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This paper explores spatial dynamics of contestation in the ongoing production of textures of urban place in the postcolonial context of Christchurch, New Zealand. It first examines practices of visual inscription that generate landscapes and mediascapes that struggle to naturalize particular social imaginaries, relations and place-identities. It then considers modes of transgression that rework and expand urban spatiality into new visual terrains of contestation such as those associated with digital media. Emergent communities have thus made use of media spaces such as YouTube to reverse the urban gaze, reframe themselves and the city, and re-imagine place-making landscapes and identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1960s, in Fredric Jameson's analysis, saw a radical re-formulation of global imperialism, with pockets of the ‘third world’ being incorporated into the first (Jameson 1991, p. 128). On a local level, this implied for colonized peoples a re-negotiation of social space in the face of urbanization. One culture's civilizing mission becomes another's grid of control, resulting in ghettoization, the marginalization of ‘abject zones’ where the visibility of the clean and proper city is suspended. This paper examines the case of Christchurch, where the garden as an index to civility becomes a paradoxical veneer in the face of biculturalism and decolonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Christchurch Botanic Gardens are popularly portrayed, both positively and negatively, as an icon of colonial heritage. This paper explores the cultural, social and scientific functions of the Gardens in the 19th century, and argues that they did not simply support colonization. Rather, the Gardens were a site of negotiation, conflict and contradictory meaning. The aim is to show the colonial project, embodied in the space of the Botanic Gardens, as fraught and vulnerable, rather than as the extension of panoptic European power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fear of crime can significantly reduce the quality of life of individuals, yet little is known about what neighbourhood-level factors drive feelings of vulnerability in New Zealand. Even less is known about the impact that recorded crime has on individuals' fear in the country. In this study, we examined the neighbourhood-level factors related to fear of crime in Christchurch, focusing specifically on whether recorded crime in neighbourhoods influences fear. The fear of crime in Christchurch was found to be the greatest in more affluent, ethnically homogenous and residentially stable neighbourhoods, while recorded crime levels were found to be relatively lower in these neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design of a school-based geography curriculum presents opportunities and challenges for teachers in New Zealand secondary schools. This article discussed the considerations that teachers need to make when developing a school-based curriculum that is suited to the needs and interests of the students in their school and community. An example of a programme that has been developed to meet the needs and interests of students in a particular secondary school in Christchurch, New Zealand, was outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An antiracist rally in Christchurch, New Zealand in May 2004 was organized by Asian immigrants to protest and advocate for an end to everyday racism in their dealings with long settled New Zealanders, but public debate focused not on the experiences of recent migrants but on the question of whether Christchurch is racist. A discursive crisis, indicated by heavy media coverage in the weeks immediately before and after the event, is characterized by discourses of denial, affront and whiteness that indicate the social context in which racialization occurs. Such discourses are similar to those of ‘new racism’ in other immigrant societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School should be a ‘culturally safe’ place, particularly for those students in Christchurch who challenge the city's reputation as a culturally homogeneous space and are thus frequently open to discrimination. A case study focusing on Somali refugee adolescents highlights that Christchurch's secondary schools – like those elsewhere in New Zealand – are not a culturally safe, certain space for all students but rather spatially reconstruct inequalities of gender, class and ethnicity. Yet, Somali students are not passive victims, for they have actively renegotiated these spaces within their schools with varying degrees of success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]