New Zealand Sociology
type: channel
description: Kia ora, talofa lava, greetings! New Zealand Sociology (NZS) is an independent, open access, peer-reviewed journal published by the Sociological Association of Aotearoa New Zealand (SAANZ). NZS provides a place-based, independent, and supportive forum for sociological scholarship that speaks to Aotearoa New Zealand and the wider Pacific region. It aims to foster critical engagement with contemporary sociological debates and practice, while supporting sociological community, dialogue, and public relevance. NZS welcomes empirical, theoretical, comparative, historical, and policy-oriented contributions. We publish original research articles using qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as articles that advance sociological theory, research notes, and commentaries on timely issues. We also encourage dialogue through responses and debate-style contributions, and we invite book reviews. Reflecting the journal’s location and responsibilities, NZS is committed to improving equity in representation and access, including actively supporting M?ori and Pacific scholarship. We welcome proposals for special issues and special sections, particularly those that broaden participation and advance inclusive, culturally responsive sociological scholarship. The editors welcome submissions of article manuscripts all year round. Please go to ‘Submissions' or 'Make a submission’ to access the online submission portal.
publisher: Sociological Association of Aotearoa New Zealand
language: en
publication name: New Zealand Sociology
issn: 1173-1036
items: Poltorak, M (Director). (2019). The healer and the psychiatrist. Documentary Educational Resources.
items: Obituary: David Christopher Thorns (1943-2020)
items: An attitudinal study of academic staff in the humanities and social sciences
items: Anae, Melani. (2020). The platform: The radical legacy of the Polynesian Panthers. Bridget Williams Books Ltd. ISBN: 9781988587400.
items: https://nzsociology.nz/index.php/nzs/article/view/305
items: Rangahau rangatiratanga: Writing as a Māori scholar
items: Working at the interface of Te Ao Māori and social science
items: Ngā tohu o te taiao: Observing signs of the natural world to identify seastar over-abundance as a detriment to shellfish survival in Ōhiwa Harbour, Aotearoa/New Zealand
items: Mana Whenua, Mana Moana, Mana Tinana, Mana Mōmona
items: Hoʻopili: Exploring social sciences from the ʻāina
items: Research ‘side-spaces’ and the criticality of Auckland, New Zealand, as a site for developing a queer Pacific scholarly agenda
items: Fakakoloa as embodied mana moana and agency: Postcolonial sociology within Oceania
items: Building understandings of Māori and Samoan experiences of youth justice: Navigating beyond the limits of official statistics
items: Wetland: Draining mana whenua
items: Va-ka: Igniting the space between Mana Whenua and Mana Moana research relations
items: Introduction
items: David Ian Pool: 22 November 1936 – 8 April 2022; Emeritus Professor, University of Waikato - Colleague and friend
items: Grubs Up: Multiple Enactments of Insects as Food in Aotearoa/New Zealand
items: Women Behaving Badly: Problematisation and Biopolitical Governance of Gender in the New Zealand Abortion Debate
items: Brossard, B. & Chandler, A. (2022). Explaining Mental Illness: Sociological Perspectives . Bristol University Press, 194 pages, I SBN 978 1 5292 1505 2
items: Harbusch, M. (Ed.) (2022). Troubled Persons Industries: The Expansion of Psychiatric Categories beyond Psychiatry. Palgrave Macmillan. 345 pages, ISBN 978-3-030-83744-0
items: A Queer Critique of Psychiatric Knowledge: Medicalising Queer Sadness
items: Happy Now? A Foucauldian Analysis of the World Happiness Report 2021
items: Gender Dysphoria and the Medicalisation of Distress
items: The Network Approach to Major Depressive Disorder: A Critical Realist Perspective
items: Deconstructing Antisocial Personality Disorder
items: Homosexuality in the DSM: A Critique of Depathologisation and Heteronormativity
items: Community Psychiatry and the Medicalisation of Unemployment
items: Theorising Mental Health: Introduction to Special Issue
items: Charles Crothers: A Tribute

Poltorak, M (Director). (2019). The healer and the psychiatrist. Documentary Educational Resources.
type: item
description: -
subject: Commentary
  topic: section
subject: Film Review
  topic: keywords
creator: Bruce Cohen
rights: Copyright (c) 2021 Bruce Cohen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2021-09-01
publication date: 2021-09-01
starting page: 121
ending page: 125

Obituary: David Christopher Thorns (1943-2020)
type: item
subject: Obituary
  topic: section
subject: Obituary
  topic: keywords
creator: David Pearson
rights: Copyright (c) 2021 David Pearson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2021-09-01
publication date: 2021-09-01
starting page: 117
ending page: 119

An attitudinal study of academic staff in the humanities and social sciences
type: item
description: This research note compares the attitudes of academic staff in the humanities and social sciences in New Zealand reported across two studies (2003 and 2019). Attitudes were evaluated through the ratings and rankings of 56 statements. It is argued that the changes in attitudes reported across the two surveys are a social reality, not just the product of the research instrument. In this article, I compare changes in the ratings and rankings of six statements relating to issues of professional control and being rated by non-academics, as well an enhanced commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi [Treaty of Waitangi] and greater diversity in hirings.
subject: Research notes
  topic: section
subject: attitudinal study
  topic: keywords
subject: academic staff
  topic: keywords
subject: professional control
  topic: keywords
subject: Te Tiriti o Waitangi
  topic: keywords
creator: Bruce Curtis
rights: Copyright (c) 2021 Bruce Curtis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2021-09-01
publication date: 2021-09-01
starting page: 103
ending page: 115

Anae, Melani. (2020). The platform: The radical legacy of the Polynesian Panthers. Bridget Williams Books Ltd. ISBN: 9781988587400.
type: item
subject: Book reviews
  topic: section
subject: book review
  topic: keywords
creator: Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 249
ending page: 254

https://nzsociology.nz/index.php/nzs/article/view/305
type: item
title: Elkington, B., Jackson, M., Kiddle, R., Mercier, O. R., Ross, M., Smeaton, J., & Thomas, A. (2020). Imagining Decolonisation. Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books, 184 pages, ISBN 978-1-988-54578-3.
subject: Book reviews
  topic: section
subject: book review
  topic: keywords
creator: Miriama Aoake
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Miriama Aoake (Ngaati Mahuta, Ngati Hinerangi, Waikato-Tainui) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 242
ending page: 248

Rangahau rangatiratanga: Writing as a Māori scholar
type: item
description: To arrive in Aotearoa, we traversed thousands of miles. Waka hourua were our papakāinga and te ra filled with wind to carry us. Finding our way, we drew on knowledge of oceans, skies and winds. Creatures of the sea and air showed us the way and signs and signals of this world and between and across worlds guided us. We made our homes in Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, making lives for ourselves, drawing on long held matauranga. Our science, our scholarship is embedded in te tai ao and the survival and wellbeing of our people. We continue to find our way, drawing on long held matauranga and adapting and developing new knowledge. In this article, I attempt to centre being māori, exploring what it is to work and write with colonisation at the margin, rather than the defining determinant of who we are and how we differ. I face the challenge of writing as a Māori scholar, to claim rangatiratanga in our practice and representations of these practices.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Rangahau
  topic: keywords
subject: Indigenous scholarship
  topic: keywords
subject: Kaupapa M?ori
  topic: keywords
subject: Indigenous research
  topic: keywords
subject: Indigenous knowledge systems
  topic: keywords
subject: M?tauranga
  topic: keywords
creator: Helen Moewaka Barnes
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Helen Moewaka Barnes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 233
ending page: 241

Working at the interface of Te Ao Māori and social science
type: item
description: This article will explore working at the interface between Te Ao Māori (the Māori world) and social science. How do we navigate encounters between Te Ao Māori and social science in a manaenhancing or empowering way? How do we build capabilities for social science research that are grounded in Te Ao Māori and are transformative for Māori communities? This article responds to these questions using Māori understandings derived from the whakapapa (genealogical) sequence Te Kore–Te Pō–Te Ao Mārama and the ritual of pōwhiri (welcoming ceremony). Māori thinking, concepts and politics are used to disrupt and reimagine our understanding of social science and create he ātea—a place/space-scape from where we can engage in a form of social science that is distinct to Aotearoa/New Zealand and reflects the expectations and aspirations of Māori people.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: M?tauranga
  topic: keywords
subject: cultural encounters
  topic: keywords
subject: interface research
  topic: keywords
creator: Margaret Forster
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Margaret Forster (Rongomaiwahine, Ngati Kahungunu) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 211
ending page: 232

Ngā tohu o te taiao: Observing signs of the natural world to identify seastar over-abundance as a detriment to shellfish survival in Ōhiwa Harbour, Aotearoa/New Zealand
type: item
description: Māori understandings and experiences of the natural world encompass not only what is known but how it is known, and the intergenerational connectedness of that knowledge with the environments from which it is derived. Ngā tohu o te taiao (hereafter ‘tohu’), or the cultural and environmental signs and indicators of the natural world, are widely used by kaitiaki or local practitioners to identify trends or changes in the state or health of marine taonga (culturally important) species and their associated environments (Paul-Burke, 2017). Māori worldviews position humans within nature and focus on ways in which cultural understandings and intergenerational connections between people and their bio-physical contexts assist in the retention and protection of biodiversity and ecologically sustainable ecosystems (Lyver et al., 2016). Tohu are a fundamental expression of kaitiakitanga or active guardianship and are based on the primal instinct of survival and recognising that in order to survive one must pay attention to the natural signs and signals thoughtfully, so as to manage our mahinga kai (food harvesting area) and ourselves into the future (Paul-Burke et al., 2020). This article considers the example of the overabundant eleven-armed seastar (pātangaroa, Coscinasterias muricata; hereafter ‘seastar’) predating on culturally and ecologically important shellfish populations in a traditional mahinga kai of Ōhiwa Harbour in the Bay of Plenty region of Aotearoa/New Zealand. The over-abundance of seastars was considered a contemporary tohu of a degrading harbour. It was deemed imperative by iwi (tribe) members that a trial using quantitative methods to investigate predation pressure of seastars on the green-lipped mussel (kuku or kūtai, Perna canaliculus) population be conducted in the harbour. Between September 2018 and February 2019 field trials were undertaken that prioritised mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) alongside marine science to assist with a better understanding…
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: tohu
  topic: keywords
subject: m?tauranga m?ori
  topic: keywords
subject: shellfish
  topic: keywords
subject: restoration
  topic: keywords
creator: Kura Paul-Burke
creator: Rokahurihia Ngarimu-Cameron
creator: Waka Paul
creator: Joe Burke
creator: Kerry Cameron
creator: Tuwhakairiora O'Brien
creator: Charlie Bluett
creator: Te Upokorehe Resource Management Team
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Kura Paul-Burke (Ngati Awa, Ngati Whakahemo), Rokahurihia Ngarimu-Cameron (Te Whanau-a-Apanui, Te Arawa, Whakatohea, Ngati Awa, MNZM), Waka Paul (Ngati Awa, Ngati Whakahemo), Joe Burke, Kerry Cameron (Ngati Kahungungu, Ngati Porou), Tuwhakairiora O’Brien (Ngati Awa), Charlie Bluett (Ngati Awa), Te Upokorehe Resource Management Team https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 186
ending page: 210

Mana Whenua, Mana Moana, Mana Tinana, Mana Mōmona
type: item
description: E rere ana ngā ngaru, hoki ki te wai whakatau ai. Ko te āio te take. Hoki ki a Hinemoana, ki tōna whakaniko, ki tōna pikopiko, i reira ngā ngako o te mōmonatanga, o te tinana, hei rongoā mō tātou. E tipu, e tū ana ngā maunga, hoki ki te whenua whakatau ai. Ko te āio te take. Hoki ki a Papatūānuku, ki tōna tinana, ki tōna whakaniko, ki tōna pikopiko, i reira ngā ngako o te tinana, o te mōmonatanga, te mōmonatanga o te whenua. Hei rongoā mō tatou. Nō te whenua, nō te moana. Koinā te whakapapa. Tihei Mauri Ora. The ways in which we understand bodies and fatness are complex. While coloniality unduly influences and shapes normative meanings of the body in everyday contexts, Māori conceptualisations of the body and of fatness remain inscribed within the moana, the whenua, te reo Māori and our whakapapa. These understandings provide insight into fatness and bodies from a Māori worldview. Our whakaaro in this article speaks into Māori ways of being and knowing, including meanings of mōmonatanga as bountiful, rich, fertile, and powerful. This article develops an expansive and holistic Māori understanding of bodies and fatness from the whenua, from the moana, from our whakapapa.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Whenua
  topic: keywords
subject: Moana
  topic: keywords
subject: Tinana
  topic: keywords
subject: M?mona
  topic: keywords
subject: Fatness
  topic: keywords
subject: Bodies
  topic: keywords
creator: Ashlea Gillon
creator: Jade Le Grice
creator: Melinda Webber
creator: Tracey McIntosh
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Ashlea Gillon (Ng?ti Awa, Ng?puhi, Ng?iterangi), Dr Jade Le Grice (Te Rarawa, Ng?puhi), Professor Melinda Webber (Ng?ti Whakaue, Ng?puhi, Ng?ti Kahu, Ng?ti Hau), Professor Tracey McIntosh (T?hoe) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 165
ending page: 185

Hoʻopili: Exploring social sciences from the ʻāina
type: item
description: Decolonising and indigenising the academy continues to be a trend for higher educational institutions around the world. As a result of the 2012 Ke Au Hou Native Hawaiian Advancement Task Force Report, Hui ʻĀina Pilipili, the Native Hawaiian Initiative, was established to provide a coordinated effort to decolonise and indigenise the College of Social Sciences at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. This article explores what is means to re(create) social sciences from a Hawaiian perspective. It concludes with reflections on the ways in which the College of Social Sciences has made progress in its commitment to a Hawaiian place of learning.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Native Hawaiian
  topic: keywords
subject: Indigenising
  topic: keywords
subject: decolonising
  topic: keywords
subject: higher education
  topic: keywords
subject: social sciences
  topic: keywords
creator: Kamakanaokealoha M. Aquino
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Kamakanaokealoha M. Aquino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 143
ending page: 164

Research ‘side-spaces’ and the criticality of Auckland, New Zealand, as a site for developing a queer Pacific scholarly agenda
type: item
description: Social science research focused on the specific needs of Pacific Rainbow+ communities is relatively scant both in New Zealand and abroad. In this article, I explore the generative possibilities of Auckland, New Zealand, as site for the intentional development and growth of a queer Pacific scholarly agenda. I argue that Auckland in general, and its university in particular, are sites of ongoing Māori resistance to settler-colonialism, provides research ‘side-spaces’ that create opportunities for a queer Pacific scholarly agenda. I show why it is currently not safe for queer Pacific scholars based in Pacific countries to practise the type of queer Pacific research agenda I call for in Auckland. I also highlight the inherent contradictions, tensions and possibilities for queer Pacific research in Auckland, New Zealand. New Zealand-based Pacific queer scholars are urged to occupy these research side-spaces before they, too, become Pākehā and colonial sites of knowledge production.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Pacific
  topic: keywords
subject: queer
  topic: keywords
subject: LGBTQIA+
  topic: keywords
subject: MVPFAFF+
  topic: keywords
subject: health and wellbeing
  topic: keywords
subject: gender and sexuality
  topic: keywords
subject: Auckland
  topic: keywords
creator: Patrick Thomsen
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Patrick Thomsen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 120
ending page: 142

Fakakoloa as embodied mana moana and agency: Postcolonial sociology within Oceania
type: item
description: The coupling of mana moana is grounded in inspiration from and through Indigeneity and Moana sense-making (intimate understanding through our sensibilities within Oceania). Tongan meaning-making is centred on talanoa-vā, a framework that begins theorisation and analytical unpacking from an Indigenous Moana relational vantage point. We employ talatalanoa (ongoing conversations) to story and capture our conceptualisations of fakakoloa (purposefully sharing and imparting knowledge) and mana moana across interdisciplinary intersections as Tongan male educators and researchers working across the social sciences and health sciences. Our unpacking of mana moana as collective agency and responsibility is a feature of being located in tu‘atonga (outside of Tonga; also relates to the Tongan diaspora). Fronting and centring Tongan thought and concepts is our way of grounding relational sense-making in Aotearoa/New Zealand whenua (places). Sociological inquiry through decoloniality within the postcolonial era from a Moana vantage point relies on approaches like talanoa-vā and talatalanoa to disrupt the normalised conditions and traditions of thinking and theorising within Euro-American-centric academe.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Mana moana
  topic: keywords
subject: Talatalanoa
  topic: keywords
subject: Fakakoloa
  topic: keywords
subject: collective agency and responsibility
  topic: keywords
subject: postcolonial sociology
  topic: keywords
subject: decoloniality
  topic: keywords
creator: David Taufui Mikato Fa‘avae
creator: Edmond Fehoko
creator: Sione Vaka
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 David Taufui Mikato Fa‘avae, Edmond Fehoko, Sione Vaka https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 93
ending page: 119

Building understandings of Māori and Samoan experiences of youth justice: Navigating beyond the limits of official statistics
type: item
description: This article draws upon a comparative sociological and criminological project into criminal justice processes and interactions with Māori and Samoan youth, whānau/aiga (family) and communities in three jurisdictions: Aotearoa/New Zealand, the United States and Australia. It outlines and then examines some of the limits of the official youth and juvenile justice statistics from these jurisdictions to foreground the discussion of the Indigenous research approaches used in our study. In particular, we explore the ways research on the understanding and experiences of the communities and the narratives of participants has built a critical understanding of youth justice that extends beyond the official state pictures of Māori and Samoan youth and offending.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: M?ori
  topic: keywords
subject: Samoan
  topic: keywords
subject: Youth justice
  topic: keywords
subject: Indigenous sociology
  topic: keywords
creator: Robert Webb
creator: Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni
creator: Talia Wright-Bardohl
creator: Juan Rauri
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Robert Webb, Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni, Talia Wright-Bardohl, Juan Rauri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 70
ending page: 92

Wetland: Draining mana whenua
type: item
description: Māori and Pasifika people in Aotearoa/New Zealand have overlapping interests in the work of sidestepping the settler state, not only for more productive but, let’s face it, for more interesting conversations. Once we turn to see each other, however, how do we articulate our connections and distinctiveness without reinscribing colonial configurations of assimilation or competition? While the term ‘mana whenua’ (‘the people from here’; ‘the people of this place’) speaks to specific indigeneity, a concept that has meaning throughout Te Moananui-a-Kiwa (the Pacific Ocean), the term ‘mana moana’ feels more complicated. In state and institutional contexts, ‘mana moana’ may be a helpful shorthand for ‘the people you otherwise call Pacific or Pasifika’, but in Indigenous contexts, and specifically in Aotearoa, surely ‘mana moana’ would include Māori? Indeed, this article seeks to problematise the relationship between Māori and Pacific scholarly networks in Aotearoa by asking a simple and selfserving question: Must I, as a Māori scholar of Pacific Studies, leave Aotearoa in order to be a Pacific scholar again? Specifically, this article reflects on the process of turning watery land— swamps, rivers, tributaries, reservoirs, aquifers, streams, lakes—into dry, ‘workable’ land for the sake of the settler state. I hope that ‘drainage,’ which has been central to land alienation and has a legacy of devastating environmental effects, might provide a way into a tricky conversation about these slippery terms. Reflecting on how easily we forget that the making of dry land has been a colonial project, responding to long-standing calls from Pacific Studies to decolonise how we understand the relationship between land and water, tracing the emergence at the University of Waikato of ‘Pacific and Indigenous Studies’, and thinking about the sheer liquidity of whenua (land; placenta) in both meanings of the term, I seek to imagine configurations of mana moana that connect rather than drain.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Mana whenua
  topic: keywords
subject: Mana moana
  topic: keywords
subject: Tanagata whenua
  topic: keywords
subject: Indigenous
  topic: keywords
subject: Diaspora
  topic: keywords
subject: Academia
  topic: keywords
subject: Pedagogy
  topic: keywords
creator: Alice Te Punga Somerville
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Alice Te Punga Somerville (Te ?ti Awa, Taranaki) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 42
ending page: 69

Va-ka: Igniting the space between Mana Whenua and Mana Moana research relations
type: item
description: For decades, Māori, the Mana Whenua1 of Aotearoa/New Zealand, have formed powerful research relationships with the decolonising agendas in Hawai‘i and North America. These manaenhancing alliances have forged strong connections, such as supporting language revitalisation in Hawai‘i, the decolonisation of education, as well as land protection struggles on Mauna Kea in Hawai‘i and the Dakota Pipeline protests on the mainland United States. These global research relationships amongst Indigenous peoples have been of critical importance, as we draw on each other’s strengths and determination to effect change and support decolonialisation. However, in doing so Mana Whenua research has often ‘flown over’ our closest Mana Moana relations in the Pacific who, through their own active and critical scholarly engagement, have produced their own transforming research seascape. Igniting the space between Mana Whenua and Mana Moana research alliances offers a crucial and timely return to ancient Moana relationships in the service of transforming our current lived realities. Conceptually, we lash together in this article the Pasifika term vā (relational time and space) with the Māori term ‘kā’ (to ignite, to consider, to be in action) as a theorised methodology that emerges from the language, connections and ways of being which sustain us as both Mana Whenua and Mana Moana. We encourage Māori and Pasifika researchers to come together in purposeful and transformational ways, to pikipiki hama—a Tongan expression meaning ‘lash our canoes together’—to support our common, and differing aspirations for radical change in Higher Education. We support this methodology by sharing our experiences as a Māori researcher and a Tongan researcher working in Higher Education to transform the tertiary land-/seascape for Māori and Pasifika students.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: M?ori and Pacific research
  topic: keywords
subject: methodology
  topic: keywords
subject: higher education
  topic: keywords
subject: v?-k?
  topic: keywords
creator: Hinekura Smith
creator: ‘Ema Wolfgramm-Foliaki
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Hinekura Smith (Te Rarawa, Ng? Puhi), Ema Wolfgramm-Foliaki (Falevai Vava‘u, Tongaleleka, Ha‘apai and ‘Atata, Tonga) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 19
ending page: 41

Introduction
type: item
description: -
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: special issue
  topic: keywords
subject: mana whenua
  topic: keywords
subject: mana moana
  topic: keywords
creator: Simon Barber
creator: Sereana Naepi
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Simon Barber (Kai Tahu, Pakeha), Sereana Naepi (Naitasiri) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2026-06-26
publication date: 2026-06-26
starting page: 1
ending page: 19

David Ian Pool: 22 November 1936 – 8 April 2022; Emeritus Professor, University of Waikato - Colleague and friend
type: item
subject: Obituary
  topic: section
subject: obituary
  topic: keywords
creator: David A. Swain
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 David A. Swain https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2022-09-01
publication date: 2022-09-01
starting page: 107
ending page: 109

Grubs Up: Multiple Enactments of Insects as Food in Aotearoa/New Zealand
type: item
description: In response to growing environmental concerns and food security pressures, the idea of eating insects is gaining traction around the world. However, despite being a sustainable and nutritious source of protein, eating insects remains largely taboo in the West. A small market for edible insects exists in Aotearoa/New Zealand but the practice is not widespread and the industry is struggling to expand. This article draws on material semiotic theory, specifically the concept of enactment, to encourage consideration of edible insects as not singular, but multiple. This analysis provides some insight into how insects are ‘becoming food’ (or not) across different venues in Aotearoa, both in the sense of initial edibility and routine consumption.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: edible insects
  topic: keywords
subject: alternative proteins
  topic: keywords
subject: food
  topic: keywords
subject: material semiotics
  topic: keywords
subject: multiplicity
  topic: keywords
creator: Caitlin Hyde
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Caitlin Hyde https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2022-09-01
publication date: 2022-09-01
starting page: 94
ending page: 106

Women Behaving Badly: Problematisation and Biopolitical Governance of Gender in the New Zealand Abortion Debate
type: item
description: Abortion in New Zealand is at a critical juncture as the current government pursues its decriminalisation. Since colonisation, access to abortion has been regulated in myriad ways, from capital punishment and hard labour to the tacit collusion between women and doctors represented by the mental health exception enshrined in legislation in the 1970s. This article employs the Foucauldian concept of problematisation to identify how women and abortion have been framed in key historical texts, such as laws and government inquiries and the rhetoric of the anti-abortion movement. I argue that these shifting problematisations reveal abortion regulation as a critical site of the biopolitical governance of gender, positioning women in deliberate and particular ways as befitting their proper gendered subjectivity—as mothers, nurturers, nation-builders, upholders of Christian morality. The corollary is women behaving badly, subverting their appropriate construction by seeking abortion. Thus, we meet women who are selfish, untrustworthy, murderous, unstable, victimised and vulnerable, but never a woman autonomous in her reproductive decision-making. On the eve of fundamental legislative and ideological reform, I question whether the proposed changes will really achieve a dissolution of the regime of reproductive control or whether they will merely reposition this control in a new site of gendered governance.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: abortion regulation
  topic: keywords
subject: abortion reform
  topic: keywords
subject: problematisation
  topic: keywords
subject: biopolitics
  topic: keywords
subject: governance of gender
  topic: keywords
creator: Amelia Lawley
rights: Copyright (c) 2022 Amelia Lawley https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2022-09-01
publication date: 2022-09-01
starting page: 81
ending page: 93

Brossard, B. & Chandler, A. (2022). Explaining Mental Illness: Sociological Perspectives . Bristol University Press, 194 pages, I SBN 978 1 5292 1505 2
type: item
subject: Book reviews
  topic: section
subject: book review
  topic: keywords
creator: Roberto McLeay
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Roberto McLeay https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2023-03-01
publication date: 2023-03-01
starting page: 98
ending page: 100

Harbusch, M. (Ed.) (2022). Troubled Persons Industries: The Expansion of Psychiatric Categories beyond Psychiatry. Palgrave Macmillan. 345 pages, ISBN 978-3-030-83744-0
type: item
subject: Book reviews
  topic: section
subject: book review
  topic: keywords
creator: Benjamin Hemmings
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Benjamin Hemmings https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2023-03-01
publication date: 2023-03-01
starting page: 95
ending page: 97

A Queer Critique of Psychiatric Knowledge: Medicalising Queer Sadness
type: item
description: This article makes a queer critique of psychiatric knowledge based on psychiatry’s use of normal/abnormal categorisations and queer theory’s resistance to such ascriptions. Using the example of the medicalisation of normal sadness seen in increasing major depressive disorder (MDD) diagnoses, it will be argued that so long as its knowledge is grounded in this binary of normal/abnormal, psychiatry can be used to oppress queerness. The article first examines how happiness has become compulsory and articulates this as a normalising process facilitated by psychiatric knowledge. Sadness, as the corresponding abnormal, must and can be cured through psychiatric intervention. Here, psychiatry’s account of increasing MDD diagnoses, especially amongst queer people, is outlined and then deconstructed following a critical account of the medicalisation of sadness. Finally, it draws these points together using queer theory to argue that expectable, socially induced queer sadness represents a double abnormality useful to queer politics but threatening to compulsory happiness as a normalising process. Thus, this sadness must be cured, and by medicalising queer sadness, psychiatry can ‘cure’ both sadness and queerness in the interests of power.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: depression
  topic: keywords
subject: happiness
  topic: keywords
subject: medicalisation
  topic: keywords
subject: queer theory
  topic: keywords
subject: psychiatry
  topic: keywords
creator: Kate Jack
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Kate Jack https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2023-03-01
publication date: 2023-03-01
starting page: 81
ending page: 94

Happy Now? A Foucauldian Analysis of the World Happiness Report 2021
type: item
description: This article draws upon Foucauldian theory to consider the World Happiness Report 2021 (WHR 2021) as a site of psy-professional power. By detailing the distinct overlap between pathologising and seemingly strengths-based psy-discourses, I argue that institutions dealing in dominant happiness discourse can coerce subjects into understanding their emotionality in the likeness of happiness technologists and economic theorists. Using the WHR 2021 as a case study in the dissemination of such psy-professionalised happiness discourse, the article will then demonstrate how the text is capable of informing the socio-emotional dictates of other institutional discourses, including the New Zealand Government’s 2021 Wellbeing Budget as an example. The article concludes by calling for further interrogation of dominant happiness discourses using alternative theoretical frameworks, better illuminating the discursive influence of texts such as the WHR 2021 upon individuals and institutions alike.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: Foucault
  topic: keywords
subject: happiness
  topic: keywords
subject: mental health
  topic: keywords
subject: positive psychology
  topic: keywords
subject: well-being
  topic: keywords
creator: Zak Devey
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Zak Devey https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2023-03-01
publication date: 2023-03-01
starting page: 68
ending page: 80

Gender Dysphoria and the Medicalisation of Distress
type: item
description: This article investigates the controversial psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the sociohistorical context that has led to its inclusion in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5). An outlining of the lineage of the diagnosis demonstrates psychiatry’s continuation of nineteenth-century theories pertaining to sexuality and gender. The development of the psychiatric discipline and its offshoot, sexology, produced a theory of the ‘third sex’. While creating legitimacy and protection for persons outside the heterosexual matrix, its unintended consequence has been to further entrench absolute differences between men and women. In an attempt to establish itself as a branch of medicine and give scientific credence to the profession, it is argued that psychiatry continues to promote the third sex theory through diagnoses that pathologise homosexuality and gender variance. As critically interrogated in the article, significant academic psychiatrists, including Robert L. Spitzer and Kenneth J. Zucker, have deployed a biomedical conception of sexuality and gender. It is proposed that their work conflates these two concepts, which stems from the cisnormative and heterosexist assumption that gender diversity should be ‘corrected’.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: DSM
  topic: keywords
subject: gender dysphoria
  topic: keywords
subject: homosexuality
  topic: keywords
subject: medicalisation
  topic: keywords
subject: transgender
  topic: keywords
creator: Virginia Lambert
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Virginia Lambert https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2023-03-01
publication date: 2023-03-01
starting page: 56
ending page: 67

The Network Approach to Major Depressive Disorder: A Critical Realist Perspective
type: item
description: Lack of progress in treating major depressive disorder (MDD) along with critiques of the reductionist biomedical model have motivated psychiatric researchers to develop alternative models of mental disorders. Over the last decade, network models have been developed that conceptualise mental disorders as the product of dynamic causal interactions between psychiatric symptoms, especially when these symptoms form self-reinforcing feedback loops. This article discusses how problems with the biomedical model have motivated research into network models of MDD. The network approach is then compared with critical realist (CR) theorising on MDD within the sociology of mental health. This article argues that critical realism and network approaches overlap significantly in their ontological and epistemological assumptions about mental disorders. Therefore, CR and network models are potentially complementary approaches for sociological theorising about MDD. The final section of this article discusses tensions between these two approaches and limitations of current network models of MDD from a CR perspective.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: critical realism
  topic: keywords
subject: depression
  topic: keywords
subject: mental disorders
  topic: keywords
subject: network model
  topic: keywords
creator: Lennox Johnson
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Lennox Johnson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2023-03-01
publication date: 2023-03-01
starting page: 41
ending page: 55

Deconstructing Antisocial Personality Disorder
type: item
description: Taking a social constructionist approach, this article critically examines antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) to investigate how a mental illness with vague diagnostic criteria and a lack of solid empirical backing continues to persevere within the mental health system. It explores the sociohistorical roots of ASPD in the nineteenth century, emerging with psychiatry’s interest in the moral transgressions of criminals as signs of mental disorder. This analysis then discusses the evolution of the ASPD label through the various iterations of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders in the twentieth century, to the contemporary moment where the current classification lists criteria that can be potentially applied to almost all of those who encounter the criminal justice system. Rather than being a legitimate mental disorder, it is concluded that the ASPD classification serves as a way for psychiatry to expand their expertise and influence beyond the psychiatric institution and further into the criminal justice system.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: antisocial personality disorder
  topic: keywords
subject: criminal justice system
  topic: keywords
subject: DSM
  topic: keywords
subject: medicalisation
  topic: keywords
subject: psychopathy
  topic: keywords
creator: Gayle Jones
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Gayle Jones https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2023-03-01
publication date: 2023-03-01
starting page: 29
ending page: 40

Homosexuality in the DSM: A Critique of Depathologisation and Heteronormativity
type: item
description: This article provides a critical overview of both the historical and current diagnostic categories from the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM) that perpetuate heteronormativity. By drawing on critical scholars from queer theory, transfeminism and Marxist fields, I analyse two diagnostic categories (gender identity disorder of childhood and transvestic disorder) to argue that, contrary to the official narrative presented by the American Psychiatric Association, such classifications pathologise queer sexualities and gender nonconformity. The article concludes by suggesting that the American Psychiatric Association should be held to account for the historical and contemporary harm caused by the pathologisation of homosexuality and gender nonconformity, and calls for an end to psychiatric research that furthers the development of such diagnostic categories.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: DSM
  topic: keywords
subject: heteronormativity
  topic: keywords
subject: homosexuality
  topic: keywords
subject: medicalisation
  topic: keywords
subject: transgender
  topic: keywords
creator: Arin Hectors
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Arin Hectors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2023-03-01
publication date: 2023-03-01
starting page: 18
ending page: 28

Community Psychiatry and the Medicalisation of Unemployment
type: item
description: This article discusses how the development of community psychiatry throughout the twentieth century has expanded the management of workers’ social lives through psy-professional techniques. I argue that the ideology of industrial psychology has promulgated a normative construction of mental health as an inner problem of the individual, and in doing so, has obscured the structural factors involved in the emotional lives of both employed and unemployed workers. Using the scholarship of Ralph, Illouz and Conrad, it is theorised that the medicalisation of structural unemployment constitutes an example of the continuation of the community psychiatry project in that it reproduces both the normative assumptions of the individual subject of the communicative model and acts to ameliorate the negative impacts of capitalist society experienced by workers through an activation ideology.
subject: Articles
  topic: section
subject: community psychiatry
  topic: keywords
subject: industrial psychology
  topic: keywords
subject: medicalisation
  topic: keywords
subject: mental health
  topic: keywords
subject: unemployment
  topic: keywords
creator: Samuel Vella
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Samuel Vella https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2023-03-01
publication date: 2023-03-01
starting page: 6
ending page: 17

Theorising Mental Health: Introduction to Special Issue
type: item
subject: Editorial
  topic: section
subject: editorial
  topic: keywords
subject: theorising mental health
  topic: keywords
creator: Bruce M. Z. Cohen
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Bruce M. Z. Cohen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2023-03-01
publication date: 2023-03-01
starting page: 1
ending page: 5

Charles Crothers: A Tribute
type: item
subject: Obituary
  topic: section
subject: obituary
  topic: keywords
creator: Cluny Macpherson
rights: Copyright (c) 2023 Cluny Macpherson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
date: 2023-09-01
publication date: 2023-09-01
starting page: 106
ending page: 107