title: Making history beyond neoliberalism: Response to Roper

authors: Neilson, David

subjects: New Zealand

abstract: Roper (2011a, p. 39) sums up his account of neoliberalism in New Zealand with the following conclusion: “In the absence of a major upsurge in working class and social movement struggle, the neoliberal policy regime is likely to remain firmly in place.” The bulk of his article lends weight to this conclusion in the course of offering a detailed analysis of National’s neoliberalism and New Zealand’s social inequality. In his final assessment Roper turns to list mid-range factors that underpin his conclusion. In particular, he refers to structural constraints resulting from the neoliberalisation of New Zealand’s financial regime; neoliberalisation of the outlooks of successive New Zealand Governments since 1984; and the balance of class forces in favour of capital (pp.37-8). This response focuses, first, on building a sympathetic analysis of these mid-range factors which are linked here with the form and dynamic of the ‘neoliberal model of development’ (Neilson, 2011). In his conclusion Roper also states that if there is an upsurge in social movement and working class politics ‘then the question of alternatives to neoliberalism will come to the forefront of New Zealand politics’ (Roper, 2011a, p. 39). The second theme of this essay is linked to an exploratory discussion of why this might or might not happen and how more specifically a ‘counter-hegemonic project’ could be more consciously constructed and actively pursued.

text: Making history beyond neoliberalism: Response to Roper Roper (2011a, p. 39) sums up his account of neoliberalism in New Zealand with the following conclusion: “In the absence of a major upsurge in working class and social movement struggle, the neoliberal policy regime is likely to remain firmly in place.” The bulk of his article lends weight to this conclusion in the course of offering a detailed analysis of National’s neoliberalism and New Zealand’s social inequality. In his final assessment Roper turns to list mid-range factors that underpin his conclusion. In particular, he refers to structural constraints resulting from the neoliberalisation of New Zealand’s financial regime; neoliberalisation of the outlooks of successive New Zealand Governments since 1984; and the balance of class forces in favour of capital (pp.37-8). This response focuses, first, on building a sympathetic analysis of these mid-range factors which are linked here with the form and dynamic of the ‘neoliberal model of development’ (Neilson, 2011). In his conclusion Roper also states that if there is an upsurge in social movement and working class politics ‘then the question of alternatives to neoliberalism will come to the forefront of New Zealand politics’ (Roper, 2011a, p. 39). The second theme of this essay is linked to an exploratory discussion of why this might or might not happen and how more specifically a ‘counter-hegemonic project’ could be more consciously constructed and actively pursued.

year: 2011

title: Breasts are not just battlefields: Breast cancer and metaphors

authors: Malik, Sara

abstract: We analyse how breast cancer patients use metaphor with respect to their illness. The medical humanities (Whitehead and Woods, 2016) already has a rich tradition of coming to appreciate how cancer is discussed by clinicians, patients, survivors, and others. Our research hopes to extend this ongoing discussion by looking within and across two languages: English and Urdu. This research is part of a larger project (a PhD thesis) and in this presentation, we introduce preliminary corpus data and some initial findings from it. We take a corpus linguistics approach to examine how frequent metaphors are used, and we subject them to analysis through the lens of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 2006). Our corpus is collected from two different languages: Urdu (as spoken in Pakistan) and English (as spoken in New Zealand). It consists of social media language: four YouTube videos (two from each country), transcribed and translated (for Urdu). Our initial findings suggest that, as argued in previous research (Guité-Verret and Vachon, 2021), breast cancer is often framed with reference to war metaphors. However, we also reveal a number of previously undocumented metaphors, for example part-whole relationships, such as ‘if spread from breast then it has the whole body’, which refer to generic level metaphor-miscellaneous metaphors (GenM-MM) Lakoff (2006).

text: Breasts are not just battlefields: Breast cancer and metaphors We analyse how breast cancer patients use metaphor with respect to their illness. The medical humanities (Whitehead and Woods, 2016) already has a rich tradition of coming to appreciate how cancer is discussed by clinicians, patients, survivors, and others. Our research hopes to extend this ongoing discussion by looking within and across two languages: English and Urdu. This research is part of a larger project (a PhD thesis) and in this presentation, we introduce preliminary corpus data and some initial findings from it. We take a corpus linguistics approach to examine how frequent metaphors are used, and we subject them to analysis through the lens of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 2006). Our corpus is collected from two different languages: Urdu (as spoken in Pakistan) and English (as spoken in New Zealand). It consists of social media language: four YouTube videos (two from each country), transcribed and translated (for Urdu). Our initial findings suggest that, as argued in previous research (Guité-Verret and Vachon, 2021), breast cancer is often framed with reference to war metaphors. However, we also reveal a number of previously undocumented metaphors, for example part-whole relationships, such as ‘if spread from breast then it has the whole body’, which refer to generic level metaphor-miscellaneous metaphors (GenM-MM) Lakoff (2006).

year: 2023-11-29

title: Five imperial adventures in the Waikato

authors: Moffat, Kirstine

abstract: Some late nineteenth-century exponents of the 'Novel of Adventure', or imperial adventure-romance, regarded colonial New Zealand as an attractive canvas for their tales of masculine daring in an exotic, rugged environment.3 Five such authors set their narratives, in part or in full, in the Waikato of the 1860s, drawn to the backdrop of inter-racial conflict provided by the New Zealand Wars. While references to specific events and people associated with colonial Waikato do ground many of these texts in historical reality, it has to be said that, regardless of whether the authors write from experience, careful research, or flights of imaginative fantasy, the Waikato that is described in their narratives has been selected for its frontier possibilities rather than its distinctive geography.

text: Five imperial adventures in the Waikato Some late nineteenth-century exponents of the 'Novel of Adventure', or imperial adventure-romance, regarded colonial New Zealand as an attractive canvas for their tales of masculine daring in an exotic, rugged environment.3 Five such authors set their narratives, in part or in full, in the Waikato of the 1860s, drawn to the backdrop of inter-racial conflict provided by the New Zealand Wars. While references to specific events and people associated with colonial Waikato do ground many of these texts in historical reality, it has to be said that, regardless of whether the authors write from experience, careful research, or flights of imaginative fantasy, the Waikato that is described in their narratives has been selected for its frontier possibilities rather than its distinctive geography.

year: 2013