Sustainable Utilisation of Fisheries as Governmentality: Constraining the Potential for Ecosystems‐Based Management?

This paper examines the constitution of ‘sustainable management’ within the context of the New Zealand marine environment. Firstly this paper examines the difference between ‘sustainable ecosystems’ and ‘sustainable utilisation’. The distinction is important if we are to make sense of the different ways in which various stakeholders (fishers, fisheries companies, scientists, fisheries managers and environmental groups) use ‘sustainability’ in the management of New Zealand's marine environment. We then examine how contestation results in sustainable management becoming a governmentality. We propose that such contestation transforms stakeholders into subjects whose everyday practices and relationships are influenced by seemingly incommensurable understandings of the lexicon that surrounds sustainable management. We conclude try considering how the potential revelation of new unknowns may be needed in order for disparate stakeholders to forge a unified approach to New Zealand's marine management.     

Contested and congested spaces: Exploring authenticity in New Zealand farmers' markets

This paper considers issues of authenticity as they apply to the evolution of farmers' markets in New Zealand. Following a discussion of the nature of authenticity and its deployment by farmers' market organisations in several jurisdictions, a two‐part case study is presented. An analysis of the strategies adopted by Farmers' Markets New Zealand to ‘protect its brand’ nationally and an examination of the disputation of authenticity in the Marlborough Farmers' Market reveals the potential of the ‘authenticity project’ to be a lightning rod for heightened tension and the fracturing of the relationship between competing interests in New Zealand farmers' markets.     

On Geographic and geography

New Zealand Geographic is one of a number of geographical magazines published in the English‐speaking world that make little or no reference to work by academic geographers. It recently launched a New Zealand Geographic Trust to promote research into ‘New Zealand's life, culture and sciences’ and collaborated with four other publishers of geographical magazines to raise awareness of climate change: the work of academic geographers is again ignored. This exclusion of academic and school geography from such enterprises raises important issues regarding the discipline's public profile in New Zealand and suggests the need for greater public engagement activity by the country's geographers.     

Putting together the pieces of the puzzle: Traces of New Zealand in international school geography textbooks

How does a fairly remote space (the islands of New Zealand) contribute to the development of geographical literacy in the geography textbooks of post‐socialist (Romania), Western (Germany) and post‐colonial (Mexico) countries? A four‐step analysis of three textbooks of international selection revealed different regionalisation cultures combined with traditional and recently implemented educational paradigms of geography education and led to a similar result. Despite the many ways in which New Zealand's geographical distinctiveness could be used to enhance geographical literacy, there are few operationalisations of educational targets that might contribute to sustainable long‐term learning. Further, these results also offer a possible explanation for the absence of the ‘southern lands’ on students' cognitive maps of the world.     

(Re)making space for kiwi: beyond ‘fortress conservation’ in Northland

Mainstream conservation has been long dominated globally by the protected area paradigm. This approach has been widely challenged in recent years, and new conservation initiatives have emerged. The situation is mirrored in New Zealand, where ongoing biodiversity loss has prompted reappraisal. Within this context, we highlight the plight of kiwi, focusing on Northland and efforts there to (re)make space for this iconic bird which is at risk of extinction. While the state has primarily responded by fortifying ‘islands’ on public conservation land, Far North communities are working in a variety of ways and localities, both within and beyond ‘the fortress’, to secure a future for the ‘people's bird’.     

John Turnbull Thomson,Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society: An early New Zealand geographer

John Turnbull Thomson is more known in New Zealand for his work as Chief Surveyor of Otago Province (1856–1876) and first Surveyor General of New Zealand (1877–1879). He was also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of London from 1848 until his death in 1884. Thomson was an important and early self‐declared ‘does’ of geographer in New Zealand, prior to the establishment of university geography in 1937. Thomson's contribution included survey and mapping but he also gave public lectures on geography and contributed to debates about glaciation.     

Tramper perspectives on New Zealand's Great Walks in a time of transition

‘Great Walks’ are highly managed multi‐day experiences established within New Zealand's national parks. We examine their history and promotion asking ‘How have the contexts for recreational walking in the New Zealand wilderness changed?’ and ‘How are these changes regarded by trampers as practitioners of backcountry walking?’ To address these questions, we draw on 703 responses to an online survey. We note a mixed regard for Great Walks among trampers. Some consider the wilderness experience as undermined by the popularity of these branded experiences while others note that they cater for a range of users, despite high costs reducing effective accessibility.     

The Future of Radical Geography*

Radical geography has posed new, and refashioned many old, geographical problems. These problems require attention irrespective of one's political leanings. Yet radical geography has been consistently ignored by mainstream geographers since its inception. This essay examines the reasons for this situation, and finds four answers in Peet's recent review of the history of radical geography [1]. It seems likely that radical geography will continue to receive a cold shoulder unless its future exponents take pains to counter this trend. Six conditions are required to ensure progress, including effective communication in established journals, methodological heterodoxy, and a systematic, discipline-wide evaluation of the contribution of radical geography.     

THE WRITING'S ON THE WALL

Graffiti can be a marker of territory. Youthful grafffiti writers in Auckland have adopted ‘tagging’, a form of graffiti writing linked to the Americanisation of popular culture in New Zealand. Regularities in the presence of ‘tags’ are documented through field observation in suburban and central city locations and related to the daily activities of the taggers. Self-proclamation, not the marking out of turf appears to underlie the territorial dimensions of graffiti in Auckland's urban space.     

Placing Geographical Imagination in Film: New Zealand Filmmakers' Use of Landscape

The paper explores the role of landscape in New Zealand films. How is the New Zealand landscape imagined and revealed? What kind of landscape do filmmakers present? I argue that New Zealand filmmakers tap into specific geographical imaginations when they make films, and that this results in certain kinds of landscapes being produced. I sketch the methodology used in a survey of New Zealand films and ‘read’ a selection of opening and closing sequences and ‘generic places’ found in a selection of contemporary New Zealand films. 1 then offer some conclusions about New Zealand films, and their production, portrayal and imagining of New Zealand.     

The Future of Radical Geography∗

Radical geography has posed new, and refashioned many old, geographical problems. These problems require attention irrespective of one's political leanings. Yet radical geography has been consistently ignored by mainstream geographers since its inception. This essay examines the reasons for this situation, and finds four answers in Peet's recent review of the history of radical geography [1]. It seems likely that radical geography will continue to receive a cold shoulder unless its future exponents take pains to counter this trend. Six conditions are required to ensure progress, including effective communication in established journals, methodological heterodoxy, and a systematic, discipline-wide evaluation of the contribution of radical geography.     

Managed Temporary Labour Migration of Pacific Islanders to Australia and New Zealand in the Early Twenty-first Century

ABSTRACT

Circular migration was one of several enduring themes in Graeme Hugo’s highly productive research career. Although his specialist field was Asian population movement, during the 2000s he became increasingly interested in labour migration in the Pacific Islands. This paper reviews the development of two managed circular migration schemes targeting Pacific labour that emerged following the UN High-level Dialogue on International Migration and Development in 2006. New Zealand’s Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme and Australia’s Seasonal Worker Program (SWP) have attracted international attention as the kind of ‘best practice’ temporary labour migration schemes that Hugo had in mind when he emphasised the positive contributions that circular forms of mobility could make to development in both source and destination countries. The two schemes have transformed mobility between the participating countries and have played a major role in the negotiations over a free-trade agreement between Pacific Forum countries, including Australia and New Zealand. Although the schemes have been in operation for almost 10 years, this paper argues that they are not becoming ‘business as usual’; they embody complex systems of relationships between multiple stakeholders that require ongoing management to ensure that they do not become traps for low-skilled, low-paid ‘permanent’ temporary workers.     

Placing Geography's Institutions into Geographic Pedagogy: Colearning and Coproduction of Knowledge as Strategy to Do Geography Differently

This article discusses New Zealand geography's recent engagement in institutional regeneration that is aimed at redeveloping the knowledge claims its geography community can make. This engagement has led to new levels of understanding among many New Zealand geographers of colearning and coproduction of knowledge as geographic processes involving knowledge, power, and authority relations. The article briefly outlines two linked trajectories: those relating to the gradual recognition of institutional collapse, and the commitment to remaking a new and generative institutional framework, and the uptake of ideas from international geography that helped with prioritizing revisioning and institutional regeneration. Lessons from New Zealand geography's sobering institutional experiences and new efforts at collective learning and activity to extend the spheres of geography's action are salutary for international geography.     

Forestry as imperial careering: New Zealand as the end and edge of empire in the 1920s–1940s

Forestry is interestingly situated within British imperial networks of the 19th and early 20th centuries whereby India was arguably the main node. Drawing on Lambert and Lester's concept of ‘imperial careering’ as a way of exploring imperial networks, this paper further extends its application to foresters as a group of middle‐level technical experts as well as carrying it into the 20th century when the British Empire was by some measures at its zenith. The forestry careers of Owen Jones and Hugh Corbin, principally in Australia and New Zealand, are used to illustrate the discussion which concludes with some more general observations about imperial careerists.     

"Power Geometries

Feminist contributions to the geographical literature on capitalist restructuring have tended to emphasize the importance of examining women's experiences vis-a-vis those of men. This research in progress report on the telecommunications service industry in New Zealand suggests that assuming the relative homogeneity of ‘women’ as an analytical category, then assessing the experience of women against those of men using national data, may no longer be satisfactory in a context in which production, finance and labour markets have been internationalised.     

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

Contemporary research into extratropical cloud systems optimizes the increase in resolution of visible (VIS) and thermal infra-red (IR) sensors, and the ability to retrieve wind and atmospheric moisture variables at mesoscales using microwave radiometry. These passively-acquired remote sensing data are used to develop synoptic climatological (conceptual and simple statistical) ‘models’ of mesoscale cyclones in cold-air outbreaks (mesocyclones, ‘polar lows’) occurring over the otherwise data-void southern oceans. Mesocyclones present a limitation to successful weather forecasting for New Zealand and coastal Chile, southern Australia and South Africa, during the cold season. The synoptic climatological analyses show that: 1) the patterns of mesocyclone cloud vortex origins, movement and dissipation (‘mesocyclone regimes’), exhibit spatial dependence and have associations with upper-ocean conditions; 2) mesocyclone ‘outbreaks’ are embedded within characteristic larger-scale anomaly fields of tropospheric pressure, height, and layer thickness (mean temperature); and 3) composite (statistical average) models of cloud system structure based on the microwave retrievals of marine weather reveal mesocyclones to be relatively dry in comparison with synoptic cyclones, yet very windy. These analyses should permit the development of methods to better predict these important cold-season storms over southern middle latitudes, and a fuller assessment of their significance for the larger hydroclimatic system.     

Place invaders: Identity,place attachment and possum control in the South Island West Coast of New Zealand

The pesticide 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate) is used in New Zealand as the primary means of controlling the Australian brushtail possum, a problem pest. This study identified place and its role in identity as an important mediator of the perspectives of those that either strongly supported or opposed its use. Individuals' differing constructions of place influenced the way they perceived ‘others’ as a threat to their place and their views on control of its management and protection. This study may contribute to a new understanding of the importance of place in this and other similar natural resource disputes.     

Transformative tans? Gendered and raced bodies on beaches

Abstract: In this paper I examine the intentional act of transforming the colour of one's skin – sun‐tanning – by Pākehā at three New Zealand beaches: Papamoa, Mount Maunganui, and Takapuna. Recent debates about the construction of whiteness are outlined before discussing the historical significance of beaches and sun to New Zealand's leisure culture. This paper seeks to de‐naturalize whiteness through the disclosure of gendered leisure practices of tanning. Empirical material reveals that Pākehā, who actively seek brown skin, negotiate a number of racialized and gendered ‘truths’ as their sun‐tan transforms their bodies. I conclude by arguing that geographers need to be more attentive to the ways in which place constructs particular forms of gendered whiteness.     

Benefiting from the regional problem: The politics of 60 years of regional development

The New Zealand government approach to regional development and the economy more broadly has oscillated from the 1970s economic growth and investment focus to 1980s neoliberal neglect, followed by the more recent rediscovery of the regions' importance in national economies, all with tenuous outcomes. This paper explores the changing scope of regional development initiatives by successive New Zealand governments over the last 60 years to show a pattern of opportunism and neglect that suggests regional development is more aligned to electoral priorities than regional success.     

Geographical reflections on Sir Edmund Hillary (1919–2008)

Abstract: During the past year, the media, public and officialdom have focused on Sir Edmund Hillary, his achievements, and what they mean to New Zealand. In this commentary, we reflect on how they relate to human geography. Although we acknowledge the obvious tensions that exist between adventuring and the contemporary concerns of the discipline, we also illustrate how Hillary's life and actions resonate with many of the discipline's current hopes, aims and challenges. Specifically, we discuss thematic overlaps in the fields of geopolitics and national identities, colonial histories and resistances, as well as the emerging public geography. We posit that ‘Hillary's geography’ is closer to human geography than is realized or at least acknowledged by geographers.