SAANZ Conference 2024

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: Peter Howland

Penelope Carroll, Linda Madden, Karen Witten
Ableism: a potent force impeding full citizenship?

Ableism – largely unseen and unquestioned – plays a significant role in the structure and functioning of society in Aotearoa, as elsewhere. People whose bodies fit an ‘ablebodied’ norm are situated as ideal (and are thus privileged) while ‘disabled’ bodies are deemed deviant (and problematised and marginalised). This has a significant effect on participation parity across all life domains, denying many disabled New Zealanders full citizenship. As more than one-in-five New Zealanders are categorised as ‘disabled’, ableism’s reach in cementing socio-cultural and economic inequalities is vast.

Despite decades of rights-based rhetoric, accessibility legislation and inclusionary frameworks, disabled people continue to be marginalised. A clear and critical focus is required to surface ableist attitudes and practices and avoid reproducing exclusionary ableist systems and structures. Two current research projects – one Health Research Council-funded, the other Marsden-funded – are surfacing ableist beliefs in the physical activity, health, employment and culture sectors; provoking self-reflection within the sectors; and employing creative strategies to tackle ableism and help ensure a non-ableist future for Aotearoa.

In this presentation, we discuss deep-seated ableist attitudes and practices revealed in research with participants from across all sectors and our creative dissemination of these findings to date.


Conor Lorigan
Outside the university is outside the modern self.

1. Rangi as resonance (Carl Mika) operates from a different subjectivity to the modern (Pākehā) self (Denise Ferreira Da Silva).
2. What is rangi as resonance? (Carl Mika, Maori Marsden, Symon Palmer, Madi Williams, Edouard Glissant)
3. What is the modern self? (Denise Ferreira Da Silva, Mark Fisher, Achille Mbembe, Simon Barber)
4. Rangi as resonance as surreal – returning Pākehā to an image unrecognisable from before (Viveiros Da Castro, Mark Fisher).

From this outline I will attempt to raise questions of what we mean by outside the university. The outside is going on regardless of us (inside) so then we can ask why or how we think we could be removed from the outside and how this then structures our thought of in/outside the university.