating side effect of psychotropics that can lead to suicide. By sharing how indigenous approaches to mental distress are grounded in the taiao (natural environment), I will challenge us, as sociologists, to consider where we are disconnected from the very people who could most benefit from our work. I will contrast our disconnection with the work of indigenous kaiārahi who ground their work in the taiao. Using my story, I will compare the ‘mental health patient’ to an ika (marine animal) and society to the awa (body of water) and show how when the river ‘sick’ the ika becomes the victim. Ka rere te awa, ka ora ai te iwi.

Chair: Bruce Cohen

Kevin Dew (presenter)
Non-presenting authors: Kerry Chamberlain, Richard Egan, Liz Dennett, Chris Cunningham

“This archaic medical system we currently live in, needs to stop living in a tunnel”: Challenges of cancer survivorship in Aotearoa New Zealand

Long term cancer survival is increasingly prevalent, and this raises survivorship issues, not just about the quantity of time but also the quality of life. In this paper we consider a range of survivorship issues in what can be an unwelcoming environment for survivors. From 2020 to 2022, 81 interviews were conducted with Māori and non-Māori throughout Aotearoa New Zealand identified as exceptional cancer survivors, living with a diagnosis of cancer from four to 37 years. This presentation will cover concerns about unnecessary delays in diagnosis, arbitrary levels of assistance, differential treatments, private and public healthcare, and the incommensurability of worlds. Findings raise concerns about the potential for the healthcare system to foster iniquitous outcomes and marginalise those who explore alternative understandings of cancer and its treatment. To better support survivorship the healthcare system needs to both be more expansive in its approach, improve its performance in the capacity to detect cancer signals particularly in patients with a prior history of disease, and take a more tailored approach to cancer survivorship.

Ian Dashfield
Pain, the brain, and the radical possibilities of the embodied-constructive turn

Healthcare is haunted by a tension between the private nature of pain and the universalist assumptions underpinning standardisation and regulation. These ‘traditional biomedical’ distinctions drawn between mental and physical health are being challenged by the increasing authority of neuroscience. One dramatic example is in chronic pain management, where the neuroscientific view is that pain is a cognitively complex representation of expected danger, rather than a direct perception of bodily damage. This view suggests psycho-social trauma and inequality are not circuitously correlated with higher rates of chronic pain, and instead directly ‘train the brain’ to expect a painful world. Combined with concerns regarding the validity and social harm of surgical and pharmaceutical interventions, this has led to pedagogy and psychology being integrated into ‘best practice’ pain management.
In Aotearoa — where 21% of adults experience persistent pain — this ‘truly bio-psycho-social’ approach has been endorsed by a 2022 report commissioned by Te Whatu Ora, as they (then) aimed to introduce a new model of chronic pain management. This talk charts the current case and possible trajectory of this neuro-constructive turn, through which sensation, affect, and socio-epistemic history, context, and norms are understood as entangled loops of co-construction.

Chair: Simon Barber

Bonnie-Estelle K. Trotter-Simons
Disrupting a Settler-Colonial Gendered Culture through Intersectionality: Towards Collective Liberation and Constitutional Transformation in Aotearoa

As a tangata Tiriti feminist seeking to engage in constitutional transformation in Aotearoa, I open discussion by thinking with the whakataukī: ‘kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua’ (‘I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past’). In this paper, I argue for an intersectional frame through which to critically understand how a hetero- and cis-normative gendered culture is integral to ongoing white settler colonial processes and legacies imposed upon Aotearoa. I begin by bringing into conversation a body of dynamic and radical work rooted in sociology, Mana Wahine scholarship, feminism, and critical race theory. Dialogue across these areas of scholarship reveal the interconnection of race, gender, class and sexuality with colonialism in Aotearoa and elsewhere. Through engagement with critical literature and activism alike, I explore potential possibilities of taking an intersectional approach to understanding and resisting settler colonial gendered processes. These involve strengthening collective praxis and fostering relationships of solidarity across difference which honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and realise constitutional transformation. Finally, I explore how this approach resonates for several Aotearoa-based musicians who develop intersectional praxis through their music in ways that disrupt a settler colonial gendered culture and enact new ways of being together beyond it.


Richard Jackson
State Terrorism and the Settler Colonial Project in Israel

The issue of terrorism in the Israel-Palestine ‘conflict’ has almost entirely been reserved as a label for Palestinian resistance. The reasons for this lie in the deliberate campaign of the ‘terrorisation’ of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, as documented by Ilan Pappe, as well as powerful discursive intimidation by pro-Israeli supporters against any application of the term to Israel’s actions. However, recent events have reduced the suppressive impact of pro-Israel propaganda, providing an opening for an in-depth analysis of the history and nature of Israeli state terrorism. This paper provides a brief overview of the extent and nature of Israeli state terrorism, and examines how it has been used as a tool for both coercive diplomacy against external opponents, and a form of terror governance for occupied Palestinian populations. Drawing parallels with other settler colonial projects, such as South Africa, Kenya, Algeria, and others, the paper argues that state terrorism is one of the primary tools employed in the settler colonial project, being used for the purposes of ethnically cleansing land to make way for settlers, suppressing national self-determination movements by indigenous populations, and pacifying captive populations. This finding of the centrality of state terrorism to the settler state-building and state-maintenance project has major implications for our understanding of states, power and contemporary IR, as well as criminology and state crime. In disciplinary terms, it suggests that terrorism studies as a field (alongside criminology) has a myopic and distorted analytical focus which needs to be turned towards the much more significant issue of state terrorism.


Liana MacDonald
Title: Deconstructing the Settler Colonial Crypt

Anti-Māori sentiment oozes from the coalition government, as evidenced by legislative attacks on the Treaty and local Māori representation, and a 2024 Budget intent on squashing Māori aspirations. How can we explain such rigid ignorance of colonial history and lived Māori realities as contributing factors of long-standing and persistent racism in Aotearoa New Zealand today?

In this presentation, I introduce the settler-colonial crypt as analogy for considering the role that collective memory and remembering play in upholding state sovereignty and whiteness in settler societies. Drawing from Indigenous philosophy and sociology, I deconstruct different components of the crypt (the exterior, the walls, the interior) through a storytelling methodology that shows how everyday spaces and places accommodate a ‘settler fantasy’; an embodied narrative about how good ol’ New Zealand Kiwis come to belong in the nation state. I argue that a settler fantasy trumps rational thought to ensure that economic and social privileges remain in the hands of Pākehā settlers.
Then, we will consider what an Indigenous approach to collective remembering can offer towards dismantling the crypt structure. Indigenous remembering is a relational and grounded view of society that can bring past grievances and the structuring force of colonisation into public view, to transform popular thinking about race relations.

Chair: Sonja Bohn

Barney Connolly
Generative AI at Otago University - A Critical Appraisal

This research is conscious of the increasing capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) globally, and seeks to ascertain what constitutes the ethical usage of generative AI, in the higher education sphere. Firstly, an anonymous survey of students enrolled at the University of Otago was undertaken. Secondly, formal interviews with academic staff. Thirdly, informal, ‘participant observation’ type discussions with fellow postgraduates. Finally, an evaluation of the embodied use of generative AI in social science research by the author. The collection of these opinions allows for a broad consideration of perspectives, which are then synthesized with relevant social theorists in order to provide as holistic and comprehensive analysis as possible. The issue of academic integrity is an especially salient one, given that we may soon be experiencing a future in which the value of the organizational and critical thinking skills taught at the university is threatened by students who outsource their thought to a biased machine intelligence that can convincingly create a simulacrum of academic scholarship. This field of study is crucial in ensuring the systems of higher education evolve accordingly in order to provide a service that prepares students effectively for life after graduation. This is a fiduciary responsibility of educators worldwide.


Rike Stotten
What are the ‘Values‘ in Alternative Food Systems? A Systematic Review

A growing body of agri-food literature explores the underlying values that shape various forms of alternative food systems. Yet, the understandings of what constitutes ‘values’ and processes of valuation generally, both in general and specifically in alternative food systems, vary widely or remain ambiguous across studies. This contribution, drawing from a systematic literature review and a ‘snowball’ literature search, seeks to clarify and categorize the multiple interpretations of ‘values’ within agri-food literature, aiming to enhance the understanding of their role in alternative food systems.

Through an in-depth analysis, the contribution organizes these diverse findings by mapping them onto four key dimensions: of social, spatial, natural, and economic embeddedness. As a result, the review provides a comprehensive and theoretically sound perspective on values in agri-food studies.


Peter J. Howland
Russian Jack – from vagabond to wine brand

In wine advertising and promotion, winegrowers frequently seek to claim the uniqueness of their wines via a number of intersecting and collusive registers. These include the literally grounded, demarcated, and thus wholly irreplicable, appellation and terroir claims (Jacquet, 2022) and the personality and lifestyle biographization of winemakers (Howland, 2019). A third prominent trope, are claims of historical depth or longevity of production – together with distinct temporal ‘journeys’ – that speak to the authenticity, durability and quality of one’s wines.

In the Old Word historical links and associations are not only often centuries old, but are widely regarded as ‘objective’ and authoritative. However, in New World winegrowing – in Aotearoa New Zealand and the United Kingdom for example – ‘objective’ genealogical winegrowing links are conspicuously missing and in their stead, tenuous, ‘stretched’, or even fabricated historical semblances are frequently advanced. This form of fetishised promotion seeks to exploit the desire of consumers for good wines and a ‘better world’. Consumers are not necessarily dupes in this, though neither are they stand up critics. Rather ensnared and jaded by living in a world of lies, wine consumers – like winegrowers and promoters – often seek to ‘accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative’.

Chair: Charlotte Bruce-Kells

Kirsty Lennox
I don’t know you, random man: The role of safety-work during female encounters with the police.

Worldwide, governing systemic structures are being questioned, and police are being called to account for their actions both at an institutional and individual level. During a time of what some have deemed a ‘legitimacy crisis’, the well-established concept of procedural justice has been found to help increase legitimacy, a crucial underpinning of the Peelian Principle of policing by consent (Cook, 2015; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler, 1990). However, very little research has examined female experiences of procedural justice during police contact. To ascertain whether procedural justice is occurring during police contact with women, it is critical to understand what women’s encounters with the police look like. Reflecting on 40 semi-structured interviews with women aged between 16-39 throughout Aotearoa, this study explores whether the gendered safety strategies that women are conditioned to employ, impact their encounters with the police as unknown men.

Kirsten Gibson
‘Women and their experiences after release from prison’: The State as an alibi

In this paper, I share findings from my recently published doctoral research, which explored women’s post-prison experiences in Aotearoa. The extant research on women’s experiences in prison is limited and even more so for women’s post-prison experiences. Discourses about post-prison that overly focus on desistance and pathologise women’s behaviour tend to minimise the impact that structural conditions play in women’s lives. Examining women’s experiences, while acknowledging the structural constraints on their lives, can provide a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the structural barriers they encounter and navigate.

The current context of increased punitive policies and decreased social support across Aotearoa demonstrates how the State “punishes the poor”. The State enacts punishment of the poor through a withdrawal of social support, and increased monitoring and criminalisation. This punishment impacts distinct — such as Māori, poor, and previously victimised — groups of women disproportionately. I detail women’s descriptions of their experiences of gender responsive programmes, and post-prison services. Challenging some dominant notions in post-prison literature, I share how the women described their ideas of post-prison ‘success’. I explore how the State utilises gender responsivity programmes and frameworks, and desistance discourses to distract and shift the responsibility of addressing structural harm against criminalised women.

Bryndl Hohmann-Marriott
Reproductive justice and data justice: An interconnected relational approach

Reproductive justice and data justice can be interconnected and expanded to encompass a relational approach. I discuss a model of relational reproductive data justice, using the example of period-tracking apps. These types of reproductive data can be understood as relational, offering a point of connection between models of reproductive justice and data justice. The expanded model considers more-than-human assemblages, harms and benefits, and data imaginaries.

Chair: Donna Baines

Liz Beddoe, Eileen Joy, Laura Chubb and George Guild
Delusions of neutrality: “Abortion should be illegal (but I am) non-judgemental despite disagreeing with the decision”

Social workers represent diverse identities, values, and beliefs, playing a critical role in helping service users to obtain information and resources needed to make important life decisions including those pertaining to abortion. Abortion is considered by many to be a controversial issue however social work scholarship in recent years has focused on positioning abortion rights as essential to reducing health inequalities.
In Aotearoa, New Zealand abortion has been decriminalised and our study sought to explore social workers’ knowledge and beliefs about the legislative change and how they manage their responses when supporting people who are considering terminating a pregnancy.

This presentation will draw on a qualitative survey that explored the thoughts, beliefs, and the meaning-making that social workers engage in when they consider abortion in their professional practice, following changes to the abortion law in Aotearoa New Zealand. The survey was completed by 122 participants with 14,000 words in open responses related to abortion. These data were explored within a reproductive justice theoretical framework using thematic analysis. While reported views varied from strongly anti-abortion to strongly pro-choice many social workers noted a clash between personal and professional values in relation to abortion. Generally, regardless of their stated personal positions participants called on professional ethical principles such as self-determination, neutrality and being non-judgemental to reconcile any tensions. Our findings suggest that social workers would benefit from more learning opportunities focused on the development of a more nuanced understanding of reproductive justice in order to be able to position abortion as health care.


Eileen Joy and Suzette Jackson
Patriarchal motherhood discourses in social worker talk about mothers who use substances

Patriarchal motherhood discourses affect all women (even those who choose not to mother) by comparing them to an often impossible and idealised version of mothering. Patriarchal motherhood discourses represent an essentialised version of mothering, one which is deeply gendered and perpetuates inequality..

The presentation draws from a doctoral study that included interviews with child protection social workers (n=24) in Aotearoa. Critical discourse analysis was used to see how social workers upheld and/or resisted notions of patriarchal motherhood when talking about their work with mothers who use substances – mothers who are considered by many to be among the most deviant. Findings suggest that social workers predominantly used patriarchal discourses to position their practice as child-centric while leaving the mother with little support. Some practitioners resisted these discourses by articulating narratives including a more structural and intersectional analysis. These findings suggest that social workers need to think differently about motherhood and mothering through adopting a matricentric, intersectional and decolonised approach to their work with all mothers. This work includes recognising broader family networks and intergenerational oppressions in the lives of mothers who use substances.


Natalie Femia
Social justice as sustainability: A post-structural critique of 'burnout' in social work.

In the current context of biomedical neoliberalism, to be a social worker in the mental health field is to be constrained by paradigms of individualism, hyper-managerialism, professionalism, pathologisation, and structural inequities. Inability to be complicit with these constraints can be pathologised as ‘burnout’. Drawing on preliminary findings from qualitative interviews and arts-based body-mapping, this research critically explores the concept of ‘burnout’ in this work, and suggests a complex relationship between perceptions and experiences of ‘burnout’ and the aforementioned constraints. These findings further suggest that this relationship is mediated by close or distant social work values and ethics, and whether people (‘clients’) are positioned through relationality or othering. This research demonstrates hopeful possibilities for strengthening values and ethics of social justice in particular as a method for resisting current constraints, sustaining social workers, and prioritising relationality and solidarity with people (‘clients’).

Chair: Jordan Dougherty

Jasper Wei Yuan Tan
Progress or Panopticon? How Singapore's smart city drives state surveillance

This project examines how Singapore’s smart city framework facilitates biometric surveillance, raising concerns about privacy, autonomy, and state control. While smart cities are often seen as enhancing efficiency and security, they also enable state and corporate monitoring of citizens. Current research highlights the technological benefits of smart cities but tends to overlook how such frameworks contribute to the growth and normalisation of surveillance, particularly in highly state-managed environments like Singapore. Singapore was chosen to address this gap, particularly because it was an early pioneer in adopting digital technologies, such as the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system, and the ongoing development of its Smart Nation initiative, which contributes to expanding the country’s surveillance apparatus. This analysis involves a qualitative investigation of government policies, news media articles, and public data sources relating to Singapore’s surveillance and digitalisation efforts, aligning significantly with the smart city framework. State policies and surveillance technologies intensify state control, normalising the trade-off between security and individual privacy in pursuing technological progress and a safer society. Despite their promise of innovation and efficiency, this research provides a critical lens of how smart city frameworks function as tools for enhancing state surveillance, with profound implications for privacy and civil liberties.

Save Dunedin Live Music: Dave Bennett, Fairleigh Gilmour and Hugh Harlow
Sound and the city: a discussion of class by activists who #planfornoise

In this presentation, Save Dunedin Live Music will explore why examination of class needs to be central to activism around noise and space in the city. Drawing from Shane Homan’s work on pub rock in Australia, and our own experiences as activists here in Ōtepoti Dunedin, we will outline why class is fundamental to understanding people, space and the future of our city – in terms of access, regulation and decision-making around ‘noise’.

Chair: Simon Clay

Madiha Ehsan
Exploring Relational Autonomy in the context of Pakistani Muslim migrants envisioning their End-of-Life Phase in New Zealand

The increase in international migration in the era of globalization has resulted in changing social and global conditions, which have implications for migrants' end-of-life choices. Over the years, there has been a noticeable growth in international migrants in New Zealand. In 2024, New Zealand has experienced significant international migration. As of May 2024, there were an estimated 221,400 migrant arrivals, marking a 13 percent increase compared to the previous year. End-of-life care in line with the culture of the migrants is a challenging task for medical professionals in New Zealand and around the world. The social science approach to end-of-life care places a strong emphasis on the value of considering the social environment of dying and death. This perspective highlights that end-of-life care is not a universal, unproblematic concept but a multifaceted issue influenced by cultural, social, and individual factors. It highlights that end-of-life care, in addition to the medical aspect, also contains social, cultural, and existential components. This broader view recognizes that death is not merely a physical event but also a complex interplay of human relationships, existential concerns, social support, and cultural beliefs. The thesis will explore the interplay between individual experiences, societal norms, and institutional practices concerning end-of-life planning within the Pakistani Muslim migrant population in New Zealand.

The study seeks to develop a deeper understanding of how cultural and religious beliefs may influence attitudes toward death and dying within the first-generation Pakistani Muslim migrant community in New Zealand. In medicine, health sciences and sociology, relational autonomy in end-of-life care is a theoretical approach that has gained wide attention. It underlines how crucial it is to view autonomy as the result of connections and teamwork rather than an autonomous quality. Relational autonomy is especially applicable in advance care planning, shared decision-making, and palliative care, where relationships are critical to decision-making. The thesis examines the theoretical concept of relational autonomy in end-of-life care. It applies a constructive lens to in-depth interviews with first-generation Pakistani migrants in New Zealand's end-of-life hopes, beliefs, and expectations. Bringing together an analysis of relational autonomy and how Pakistani migrants in New Zealand envisage end-of-life is taken as a means to address those intricacies in the context of intersectional challenges.

Chloe Coombe
End of Life Concerns during the HIV and AIDS Epidemic in Aotearoa, 1980-1999

This paper presents the preliminary findings of my PhD research into the intersection of sexuality, public health and end-of-life concerns during the HIV and AIDS epidemic in Aotearoa. In an era before effective treatments, many people were confronted with the reality of premature death, while their friends and families faced the difficulties of grieving in a social climate marked by silence, stigma and often hostility. Drawing on a combination of archival research and initial interviews with survivors, caregivers, and community leaders, in this paper I will address the ways in which personal end-of-life needs were understood and managed during the epidemic. My broader project also examines the development of commemorative practices, and I will also offer early insights into the sorts of innovations that emerged to navigate the collective experience of grief and mourning during the epidemic.

Jessica Young, Antonia Lyons, Kevin Dew,  Richard Egan
Constructing the right time: Patients, families and providers’ experiences of assisted dying decision-making.

For terminally ill people who are approved for assisted dying (AD), they will need to select a time and date for their death. We recruited triads of patients, relatives, and AD doctors. We longitudinally interviewed seven people with cancer applying for AD, ten relatives, and six AD doctors pertaining to ten assisted deaths in 44 interviews. We conducted a thematic analysis of the interview transcripts.
We identified four phases in participants’ experiences of picking and anticipating a date for AD: deciding how and when to draw a line in the sand; the final countdown; a date with death; and the right time. Picking a date was an embodied, relational, situational decision that is made to balance situations, people, and regulatory systems.
Existentially, socially, and clinically difficult decisions about a date for death are made (and re-made) by patients to balance time left and the quality of that time. Time is a silent crucial factor in AD decision-making. The social structures and meanings of time influence the anticipation of the date of death. Having to choose a date contrives the notion of ‘the right time’ for death. Time is reoriented from clock time to include embodied and event time.

Chair: Karen Nairn

Bruce Curtis
The impossible Predator Free 2050: A balance of cruelty, a post-colonialism

This presentation explores how a hierarchy of animal species normalizes the eradication of feral animals (Clark 1999; Curtis 2002, 2018; Major 2024), and the sanctification of native animals in Aotearoa New Zealand. The result is a balance of cruelty wherein tens of thousands of feral animals, mainly mammals, with a high capacity for suffering (Singer 1976, 1979, 1985) are exterminated in the putative interests of dozens of native animals, mainly birds and frogs, with a low capacity for suffering. Predator Free 2050 codifies this balance of cruelty. It anticipates the extermination of introduced mammals, designated feral (rats, ferrets, stoats, weasels, and possums and, if public opinion can be thwarted, cats). In practice, Predator Free 2050 is an impossibility: undermined in the short-term by cost constraints and socio-technical limitations; undermined in the long-term by climate-change and the likely influx of new invasive species. As a result Predator Free 2050 is best understood as an eco-nationalism (Ginn 2008) or as a post-colonialism which chastens its colonial past.



Shinya Uekusa, Tyrone Barnard, Steve Matthewman, Christine Stephens, Fiona Alpass
The intersection of rural inequalities and resilience: The experiences of rural informal caregivers during the pandemic in Aotearoa New Zealand

This study explores the intersection of rural inequalities and resilience experienced by older informal caregivers in Aotearoa New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Informal caregivers in rural areas, who provide care for family members, friends and neighbors, faced heightened challenges during the pandemic. These challenges were driven by increased care demands coupled with reduced access to essential health and social services, further exacerbating pre-existing rural inequalities. However, despite these hurdles, many participants demonstrated remarkable resilience, with relatively positive experiences emerging from the study. Our findings highlight that rural informal caregivers – many of whom are accustomed to managing everyday vulnerabilities – exhibited a form of “earned strength” in the face of the pandemic. This resilience, observed amidst significant structural and systemic disadvantages, aligns with broader disaster research, which suggests that rural populations, through their ongoing navigation of routine hardships, may develop a unique preparedness for crisis. This paper will seek to deepen our understanding of how rural inequalities shape, and at times strengthen, resilience among informal caregivers. By focusing on the adaptive strategies and social networks that enables caregivers to persist, we aim to contribute to discussions on rural health disparities, caregiving challenges and community resilience in times of social disruptions.

Chair: Shayne Walker

Donna Baines and Bindi Bennett
Rankings, Ruling and Reproducing Inequities: Critiquing the Knowledge Production of Social Work’s “Top 100 Scholars”

Reflecting on an article authored by Hodge and Turner (2022) that ranks the “top” 100 social work scholars, this paper presents a multi-layered critique of the tradition of using bibliometrics to generate “knowledge” and competitive global rankings of individual social work faculty members, departments and universities. We raise concerns regarding the transformation of neoliberal metrics into social work research questions and projects, and then solidified into competitive, martketised knowledge about social work and its scholars. We argue that through this process, inequity and neoliberalism are normalized and legitimized and we are further distanced from social justice, decolonisation, and equity. Drawing on the literature, we show that racism, colonialism, classism, sexism and geographic inequity are reproduced by the article and the pursuit of these kinds of competitive rankings. The paper concludes by suggesting alternative assessments grounded in community participation and social justice, and aimed at expanding equity and social justice.

Emily Keddell, Shayne Walker, Andrew Rudolph
Protecting whakapapa: collaboration, power and prevention in initial child protection decision-making.

Acknowledgement: We acknowledge Tai Timu, Tai Pari as joint partners in this project, particularly William Kaipo, Jonette Chapman, Jude Hughes, Dave Ashby and Karen Hale.

Within report-investigate child protection institutional structures, decisions are made by state child protection workers about reports that are made to them by other professionals and citizens. Initial decisions have significant consequences, as they can result in protection for children and increased coordination of support services, as well as intrusive, stressful and harmful interventions. They are also the entry point for the start of inequities within the system most notably for Māori. The harm of unwarranted removals, as part of colonial impositions and assimilationist processes are well documented. One consequence of the institutionalisation of statutory child protection systems in colonised countries is that power, decision-making, processes and what is considered relevant knowledge have traditionally been defined and controlled by the state. De-centralising decision-making, a key aim of both statutory and Māori agencies in the reforms of 2019 – 2023 in Aotearoa New Zealand, aims to help address inequities for Maori, reduce care entry, and improve prevention service access. This talk describes an evaluation research project of a de-centralised decision-making triage
process, which operates collaboratively between Oranga Tamariki (state child protection) and community-based social workers from a range of Māori organisations led by Tai Timu, Tai Pari. The aims of the research are to understand the barriers and enablers of this new form of decision -making according to key participants. Of particular interest is its e]ects on power dynamics, the co-construction of risk, and access to supports. This talk will describe the process of building a research partnership between university and community organisations, the methods used, and emerging findings.


Shayne Walker, Lashana Lewis, Natalie Paki Paki, Paula Toko King, Hunia Te Urukaitia Mackay
He aha te korero o to puku!

What wells up from your belly, how do you ‘go with your knowing’ in the child protection process with tamariki, rangatahi and whānau Māori. This presentation is the result of a three year research project with Te Hou Ora Whānau Support Services Otepoti (THO) that examined the key practice elements in indigenous led child protection processes with tamariki, rangatahi and whānau. The outcomes are five pou – the “foundational underpinnings of both good practice and good partnerships” and seven takepū - the “preferred ways, fashioned by Māori thinking and rationale, of engaging with others” (Pohatu, 2013, p. 13). Kaimahi, various community and NGO stakeholders, rangatahi and whanau provided thier stories, dreams and pūkōrero (well-informed, speaking with authority, articulate) regarding ‘what worked’ and ‘what doesen’t’ work for them. These ways of thinking, behaving and acting form the core of practice in THO a kaupapa Maori organisation that has been operating for over 40years. Their aim is to have transformative relationships that result in tangible and real rangatiratanga for those they work with. They can do what they like with 7AA in Wellington but the waka has already sailed Māori and their allies know and can evidence what works!

Jathan Sadowski: A Ruthless Criticism of AI and Technology

In 2021, science fiction Ted Chiang writer observed that, “Most of our fears or anxieties about technology are best understood as fears or anxiety about how capitalism will use technology against us.” The sudden boom of interest in artificial intelligence—driven by torrents of cash and threats to transform society from top to bottom—has clarified this relationship between technology and capitalism even further. People are more aware than ever of the power dynamics that drive systems like AI. It is now common to see skeptical inquiry about how technologies are made, who decides their purpose, who uses them, and who are they used against? The impacts of AI are no longer merely abstract or distant concerns. The ecological, economic, and human costs are increasingly material and immediate. By expanding on Chiang’s sharp remarks about our anxieties of how capital forges technologies to then wield against us, this talk outlines three key concepts that are crucial for a political economic analysis—and a ruthless criticism—of AI and capitalism. First is innovation realism. Second is cheap data. Third is the perpetual value machine.