Reflexively considering one's position when undertaking research has become commonplace in geographic research and writing. This phenomenon is linked to the increasingly prevalent view that research is a co-constituted process that involves the participant and researcher both constructing meaning. Yet, curiously, there has been relatively limited discussion around the role that sexual experiences play in the research process. In this article we draw on three experiences to illustrate the complex ways in which unwanted sexual encounters with research participants can affect the research process. Through these stories we show how sexual encounters shaped the research process, unsettled the way we understood and performed our own gendered sexuality, and challenged our understandings of what it means to be 'good researchers' . We aim to initiate a wider discussion around how we can best prepare emerging researchers for, and support in the wake of, unexpected encounters of desire in the field.

Radical democrats and geographers have argued that democracy requires a vibrant contestatory politics to challenge the contemporary "post-political" conjuncture. Despite suggestions of post-political processes in Aotearoa New Zealand, there are signs of a more vibrant politics. In 2010 an environmental campaign called "2Precious2Mine" captured the national geographic imaginary. Drawing on this example, we argue that although a space was opened for a vibrant contestatory politics, its effects were paradoxical. The campaign both reinforced the hegemonic narratives of neoliberal (post)colonial Aotearoa New Zealand, and simultaneously produced moments that challenged this apparent post-politicising trajectory. While we argue that such frameworks are useful, there is a risk that without cognisance of the situated nature of politics and closure, they both lose their political and academic explanatory purchase. Post-politics becomes at risk of constructing that which it seeks to describe, while radical democracy ends up falling short of its aims.

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated response have brought food security into sharp focus for many New Zealanders. The requirement to “shelter in place” for eight weeks nationwide, with only “essential services” operating, affected all parts of the New Zealand food system. The nationwide full lockdown highlighted existing inequities and created new challenges to food access, availability, affordability, distribution, transportation, and waste management. While Aotearoa New Zealand is a food producer, there remains uncertainty surrounding the future of local food systems, particularly as the long-term effects of the pandemic emerge. In this article we draw on interviews with food rescue groups, urban farms, community organisations, supermarket management, and local and central government staff to highlight the diverse, rapid, community-based responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings reveal shifts at both the local scale, where existing relationships and short supply chains have been leveraged quickly, and national scale, where funding has been mobilised towards a different food strategy. We use these findings to re-imagine where and how responsibility might be taken up differently to enhance resilience and care in diverse food systems in New Zealand.

Between 2010 and 2017, the New Zealand Government undertook a range of subtle yet disturbing tactics to create a legislative environment that enabled deep sea oil exploration. This included forms of public endorsement, policy documents and legislative change that prioritised further oil development in the country to create a certain common-sense around increased fossil fuel extraction. In response, a range of communities and autonomous Oil Free groups have emerged to contest both the legislative changes and this underlying common-sense. We draw on this example to respond to calls within geography and political science literature to situate analysis of contemporary politics in empirical contexts. We use Rancière’s thought combined with the frames of politicisation, depoliticisation and repoliticisation to explore the entangled nature of government and oil industry actions, and community climate change activism. We argue that while there were clearly attempts by government and the oil industry to close down spaces of dissent and limit debate around fossil fuel development to technocratic questions of health and safety, the effects of attempts at closure are paradoxical. Such attempts at closure are always incomplete and at times, mobilise people to contestatory action. We show how activists have strategically drawn on certain discourses to exert claims of, and for, equality in public debates around the pressing issue of climate change.