CF

A reflection on the implications of the 2023 General Election for the Left.

An anti-reproductivist critique of the institution of work that brings the ideas of theorists such as Heather Berg and Kathi Weeks into conversation with the lived experience of sex workers in Aotearoa New Zealand.

An analysis of the rise of the ‘religious right’, and the complicated relationship between religion and politics in Aotearoa New Zealand, during the 2020 General Election through a close reading of the policy platforms of the New Conservatives, One Party, Vision New Zealand, and Advance New Zealand.

An outlining of the possibilities for a national movement on debt abolition that recognises both household debt and the socio-historical debt accrued to Indigenous, working-class, and other peoples.

An interview with the renowned Italian autonomist Marxist philosopher, who discusses his role in the operaismo movement, his intellectual and personal relationships with Félix Guattari and Jean Baudrillard, and how psychoanalytic theory might help us examine political events today.

A critique of the Tertiary Education Union (TEU) prior to, during, and beyond the 2023 ‘Stop the Cuts’ campaign across the tertiary education sector in Aotearoa New Zealand, and a call to build a more politically active and coordinated national union movement.

A review essay on Bain Attwood’s 'A Bloody Difficult Subject’: Ruth Ross, te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Making of History, presenting a detailed overview of historiographical debates about Treaty histories in Aotearoa New Zealand and the possible directions these histories might take in the future.

A review of Eleanor Catton’s latest novel Birnam Wood, which situates it within a revision of the South Island myth that has occupied a privileged place in settler aesthetic traditions.

A theoretical intervention, in discussion with the ideas of Achille Mbembe and Judith Butler, on the intertwined relationship between democracy and violence that is currently playing out in Israel’s siege on Gaza.

How might the concept of “fictitious capital” help us understand the origins and depths of the current crisis enveloping universities in Aotearoa New Zealand?

Three leading thinkers discuss Catherine Comyn’s new book, The Financial Colonisation of Aotearoa (ESRA, 2022). Each discussant uses the book as a prompt to think through how financialisation was used as a tool of colonisation and how this legacy manifests itself today in forms of intergenerational trauma, legal structures, and inflation. The forum concludes with Comyn’s response to the discussants.

An interview with one of the world’s foremost critical legal theorists, who discusses her role in the constitutional transformation struggle in Chile. In a wide-ranging discussion, Vergara charts the political history of Chile from the fall of Salvador Allende, through the Pinochet dictatorship, to the troubled decades of democracy, leading up to the popular uprising in October 2019. She outlines her work with local councils pushing for the inclusion of a variety of social and economic rights in the new constitution, how wealthy and powerful right-wing elites used the prospect of Indigenous rights to undermine constitutional reform, and the consequences of the defeat of the proposed constitution in the 2022 referendum.

Three scholars of adoption reflect on adoptee activism in Aotearoa New Zealand, tracing a history of closed adoption, the social and psychological legacies of state practices, and the difficulties involved in contesting adoption law and the status quo. Applying an autoethnographic and dialogic method, Blake, Ahuriri-Driscoll, and Sumner reflect on their personal experiences as both adoptees and activists, and point the way to new forms of collective organising around adoptee activism in the political moment.

A detailed and comprehensive study of socialist interpretations of interwar fascism in Europe. El-Ojeili maps the multiplicity of socialist responses to fascist formations and the ways in which these responses were refracted through various organisational and situational forces, which also evolved as a consequence of socialist defeats in the period. Understanding this history, El-Ojeili contends, has relevance and lessons for how we confront the complexity of the far-right today.

An analysis of themes of transcendence and the sacred in the government’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of political theology. Drawing on themes of solidarity, sacrifice, sovereignty, and the iconic, Fountain reconsiders aspect of modern techno-politics and charts some of the reasons why governance of the pandemic was so challenging.

A review of Cybèle Locke, Comrade: Bill Andersen—A Communist, Working-Class Life. A captivating and rigorous portrait of a complicated but pivotal figure in the trade union movement in Aotearoa New Zealand.

A review of Matthew Cunningham, Marinus La Rooij, and Paul Soonley (eds.), Histories of Hate: The Radical Right in Aotearoa New Zealand. An overview of key individuals and organisations in the history and present of the far-right.

Launching in 2015, Renters United has sought to build a movement to push back against landlordism in New Zealand and secure healthy and affordable homes for all renters. Organisers Robert Whitaker and Geordie Rogers discuss the organisational and campaign strategy of Renters United, the search for crux issues around which meaningful reform can be built, and the importance of telling renters’ stories.

An excerpt from Catherine Comyn’s forthcoming book, The Financial Colonisation of Aotearoa (ESRA, 2022). The Native Lands Acts of the 1860s and 1870s are read as the colonial weaponisation of credit, enabling the division and seizure of Māori land. Against this, the founding of Te Peeke o Aotearoa in 1885 presented an exclusively Māori alternative to colonial financial institutions, reasserting Māori economic autonomy and threatening to weaken the fabric of the colonial project.

An analysis of the 1989 Roper report traces out the genealogy of the ‘habilitation centre’, from its development in the United States to experiments in Aotearoa New Zealand. With the Labour government attempting to reduce the prison population, does the habilitation centre offer a model for decarceration or for the expansion of penal confinement?

Absurd art has tended to find greater currency during periods of intense socio-political unrest. Does this thesis still hold in the face of today’s accelerating online narratives and divergent internet realities?

Engaging with the work of Stefano Harney and Fred Moten and examining the influence of their ideas in Aotearoa’s undercommons, Anisha Sankar highlights the political potentiality of ‘black study’ as a mode of already-existing communism. Here, the distant liberatory horizon gives way to the embrace of relationality and being-for-others in the present.

While it is widely known that racism is endemic in online spaces, enabled by the structures of social networking sites, little research exists on how to effectively counter everyday racism online. The results of a wide-ranging and detailed experiment with developing and disseminating anti-racist graphics highlight the importance of systematic political-meme creation by social-justice groups.

Through a reading of Max Haiven’s Revenge Capitalism, Faisal Al-Asaad highlights the centrality of debt as a principle of social and economic life. An engagement with the institution and philosophy of utu is called for as a means of transforming destructive capitalist debt relations and abolishing today’s revenge economy.

Review of Max Rashbrooke, Too Much Money: How Wealth Disparities Are Unbalancing Aotearoa New Zealand. A masterful overview of the available statistical information on the size of wealth holdings and their degree of concentration in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Review of Neil Vallelly, Futilitarianism: Neoliberalism and the Production of Uselessness. Futility as both dominant structure of feeling and fulcrum for political action in the twilight of neoliberalism.

Over literal and metaphorical cups of tea, the organising crew of ‘Activating Collectivity: Aroha and Power’ reflect on what went into planning and shaping the conference and what was gained from it. In doing so, they invite readers to grab a cup and join in the reflective process.

Margaret Mutu and Veronica Tawhai, both members of Matike Mai Aotearoa, the Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation, examine what constitutions are, why constitutional transformation matters in Aotearoa, and how we can be actively engaged in imagining and creating change.

Pania Newton, from the movement to protect Ihumātao, and Pua Case, from the movement to protect Mauna Kea, come together to discuss their efforts to protect whenua and ́āina at home. They reflect on the importance of Indigenous protocols and ancestral wisdom while also speaking to each other, showcasing the power of solidarities.

Critical Race Theory is at the cutting edge of international struggles seeking to end racism, but how can this theory be appropriately applied in New Zealand? In this ground-breaking article, the authors offer a novel framework for CRT analysis in this country, illustrating its applicability via a reappraisal of the historic 1980 case Tifaga v Department of Labour.

Four conference participants join together to discuss the practice of critical positioning. They reflect on questions of positionality: who we are, why positioning matters, and how positionality can activate both collectivity and accountability.

Drawing on the ideal of Rarohenga, Kim McBreen shows how learning to effectively respond to interpersonal violence is a crucial skill for supporting our communities and building effective movements.

Conference keynote panellist Makanaka Tuwe reflects on personal and collective wellness, healing, and social justice. Social change is visualized not just as something we must see, but something we must feel and breathe through.

The ‘Kai-dness Crew’ formed to create co-design interventions and to cater for the conference. They explain the guiding principles behind how they shaped a space of manaaki and whanaungatanga, along with sharing practical ideas for how to foster connections and stimulate progressive social change.

Three veteran community organisers offer their reflections on the conference. How did it compare to previous events of this nature? What was inspiring? And what might future gatherings of this type do differently?

Brooke Pao Stanley offers her reflections on the conference, on what drew her to the conference space, on what she learned, and on what she has been empowered to hope for the future.

A poem addressed to the Wellington Trades Hall building, the site of the conference party and much else.

With the housing crisis continuing to punish renters, we call for the abolition of private landlordism.

An excerpt from Catherine Cumming’s forthcoming book, The Financial Colonisation of Aotearoa (ESRA, 2021). In the 1880s, colonial authorities levied a tax on dogs in order to protect sheep, the central building block of the fledgling colonial economy. Māori resistance to the dog tax, culminating in the ‘Hokianga Dog Tax Rebellion’ of 1898, is told as a story of resistance to the attempted interpellation of Māori as colonial citizen-subjects.

A reflection on the necessity to narrate that was imposed upon Muslims in the wake of the Christchurch massacres. Seeking to escape the organising grammar of race, which fixes the subject in time and place, it is asked how racial destinies might be rewritten.

Scrutinising Hannah Strømmen and Ulrich Schmiedel’s The Claim to Christianity, Chamsy el-Ojeili untangles the prevalence of Christian identitarianism in the thickening post-fascist atmosphere. Might Christianity be providing moral and spiritual energy to the presently unsystematised ‘museum of fragments’ that is post-fascism?

An examination of the campaign against the Kāpiti expressway yields insights into the limitations of individualistic and institutionalist modes of political action. It is shown that emphasising shared interests between local opposition groups and nationally focused activists is essential in building effective campaigns on environmental issues.

Through an engagement with Marx’s notes on methodology, this article considers the role of the commodity fetish, the fetishisation of intellectual labour, and the fetish of knowledge-without-consequences in the debate over the restructuring of the College of Sciences at Massey University.

What can the socialist left learn from Swarbrick’s unexpected victory in Auckland Central? A veteran of the campaign explores the practical lessons of this success for movement-building and political engagement in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Review of Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism. A new history of the parallel rise of neoliberalism and human rights.

Review of Mark Carney, Value(s): Building a Better World for All. Stakeholder capitalism as a line of flight from our uninhabitable earth?

After a landslide victory for Labour in the 2020 general election, what can we expect from the second Ardern administration?

Two veterans of community organising discuss their work co-constructing voice infrastructures at the margins. A critical interrogation of the tensions that emerge in the relationships between communities, activists, and academics, and lessons in the role of community organising in building socialist futures.

A treatment of militarism in the Pacific, tracing its interconnections with the structures of settler colonialism and white supremacy. Against the steady advance of US-led imperialism, Indigenous temporalities are positioned as the keystone of demilitarised futures.

A retrospective on the life and work of the late historian Dick Scott, author of the ground-breaking Ask that Mountain: The Story of Parihaka. Instinctive outsider and refuter of the high-polite style, a historian who relentlessly unearthed well-buried episodes from Aotearoa New Zealand’s past.

An interview with distinguished professor Roland Boer on his five-volume epic On Marxism and Theology. In a wide-ranging discussion, Boer illuminates the myriad connections between Marxism and Christianity and considers the contemporary struggle over the Christian legacy.

A fast-paced dérive through Auckland’s inner-city monuments. What messages do the monuments of Aotearoa New Zealand’s metropolis send out, and how can the frequency of these transmissions be altered?

Prey to global warming, geopolitical competition, and class divisions, the Pacific Islands region is united by a shared experience of economic dependency and vulnerability. What might a Left secretariat in the Pacific offer?

In light of a great repatriation, what emotional states might be provoked by returning New Zealanders? Written during lockdown, Murdoch Stephens looks to the history of the ‘coming home’ essay and song for clues as to how returnees could be productively drawn back into the collective.

Chantal Mouffe’s reading of ‘Schmitt against Schmitt’ is employed to discuss the politics of the returnee. In an era punctuated by global crises, what does the figure of the returnee tell us about citizenship, sovereignty, and globalisation?

Review of Bianca Elkington et al, Imagining Decolonisation. An ‘ethic of restoration’ as a third way between Fanonian rupture and the exclusionary performativity of Pākehā overtures to decolonialisation.

Review of Jonathan Boston, Transforming the Welfare State. Techno-welfarism as a solution to Aotearoa New Zealand’s decaying social security system.

Review of David Renton, The New Authoritarians. With the intellectual exhaustion of conservatism and the mainstreaming of far-right ideologies, how should the Left respond?

An introduction to this special issue of Counterfutures.

Universal state housing as a practical solution to Aotearoa New Zealand’s trenchant housing crisis. Affordable, secure, and decommodified housing for all.

A vision for a 21st-century cooperative-housing model for Aotearoa New Zealand. Cooperative housing as a third way between ownership and renting.

Reflections on best practice for community engagement in urban-redevelopment projects. Empowering communities through effective, meaningful, and culturally relevant engagement processes.

An account of the Porirua regeneration project from Housing Action Porirua. Community resistance to state-led gentrification.

An argument for urban-planning reform and spatial justice. Implementing the kāinga model as practical decolonisation.

Reflections on effective community-engagement practices in Porirua. To provide suitable housing and neighbourhoods for Pasifika, architects and urban planners must expand their cultural kete.

Interviewed by Dylan Taylor, Camia Young and Thomas Nash imagine a new era of regenerative urban design.

Review of Ian Smith, Pākehā Settlements in a Māori World. The archaeology of early colonial settlements in Aotearoa told in five phases.

Review of Raquel Rolnik, Urban Warfare. A global panorama of housing policy in the era of footloose financial capital.

Review of Samuel Stein, Capital City. A critical account of the age of real-estate capital and the transformation of the city.

Tim Corballis on what optimisms are possible at the heart of the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated state responses. Can it lead us to lastingly question what is essential?

Warwick Tie reflects on his face mask, and his reluctance to wear it.

A history of primitive accumulation and the New Zealand dairy industry. The fifth National government and the enclosure and degradation of freshwater commons as the latest chapter in this long history.

Mining the late work of Marx for its intersections with te ao Māori. Whakapapa as a central concept in the development of a Māori Marx.

Extending Erik Olin Wright’s socialist compass to make a case for Māori socialism — a socialist economy in which tino rangatiratanga is formative.

Lacan, Deleuze and Guattari, and the role of femininity in the class struggle. Everyday sartorial interventions as a tactical reification of femininity.

How might emotional states be transposed to the political sphere? A psycho-political investigation of hate and its value for Left politics.

Denise Blake and Amanda Thomas interview Dame Catherine Healy about the history of the New Zealand Prostitutes’ Collective.

Deliberative democracy as a cure for the ills of neoliberalism in a settler-colonial state?
Max Rashbrooke responds to David Parker's review here.

A detailed account of the erosion of the liberal centre and the spread of populism across the United States, United Kingdom, and continental Europe.

A case for the enduring relevance of Shulamith Firestone.

A history of state censorship, the New Zealand home front, and undelivered mail during the Great War.