SAANZ is proud to feature a collection of guest blog posts written by members of our community.
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Weaponizing Precarity by Ben K. C. Laksana
by SAANZ Admin | August 27, 2024 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Winner of the 2024 SAANZ Student Blog Writing Competition Weaponizing Precarity: Governmental Precarisation and the Struggles of Indonesian Tertiary Student ActivistsTertiary education students face global challenges that include environmental degradation,...
Lost meanings in cultural contact by Kiko Qin
by SAANZ Admin | July 31, 2023 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Lost meanings in cultural contact: Stories from Chinese students’ outdoor recreation Experiencing local culture is a huge draw for international students when choosing where to study. In New Zealand, outdoor recreation has become one of the popular options for...
Don’t Confuse the Menu With the Food by Joseph Brockliss
by SAANZ Admin | September 2, 2022 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Runner-up in the 2022 Student Blog Writing Competition The Government’s menu regarding how they intend to address food insecurity in New Zealand is entirely different from the food (policies) it serves up. When the New Zealand Government agreed to enter the...
The commodified worker: the consumption of social hierarchies in the workplace by Peyton Bond
by SAANZ Admin | July 13, 2022 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Winner of the 2022 SAANZ Student Blog Writing Competition The enigmatic concept of a work/life balance seems to exist only on the shelves of self-help books, an untenable reality that appears unlikely to change (particularly as we continue to ask barely literate...
My Pepeha is not a River: Finding Ways to Decolonise my Filipino Identity by Leal Rodriguez
by SAANZ Admin | October 17, 2021 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Runner-up in the 2021 SAANZ Student Blog Writing Competition What’s your pepeha? A Filipino-Kiwi once asked if there was a way to find her family’s indigenous ancestors, and what swells and formations bind her identity to the land. Her mother is Filipino....
Being an Early Career Researcher today: reflections of a sociologist in industry by Orin Lockyer
by SAANZ Admin | September 4, 2021 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Early career researchers have always had difficulties in finding relevant employment that makes the most of their skills. Those who are attempting to enter the job market are likely to be encounter organisations that have employment freezes, fewer (if any) permanent...
“Team of Five Million”: The crucial role of the New Zealand national identity during the COVID-19 pandemic by Grace Miller
by SAANZ Admin | August 22, 2021 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Runner-up in the 2021 SAANZ Student Blog Writing Competition Following its nationwide outbreak at the beginning of last year, COVID-19 has undoubtedly changed society as we know it. It forced citizens to collectively abide by their government’s guidelines of staying...
Our National Game? What our obsession with Rugby reveals about national identity in New Zealand By Eleanor Pollard
by SAANZ Admin | July 30, 2021 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Winner of the 2021 SAANZ Student Blog Writing Competition Image: (Geoff Pollard, 2021) “The All Blacks are not just our heroes. They represent us as a nation. They epitomize what it means to be a New Zealander… They make us who we are. They are New Zealanders....
How to work with other researchers? a guide for sociologists by Casimir MacGregor
by SAANZ Admin | May 28, 2021 | Blogs | 0 Comments
In order to examine the complex social, political, economic and environmental challenges of our times, such as climate change, there is an increasing need for sociologists to engage and work with other researchers outside their discipline, in order to understand and...
Time to rethink the care of “our most vulnerable” by Chris Perkins
by SAANZ Admin | January 24, 2021 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Covid-19 should make us re-think our care of frail older people. Despite amazing efforts ̶ coronavirus entered only six out of 650 facilities in Aotearoa New Zealand ̶ most of the people who died were in aged residential care. The deaths in older people’s...
The Cyber Burn Book by Vanessa Arapko
by SAANZ Admin | November 8, 2020 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Runner-up in the 2020 Student Blog Writing Competition Cancel culture: the withdrawal of support (cancellation) for public figures and companies after objectionable or offensive comments. The term cancel to refer to people was, as far back as research goes, originally...
Towards a hopeful sociology – what kind of sociological practice do we need today? MacGregor, Guerrero & Crawford
by SAANZ Admin | October 25, 2020 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Casimir MacGregor, Nic Guerrero and Harrison Crawford The world today is experiencing many challenges, such as climate change, and the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) creating the COVID-19 pandemic. Events, such as those...
To Worry – By Vincent Perry
by SAANZ Admin | August 31, 2020 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Winner of the 2020 Student Blog Writing Competition The rules to write this piece are easy at first glance, write something in a sociological theme and tone, clarity of argument and theme, grammatically correct. I can do this in my sleep, grammatically correct perhaps...
BIOPHILIA BY LISSY FEHNKER
by SAANZ Admin | November 9, 2019 | Blogs | 0 Comments
There is an assumption in the scientific, sociological and philosophic realms that humans have some form of a connection with nature. Where this apparent connection has come from, or why there is one, has been debated since the publication of Edward O. Wilson’s 1984...
WALKING THE LINE BETWEEN RESEARCHER AND ADVOCATE: AMBIVALENT ENTANGLEMENTS BY JESSICA YOUNG
by SAANZ Admin | October 13, 2019 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Sociology has a strong tradition of critical thought and advocacy for social change. It’s why studying Sociology appealed to me and felt right to adopt the discipline as my academic home. I study assisted dying, a hot topic in New Zealand politics right now as...
RETHINKING TŪRANGAWAEWAE: STRADDLING BORDERS AND IDENTITY BY STELLA PENNELL
by SAANZ Admin | August 31, 2019 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Tūrangawaewae is a Māori word meaning “Place of belonging where you draw your strength from, your ‘standing place’” (Cain, Kahu, & Shaw, 2017, p. 9). It’s a concept that I have struggled with over quite a long period of life; Let me explain. Yesterday, I spoke to...
I NEED A HERO: SEARCHING FOR SUPERMAN BY KALYM LIPSEY
by SAANZ Admin | July 19, 2019 | Blogs | 0 Comments
I love Superman. A brief visit to my home to see my various Superman items scattered around leaves that in no doubt. Or, perhaps you have seen me strolling around Massey University or at a conference with my trusty Superman branded satchel over my shoulder, glasses...
A REFLECTION ON THE CHRISTCHURCH SHOOTING MASSACRE BY HAEZREENA BEGUM BINTI ABDUL HAMID
by SAANZ Admin | March 31, 2019 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh which means May the peace, mercy, and blessings of Allah be with you. I write with great sadness over the horrific attack that happened last Friday (15/3/19) at the An-Nur mosque in Christchurch. As a Muslim woman living in...
MY NEOLIBERAL JOURNEY BY NICOLETTE TRUEMAN
by SAANZ Admin | January 20, 2019 | Blogs | 0 Comments
It was February of 2018. I was an avid young Masters student about to embark on a new kind of academic journey. I was fortunate. Why? Because I was a new graduate who could clearly envision the type of future I could craft for myself. I had recently graduated from...
FAMILY FIRST AND THE TRANS QUESTION? BY HANNAH ROSSITER
by SAANZ Admin | January 20, 2019 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Family First, has over the last two years or so sought to spark a debate about the appropriateness of trans people to participate in the social life in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Thus, in July 2018 Family First had its annual Forum on the Family to discuss...
LAUREN WHO? MR HOWARD, WE’RE DETAINING YOU ON CHARACTER GROUNDS BY LUKE OLDFIELD
by SAANZ Admin | November 25, 2018 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Runner-Up in the 2018 SAANZ Student Blog Competition Ask any New Zealander this past week who the racist, anti-feminist and immigrant-loathing individuals are bound for our shores and they would probably respond with ‘Lauren Southern’ or ‘Stefen Something’. Such...
A QUESTION OF ONTOLOGY: CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE ARCTIC BY CHRIS OWENS
by SAANZ Admin | September 30, 2018 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Winner of the 2018 SAANZ Student Blog Competition A year or two ago I took a bus to Taupo. I took notice of the strange rock formations that punctuated the landscape as I was travelling through the Mamaku Plateau. I was enthralled with their peculiar shapes,...
A SOCIOLOGIST IN RAROTONGA AND THE UNANTICIPATED BY CORRINA TUCKER
by SAANZ Admin | March 25, 2018 | Blogs | 0 Comments
I am one month into four months of research leave in Rarotonga. I have visited here a number of times in the past seven years, and over time it has come to feel like a home away from home. I am here to look at tourists’ impact on the local environment, how...
AUCKLAND ROAD RAGE: RESOURCE SHARING AND UNEARNED ENTITLEMENT BY SHINYA UEKUSA
by SAANZ Admin | February 2, 2018 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Yesterday, I was on a bus to the university when I saw that a cyclist had been hit by a car. I did not see the crash itself but I saw its immediate aftermath. Later in the day, I saw a Facebook post by AT (Auckland Transport) supporting ACC’s ‘Look Twice’ campaign....
ROUGH GUIDE TO SOCIOLOGY CONFERENCES BY BRUCE M. Z. COHEN
by SAANZ Admin | February 2, 2018 | Blogs | 0 Comments
With another successful SAANZ conference behind us (thank you Otago!), I thought it an appropriate time to reflect on the wonders of these sociology events, along the way making some personal and potentially libellous observations on my fellow attendees (let’s hope so...
THE TYRANNY OF DISTANCE BY STELLA PENNELL
by SAANZ Admin | December 5, 2017 | Blogs | 0 Comments
According to Split Enz, it didn’t stop the cavalier, so, paraphrasing now, why should it stop the PhD student? My university life started around about the same time I left Wellington; by all accounts a perfectly good university town with a choice of universities...
LITTLE PROGRESS TOWARD A FAIRER JUSTICE SYSTEM BY LUKE OLDFIELD
by SAANZ Admin | October 24, 2017 | Blogs | 0 Comments
In our most recent election campaign the National Party co-opted a longstanding New Zealand First policy of suggesting we dispatch troubled young men off to military style boot camps, which would have been a somewhat useful proposition if it had worked in the past....
WHAT AM I PREPARED TO GIVE UP FOR WHAT I BELIEVE? BY KALYM LIPSEY
by SAANZ Admin | September 11, 2017 | Blogs | 0 Comments
I have been asked two fascinating and thought-provoking questions in recent months. Having read all the guest blog posts shared with us by my fellow students from around the country, I felt a strong pull to write my own and attempt to answer each of these questions....
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY, MATERIAL PRACTICES AND SOCIAL OUTCOMES BY MARY SILCOCK
by SAANZ Admin | July 31, 2017 | Blogs | 0 Comments
In my PhD research one of my methods has been using a combination of an insider position with observation of practice. As an occupational therapist myself, watching other occupational therapists carrying out their mundane behind the scenes work, has been...
ASSISTED DYING AND THE END OF LIFE CHOICE BILL BY JESSICA YOUNG
by SAANZ Admin | July 5, 2017 | Blogs | 0 Comments
I was already convinced that my research was important, as I’m sure every PhD student is, or I wouldn’t have decided to dedicate the next three years of my life to it. I started my PhD in February this year after closely following the debates around assisted dying...
“SOCIOLOGY OFFERS INSIGHT INTO THAT WHICH MOST OF US TAKE FOR GRANTED” BY HENRY WATSON
by SAANZ Admin | June 10, 2017 | Blogs | 0 Comments
Sociology as an academic discipline has been a key part of my life within the past few years, which wouldn’t have been possible if it were not offered as a subject at my college. Like many others entering their final year of college, the pressure was beginning...
LIVING WAGES AND FICTITIOUS LABOUR MARKETS BY NAOISE MCDONAGH
by SAANZ Admin | June 10, 2017 | Blogs | 0 Comments
One of the most important global social movements to emerge over the last number of years is the movement for a living wage. The idea of a living wage is simple, stating that nobody should have to do any type of work for poverty-inducing wages. Unfortunately this...
PACIFIC FEMINIST BY MOEATA KEIL
by SAANZ Admin | June 10, 2017 | Blogs | 0 Comments
I went to a presentation a month or so ago about Pacific feminism and was surprised to hear that many Pacific women, and Pacific people more generally, do not readily identify as being ‘feminist’. I thought hard about this idea, wondering why many Pacific people would...