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This paper responds to calls from past and present students to increase the value of postgraduate scholarships in Aotearoa New Zealand. Here we provide context for understanding the scholarship landscape in Aotearoa, including how scholarships are understood in relation to dominant neoliberal framings of higher education and persistent inequities within the sector. We present data which provides insight into the current inequities in Summer, Masters and PhD scholarship values. The average value of PhD scholarships has remained stagnant between 2011 and 2019 resulting in the average being $11,238 less than the Living Wage in 2019. We show that the average length of time full-time PhD students take to complete their doctorates exceeds the three-year tenure of scholarships. We argue the status-quo of low scholarships, supplemented by postgraduate 'sweat', excludes people from participating in postgraduate education, preventing them and their communities from realising the public benefits that such an education can produce. We suggest that these inadequacies could be addressed through (1) raising Summer, Masters and PhD scholarships to the living wage; (2) extending tenure of PhD scholarships; and (3) reinstating the postgraduate student allowance.

Existing literatures have discussed both ethical issues in visual research with young people, and the problems associated with applying 'universal' ethical guidelines across varied cultural contexts. There has been little consideration, however, of specific issues raised in projects where visual research is being conducted with young people simultaneously in multiple national contexts. This paper contributes to knowledge in this area. We reflect on our experiences of planning and conducting the International CYCLES project involving photo elicitation with young people in Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK. While some issues such as varying access to technology for taking and sharing photos and diverse cultural sensitivities around the use of photography were anticipated in advance, others were more unexpected. Balancing the need for methods to be appropriate, ethical and feasible within each setting with the desire for sufficient consistency across the project is challenging. We argue that an 'ethics in context' approach and an attitude of 'methodological immaturity' is critical in international visual research projects with young people.

bstract Crisis narratives have long been a prominent feature of the climate movement to spur system change. The COVID‐19 pandemic brought to the fore the complexities of navigating climate action through the overlapping crises of the Anthropocene. While crisis is seen to offer possibilities for transformational change, it also threatens to prioritise urgency over justice. It is therefore important to understand how climate activists, in practice, are mobilising different narratives of crisis. To this end, we empirically examine climate activists' reflections on crisis in Aotearoa New Zealand through their experiences of the COVID‐19 pandemic. We identify a narrative of ‘panic‐activism’ that uses crisis to demonstrate the severity of the climate threat to enable drastic action. Such narratives are often underpinned by a ‘hierarchy of crisis’ that positions climate change as the most imminent existential crisis. We caution that this crisis narrative is troubling for climate justice, particularly as it positions one crisis as more urgent than others. However, in contrast to panic‐activism, our study suggests climate activists in Aotearoa tended to approach crisis cautiously and with reluctant necessity, rather than as something to be actively catalysed or capitalised on. Instead, activists cultivated a narrative of ‘crisis solidarity’ that highlights the networks of reciprocity and vulnerability across and within communities for more intersectional social movement organising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines young volunteer's perspectives of recognition in Aotearoa New Zealand. There is a politics of recognition to navigate with the rise of formalized practices of recognition that award and reward volunteer efforts. Many of these practices draw on a neoliberal logic that centre the individual and apply instrumental motivations to their engagement, which we describe as 'accolades'. Drawing on in-depth interviews with young people, our analysis identifies a disconnect between the dominant forms of accolade that young volunteers receive, and the recognition that they consider meaningful. While volunteers appreciated accolades, they nevertheless treated them with caution and concern, highlighting the potential for accolades to elevate certain individuals while acting to marginalize, exclude and potentially devalue volunteers' contributions. In contrast to these reservations, young volunteers considered forms of recognition that were relational and justice-based to be significant and meaningful, particularly those that allowed for community solidarity and engaged structural questions of power. In exploring these perspectives, we argue that neoliberal approaches to recognition, despite their prevalence, fail to capture young volunteers' perceptions of the possibilities of recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embedded in growing expectations for post-disaster volunteer participation are questions of volunteers' psychological well-being. Witnessing destruction and suffering, and the intense pressures of the work itself, can place heavy demands on crisis volunteers, particularly in "informal" community groups that may lack the structure, systems, and supports embedded within "formal" disaster response organizations. This article examines how the Student Volunteer Army in Aotearoa New Zealand has negotiated volunteers' well-being across two disaster responses: an earthquake in 2011 and terrorist attacks in 2019. We identify three interrelated practices adopted by the group to support well-being: "action" (enabling opportunities for people to engage in volunteering); "reflection" (facilitating processes of discussion and debriefing); and "connection" (creating physical space and practices to enhance social interactions). Our discussion considers the implications of multi-layered practices of support that can develop within informal crisis volunteer groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been growing acknowledgement of the significant contribution that young people can make to established 'adult' organisations and institutions, alongside efforts to encourage their participation in these spaces. In this context, there is a need to examine how young people experience participation as volunteers within established organisations. Drawing on 25 in-depth interviews with young volunteers in the Canterbury region of Aotearoa New Zealand, our findings demonstrate that volunteering in established organisations can be a conflicted participatory space for young people. We identify three aspects young people negotiate in their participation: 'what they seek' through their engagement, particularly empowerment by way of social connection and political voice; 'what they give' to established organisations, especially time, energy and financial resource, with risks of burnout; and 'what they fight' within organisations, including discrimination, marginalisation and tokenism. Our analysis suggests established organisations should be responsive to the aspirations young people strive to enact through their participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the development and implications of positive news media coverage of a crisis volunteer group across a decade of disaster responses. We investigate the case of the Student Volunteer Army in Aotearoa New Zealand, a group that has been positioned as a potential blueprint for youth-led disaster response. Drawing on in-depth interviews and news media sources, we trace how a distinct framing of the group as 'good news' consolidated across successive disasters, initially in media reporting and then through active cultivation by the group. The findings demonstrate the potential for positive media coverage of disaster volunteerism to assist people's recovery and provide crisis volunteer groups with important leverage to further their operational abilities and challenge exclusionary power structures in post-disaster environments. However, our analysis also warns that simplifying accounts of post-disaster collective action to create 'good news' can produce internal tensions within crisis volunteer groups and reinforce the hierarchies and inequities that characterize disaster response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the diverse organisational forms of crisis volunteerism is crucial for enabling volunteers to play a more prominent role in disaster response. One of the most widely used analytical tools is the Disaster Research Center typology that identifies 'established', 'expanding', 'extending' and 'emergent' groups. However, not all disaster response volunteer groups necessarily fit within this typology. We examine the case of the Student Volunteer Army (SVA) in Aotearoa New Zealand, which has been considered a potential blueprint for youth‐led post‐disaster civic action. Examining a decade of successive disaster responses, we argue the SVA has come to simultaneously exhibit characteristics associated with 'expanding', 'extending' and 'repeat emergent' disaster response organisations. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with people involved with the SVA over its 10 years, we identify dualities in the SVA's tasks and structure that enable it to incorporate both new and existing or routine aspects into its disaster response efforts. In spanning these categories, we propose the SVA has become an 'expectant' crisis volunteer organisation—what one interviewee described as a crisis volunteer 'sleeper cell'. Our discussion considers the possibilities and tensions within this distinct form of organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]