A Kaupapa Maori conceptualization and efforts to address the needs of the growing precariat in Aotearoa New Zealand: A situated focus on Maori.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the precariat is populated by at least one in six New Zealanders, with Maori (Indigenous peoples) being over-represented within this emerging social class. For Maori, this socio-economic positioning reflects a colonial legacy spanning 150 years of economic and cultural subjugation, and intergenerational experiences of material, cultural and psychological insecurities. Relating our Kaupapa Maori approach (Maori cultural values and principles underlining research initiatives) to the precariat, this article also draws insights from existing scholarship on social class in psychology and Assemblage Theory in the social sciences to extend present conceptualizations of the Maori precariat. In keeping with the praxis orientation central to our approach, we consider three exemplars of how our research into Maori precarity is mobilized in efforts to inform public deliberations and government policies regarding poverty reduction, humanizing the welfare system and promoting decent work. Note: Aotearoa New Zealand has been popularized within the everyday lexicon of New Zealanders as a political statement of Indigenous rights for Maori.

Fostering and sustaining transnational solidarities for transformative social change: Advancing community psychology research and action.

As we planned this special issue, the world was in the midst of a pandemic, one which brought into sharp focus many of the pre-existing economic, social, and climate crises, as well as, trends of widening economic and social inequalities. The pandemic also brought to the forefront an epistemic crisis that continues to decentre certain knowledges while maintaining the hegemony of Eurocentric ways of knowing and being. Thus, we set out to explore the possibilities that come with widening our ecology of knowledge and approaches to inquiry, including the power of critical reflective praxis and consciousness, and the important practices of repowering marginalised and oppressed groups. In this paper, we highlight scholarship that reflects a breadth of theories, methods, and practices that forge alliances, in and outside the academy, in different solidarity relationships toward liberation and wellbeing. Our desire as co-editors was not to endorse the plurality of solidarities expressed in the papers as an unyielding methodological or conceptual framework, but rather to hold them lightly within thematic spaces as invitations for readers to consider. Through editorial collaboration, we arrived at the following three thematic spaces: (1) ecologies of being and knowledge: Indigenous knowledge, networks, and plurilogues; (2) naming coloniality in context: Histories in the present and a wide lens; (3) relational knowledge practices: Creative joy of knowing beyond disciplines. From these thematic spaces we conclude that through repowering epistemic communities and narratives rooted in truth-telling, a plurality of solidarities are fostered and sustained locally and transnationally. Underpinned by an ethic of care, solidarity relationships are simultaneously unsettling dominant forms of knowledge and embrace ways of knowing and being that advances dignity, community, and nonviolence.

Relational ethics meets principled practice in community research engagements to understand and address homelessness.

Growing homelessness in Aotearoa New Zealand stems primarily from rising inequalities and poverty. Drawing from scholarship on relational ethics, principled practice and Maori cultural concepts, this paper offers our reflections on nearly two decades of collective work to document and address homelessness. Central to the approach outlined are enduring community partnerships, the cultivation of reciprocal relations, and time spent with homeless people and those trying to work with them. We present exemplars for how we draw on everyday interactions with homeless people and agency staff to enhance local service and broader systemic responses to homelessness.

What does it mean to be a man today?: bloke culture and the media.

Psychologists have paid scant attention to the positive relationships and community contributions of working class men who are not in trouble, and have focused instead on men who are 'in trouble.' In addressing this oversight, we draw on insights from ethnographic observations, life narrative interviews, photographic techniques and media items, which have been compiled by 12 working class men from a shared community of practice in New Zealand. We illustrate how these men often appropriate aspects from contemporary media deliberations regarding what it means to be a man today in order to make sense of their own lives. The implications of participants' emphasis on friendship, support, familial obligations, and community participation are discussed in relation to the place of working class men in society.