Categories
Uncategorized

A Carnival of Inequality

I have been away, spending a bit of redundancy pay, having some time out of mind and appreciating how privileged I am to have the opportunity. It is good to ‘stop’ at times, if you can. Spent some quality time on a Greek Island in the Agean Sea and revisited some old haunts in South London. Of course, there is no real ‘getting away’, so that in all forms of respite the mind continues to process observations; generating reflections of, and on, the material and ideological troubles of the social world. An end, possibly, to ‘academic’ life also frees the imagination in some ways.

Categories
Uncategorized

The unimaginable decade

RSW 2015-2025

Imagination is a promising concept – it suggests the infinite, an absence of boundaries, something new. A future we haven’t yet experienced, or a newly imagined past. To reimagine acknowledges the need for growth in our imagination, for change. Judith Butler (amongst others) talks about counter-imagining – the act of opposing the harmful and misinformed imaginations of others (Who’s Afraid of Gender?, 2024). 

The RSW collective blog began 10 years ago with this intent – to oppose a poorly imagined, uninformed government restructure of Oranga Tamariki (then Child Youth and Family). The blog offered a platform for resistance and dissent; a space to reimagine the future of contemporary social work in Aotearoa and to offer radical and critical analysis during times of increasingly conservative political narratives. 

Categories
Uncategorized

Dissent in a time of fever

I have been wondering (as my time in a University teaching job meanders to an end) about the function of dissent – questioning and challenging the status quo, power, vested interests – in organisations and in wider politics. I once wrote ‘‘One day I’ll find a place where there are no games of power / One day I’ll get struck by a meteor shower”.  What are the implications of the current – and inescapable – power shifts in our social and political world?

Categories
Uncategorized

Have a dissenting New Year!

To all 15,000 of our readers in Aotearoa and overseas and all 1,000 of our loyal subscribers, we wish you and your whānau the happiest year ahead.

Since we know what makes you happy is to educate, agitate, and organise, we want to share some ideas about actions and invite your own thoughts in the reply section below.

Categories
Uncategorized

We shall overcome

The relative calm of the slow days between Christmas and New Year afford an opportuntity for reflection. 2024 has been a challenging year. We have endured a complex hard-right political blitzkrieg from the coalition government. Their focus is on legislative and policy frameworks which promote ‘business freedom’ by facilitating optimum conditions for private profit. This flowering of capitalist fundamentalism (neo-liberalism on steroids) is supported by a range of deceptive ideological tropes – shallow and false representations of equality, such as the idea that the interests of capital and labour are the same or the notion that we can all be capitalists. A raft of contradictions lies below the surface layer of political deceit: