CERN Aotearoa New Zealand

CERN Aotearoa New Zealand meets the last Friday of each month, 1 to 3pm (NZ time), by Zoom. Members are from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific region. Meetings start with members doing a ‘go round’ to catch up with each other and then there is discussion of a reading. The group uses a shared Google docs to record reactions and thoughts on the readings.

We also run an online CERN Writing Group, on the first Friday of each, 12 to 3pm (NZ time). This writing group is run in conjunction with CERN-Sydney. We use the Pomodoro Technique of writing in 25 minute blocks of time, followed by short breaks. At the outset we share information about what we are working on and we conclude with participants sharing screens to show what they achieved. Even though we sometimes don't achieve all that we want, we know that we have achieved 3 hours more of writing than when the session started!

2025 Readings

For 2025, we have started with the 2024 book The Economic Politics of Decolonisation by CERN Aotearoa member Matthew Scobie and Anna Sturman. We were inspired to read the book after the 2024 CERN LIVIANA online conference session on this book. We will also be reading the opening chapters of some recently completed PhD theses by CERN Aotearoa members and some draft pieces of writing by members of the group.  

2024 Readings

For 2024, the main reading was the 2024 book Caring for Life by CERN Aotearoa member Kelly Dombroski. We also read draft pieces of writing from members of the group.  

2023 Readings

For the last part of 2023, the group read four open-access articles on diverse and community economies:

• Christina Jerne, The Diversity of Solidarity Economies: A View from Danish Minority Gangs, click here. The discussion helped to inform a CE News story on this article. 
• Michael Emru Tadesse and Esra Erdem, Postcapitalist Imaginaries of Finance: A Diverse-Economies Perspective on Equubs within the Ethiopian Diaspora in Germany, click here. The discussion helped to inform a CE News story on this article.
• Borja Nogué-Algueró et al, Limits to fishing: the case for collective self-limitation illustrated with an example of small-scale fisheries in Catalonia, click here.
• Gillette et al, Doing conservation differently: Toward a diverse conservations inventory, click here. 

For the first eight months of 2023, the group read Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira (with a focus on doing the exercises in this book). For more on this reading, click here. The ran a session on their reading of this book during the online 2023 CERN LIVIANA conference. For a recording of the session, click here. 

2022 Readings

In 2022, the group read articles from the 2022 Special Issue of Asia Pacific Viewpoint on ‘Surviving well: From diverse economies to community economies in Asia-Pacific.’ Many of the articles in the Special Issue were written by members of CERN Aotearoa New Zealand. For more on this special issue, click here.