Tag Archives: Aotearoa New Zealand

Scholarship Opportunities: 2023 MPI Postgraduate Science Scholarships, Aotearoa New Zealand

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The Ministry for Primary Industries are pleased to announce that applications for the 2023 MPI Postgraduate Science Scholarships have opened to Master’s and PhD candidates from New Zealand universities. These scholarships are for candidates planning to study (or currently studying) a wide range of fields relevant to the primary sector, including (but not limited to) economics, physical or social sciences and Mātauranga Māori.

The scholarship scheme is aimed at building science, technology and cultural capability within the primary industries and provides a gateway into a career using evidence to improve the primary sector.

Each recipient receives a prize combining a financial contribution towards their study and a professional development package, including the benefit of an MPI mentor for the duration of their study and other professional development opportunities. The value of each MSc scholarship is $12,000 over 2 years and the value of each PhD scholarship is $50,000 over 3.5 years.

To apply, or for more information, please visit the MPI website.

Key timeframes for the 2023 MPI Postgraduate Science Scholarships: 

  • February 10 2023 – applications open
  • March 11 2023 – applications close
  • April 2023 – interviews with shortlisted candidates
  • May 2023 – announcement of successful candidates

To be eligible, applicants must:

  • propose research that is relevant and meets a priority need for MPI or the primary industries. The application form shows specific priority areas.
  • be a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident
  • be enrolled or intending to enrol for a master’s or PhD at a New Zealand tertiary education institution
  • have a supervisor who holds a position at a New Zealand tertiary education institution.

Further questions should be directed to the Science@mpi.govt.nz inbox with “MPI Postgraduate Scholarship Query” in the subject line.

Call for Presentations: 2022 Aristologist Symposium

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The 2022 Aristologist Symposium is on Saturday-Sunday 26-27 November 2022 at Te Manawa Museum in Te Papaioea Palmerston North, Aoteoroa New Zealand.

The New Zealand Symposia are informal meetings of amateur, academic and professional gastronomers, exploring specific topics of significance to eating, drinking, cooking and food production. It is open to all with an interest in food, its creation and history.  

The 2022 Symposium of Gastronomy has, as its theme, Refreshment – refreshing foods, ideas and liquids that sustain us, enliven our palates and bring us together socially. From breakfast through to digestifs, ‘refreshment’ is a wide concept offering many perspectives for dreaming, discussion and debate. 

Usually 20 minutes in duration, organisers also welcome short 5-10 minute snippets, longer presentations (according to need), and practical  demonstrations relating to food/drink. A short descriptive abstract of the intended presentation should be sent as soon as possible to Juliet Galuszka. If accepted for presentation, a final abstract will requested for inclusion in the Symposium programme, several weeks prior to the meeting. A digital copy of the full paper, in a suitable print format, will be requested after your presentation for archival publication in the Aristologist. Audio-visual requirements and presentation length will be discussed with you upon receipt of the preliminary abstract. 

Launch of Institutional Landscapes website

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Stefan Ouma and collaborators are proud to present the website to their institutional landscapes project. A Shiny APP for Aotearoa New Zealand has also been created and can be accessed through this link.

To quote Stefan in his message to agri-fooders,

This is also a call to other researchers to contribute to this space as guest writers. The websites and the book move between a global outlook and situated accounts, generated primarily in the geographical settings of Aotearoa New Zealand and Tanzania. Such a project eventually reaches its limits. Once we treat farmland investments as “boundary objects” to which scholars contribute from different geographical, theoretical, and methodological angles, this is not necessarily a bad thing. It is rather an invitation to different scholars to assemble the rich insights they have generated on the finance-driven land rush through their own research since 2007/08 in one dedicated space in a reflective manner. A particular focus will be put on emerging perspectives in a fast-changing field, where sometimes assumptions and statements made in the past hold no longer true in the present; where just another crisis or government regulation has crashed the dreams of investors; where suddenly AG tech and not farmland is heralded as the most promising new “asset class”, or where methodological advances now suddenly allow us to account in more granular ways about trends and investment footprints in the ‘AG space’. It is also a chance for scholars to revisit their own (past) research in light of recent advances in debates and research findings. We will offer fellow researchers exposure on the platform, as well as graphic design services in case you would like to contribute figures or photos. Over the coming months (and years?), we plan to curate posts on the following themes:

I will reach out to many of your over the coming months. We shall start with theme 1. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the website.

Job Opportunity: Lecturer in Sociology at University of Canterbury

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Excerpt from Job Description:

Āu Mahi | What You Will Do
Te Kura Mātāpuna Tangata | School of Language, Social & Political Sciences (LSAP) is seeking to appoint a Lecturer in Sociology with strengths including but not limited to environmental sociology. The successful candidate will teach the course Environment and Society and co-coordinate one of the level 100 sociology courses. They will also be able to develop courses in their particular area of expertise. 

Knowledge of and research expertise in environmental sociology in the Aotearoa New Zealand context is of central importance for teaching and supervision of students who live in and will primarily work in Aotearoa New Zealand/Australia. Someone who is able to address and research longstanding issues of Māori and Pasifika along the lines of sustainability and social movements would be a priority, in alignment with the UC strategic plan.

Other responsibilities will include pastoral care of students, postgraduate thesis supervision, research, administrative tasks, outreach, and supervision of tutors. The University is committed to developing biculturally competent, community-engaged and globally aware graduates and teaching which supports students’ ability to understand and interact effectively. Your teaching and professional development will reflect these values.

Applications close Sunday, 16 October 2022 (midnight NZ time)

Further details about the position and instructions about how to apply can be found here.

New book publication

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Congratulations to all those involved in the new open access book Beyond Global Food Supply Chains: Crisis, Disruption, Regeneration.

Edited by Victoria Stead and Melinda Hinkson, the collection takes the upheaval of the pandemic as a springboard from which to interrogate a larger set of structural, environmental and political fault lines running through the global food system. In a context in which disruptions to the production, distribution and consumption of food are figured as exceptions to the smooth, just-in-time efficiencies of global supply chains, the essays examine the pandemic not simply as a particular and acute moment of disruption but rather as a lens on a deeper, longer set of structural processes within which disruption is endemic.

The thirteen chapters offer short, sharp interventions that track disruptive forces & political possibilities at key points along the global food supply chain – and, critically, beyond it. They traverse subjects ranging from agri-investment to corporate and alternative food production systems, labour relations, pandemic supermarkets, logistics systems, the politics of hunger, the limits of consumer ethics, and the possibilities of supply chain disruptions as moments of reprieve. They offer rich, generative reflections on the contemporary global food system, and would also be very well suited to being used as teaching resources.

Chapters

  1. Introduction: Beyond global supply chains by Melinda Hinkson and Victoria Stead
  2. Supply chains as disruption by Lauren Rickards and Melinda Hinkson
  3. Agri-investment cashing in on COVID-19 by Sarah Sippel
  4. Putting the crisis to work by Victoria Stead and Kirstie Petrou
  5. Going against the grain in the West Australian wheatbelt by Kelly Donati
  6. Reviving community agrarianism in post-socialist China by Daren Shi-Chi-Leung
  7. Fantasies of logistics in Aotearoa New Zealand by Matthew Henry and Carolyn Morris
  8. Reproducing hunger in pandemic America by Maggie Dickinson
  9. The pandemic supermarket by David Boarder Giles
  10. Disruption as reprieve? by Jon Altman and Francis Markham
  11. The UN Food Systems Summit: Disaster capitalism and the future of food by Tomaso Ferrando
  12. Against consumer ethics by Christopher Mayes and Angie Sassano
  13. Afterword: Temporary measures by Alex Blanchette

The book is available free to download here.