Open Journal Systems at the Victoria University of Wellington Library
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Wind’s Incoherences: On listening to measure
Full text linkThis paper theorizes 'incoherence' as a mode of attuning to wind as an atmospheric process. In the oilfields of the Permian Basin (a geological region of West Texas/New Mexico, USA), I make listening devices from debris collected at refinery and well sites. These instruments figure a relation between the toxicity of oil and gas emissions and the rhythms of everyday life downwind, where exposure often evades regulatory legibility. The sound traces wind’s patterns and evasions, foregrounding the ephemeral and fragmentary textures through which atmospheric relations are sensed and lived
Dhriti’s Story: Notes on the condition of the elderly in poorer households in Nepal between uncommonness and the negatively commoned
Full text linkThese fieldnotes focus on the case study of 68-year-old Dhriti, whom I met in Nepal during fieldwork in 2018-2019. This story invites reflection on the condition of poorer households – which in most cases still nowadays belong to families of lower caste backgrounds in the context of urban Nepal today. Despite the abolishment of the caste system in 1963 and its criminalisation in 2011, caste-related disparities and discrimination are still a reality, where centuries of socio-economic disadvantage still persist in cycles of injustice. If ‘commoning’ is the collective practice of creating and sustaining shared resources to meet common needs and well-being, a situation such as that of Dhriti's household shows a case of what I shall call ‘uncommonness’ in a domestic space, where a communal project of well-being seems unattainable in the face of limited resources, and in the context of broader social stratifications. The struggles of ageing among the poor in Nepal also point to ongoing practices of elderly mistreatment, which could make us think of ‘negatively commoned’ social spaces, where certain (often vulnerable) groups become the recipients of negative treatments that become socially accepted
Ernest Rutherford and the Birth of Modern Physics: Matthew Wright. 2025. Oratia Books. ISBN 978-1-99-004268-3
Full text linkBook Review: Ernest Rutherford and the Birth of Modern Physics
Book review: Productive Safety Management
Full text linkVan der Stap, T. (2025). Productive Safety Management: How to mitigate residual and entropic risks (2nd ed.) Boca Raton. CRC Press. 271 pages, 10 chapters, each reference
Building a Working Relationship Policy Advice Quality – the fundamental capability for public management
Full text linkHigh-calibre written advice is the basis of government decision making. It produces good decisions and fosters trust in advisors which benefits the process. Data series of average scores based on two batches of assessments of policy advice quality over the last 16 years show little sign of sustained quality improvements. There remains a challenge
Editor's Introduction
No full textTwo years ago my predecessor as editor, Peter Whiteford, wrote of the ‘serious financial challenges that are being faced right now’ in Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington and in other universities. While some universities report budget surpluses, the position of the humanities and social sciences, and some other disciplines, remains fragile, to use no stronger a word. Readers will be aware of the serious pressures in the public sector as well, notably the loss of jobs at the Ministry of Culture and Heritage. In the end all these crises are driven by government policy
Tracing Digital Footsteps: A New Zealand Musician in the Internet Age.
Full text linkSince becoming widely accessible in the 1990s, the Internet has had a profound impact on creative fields such as music. The experiences of New Zealand musician Luke Rowell (a.k.a. Disasteradio, Eyeliner) provide an illuminating case study of these changes. First dialling-up in 1998, his online activity and creative development are intertwined in a career spanning several epochs of Internet history. This article explores these connections and the task of tracing an artist's digital footsteps using web archives and other sources. It focuses on three periods: Rowell's involvement with the European demoscene (1999-2002); becoming part of the online vaporwave movement (2011-2013), and contemporary online music distribution (2023)
Editorial
Full text linkWe are pleased to be publish our second issue of the Journal of New Zealand Studies for 2025. It is particularly noteworthy that this year the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies (to use the full name) celebrated its 40th birthday. We are very pleased to be able to include in this issue the transcript of a conversation between the Stout’s founding director, Jock Phillips, and the present director, Brigitte Bӧnisch-Brednich at the anniversary functio
First Encounters: The Early Pacific and European Narratives of Abel Tasman’s 1642 Voyage.
Full text linkThis book offers a comprehensive overview of the sources, including a major new resource, that are currently available on the expedition in 1642-1643 by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman to the Pacific, in particular Tasmania, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, New Britain and New Guinea. It includes a complete chapter from a hitherto unknown book by Nicolaes Witsen, a Dutch statesman, collector and scholar, entitled Noord en Oost Tartarye (‘North and East Tartary’)
Protecting Aotearoa Democracy by Reforming Parliament
Full text linkNew Zealand faces an unstable world, perhaps more so than any time since the Second World War. The geopolitical situation is not the only issue. There has been a noticeable decline of democracy in many countries during the last 20 years. The tendency has been toward populism and authoritarianism, even dictatorship. Liberal democracies have come under challenge and people who live in them are uneasy. Democracy has always been a fragile form of government, difficult to establish and relatively easy to lose. New Zealand is one of the world's oldest democracies, establishing universal male suffrage in 1879 and women getting the vote in 1893. New Zealand has had a vigorous commitment to strong democratic institutions. The rule of law, however, is more vulnerable due to executive domination. Values can ebb away without everyone noticing. To guard against such developments in New Zealand, this article suggests that reforming the New Zealand Parliament would be a sound way to keep the commitment to representative democracy. Some of the 12 recommended measures are significant changes, such as increasing the number of MPs to increase the accountability of the executive to the House of Representatives, and better regulating financial donations to political parties. Others are smaller, such as giving better bite to the Official Information Act 1982 and regulating lobbying. Together the recommended measures amount to a significant reform package with which to face uncertain times
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