Read the paper ‘Migrant Christian communities in New Zealand: Observations and Missiological Reflections’ that George Wieland and I presented at the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Mission Studies Mini-Symposium at Laidlaw College on October 31, 2009.
Migrant Christian communities in New Zealand: Observations and Missiological Reflections
9 11 2009Comments : Leave a Comment »
Categories : Academic writing, Christian writing, Conference papers
New article on Asian students
2 11 2009Based on a paper presented at the International Metropolis Conference on Migration, in Melbourne, in 2007 and on a paper commissioned by the Asia New Zealand Foundation in that same year, is an article co-authored by me, Terry McGrath and Paul Stock:
A. Butcher, T. McGrath and P. Stock (2009), ‘Once Returned, Twice Forgotten? Asian Students Returning Home After Studying in New Zealand in R. Bedford, W. Friesen and A. Zodgekar (eds.), New Zealand Population Review, 33 & 34: 235-248
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Categories : Academic writing, Published articles
For whom the bell tolls
22 10 2009An exciting and inspirational initiative from Dunedin churches, spear-headed by Otago University’s chaplain Greg Hughson
http://www.ch9.co.nz/content/churches-ring-their-bells-350-times
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Categories : Christian writing, Meditations
Tawa-ville
15 10 2009My best friend has recently moved back to Tawa, where both he and I grew up together.
I returned to Tawa 18 months ago and he’s experiencing those strange re-entry encounters that come from returning to this Pleasantville-like suburb, nestled between a women’s prison at its southern border and a mental hospital at its northern border, with seven churches down its Main Road.
You find that people don’t actually leave Tawa (or, if they try to, they return.) So you meet people, like your former German teacher, in the bookstore; or find that your former colleagues in the supermarket or petrol station where you worked as a school student are still working there.
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Categories : Meditations
New article – Reporting superdiversity
13 10 2009A new article by Professor Paul Spoonley and myself called ‘Reporting Superdiversity: The mass media and immigration in New Zealand’ has just been published in the Journal of Intercultural Studies (30, 4, 2009, pp. 355-372).
Electronic and/or hard copies are only available through institutional library subscriptions, or can be purchased online, both via this link
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Categories : Academic writing, Published articles
The Stranger in our Midst
7 10 2009An article by George Wieland and I on how Christians may respond to migrant communities in New Zealand called “The Stranger in our Midst” can be found in the latest issue of Daystar Magazine – Oct/Nov 2009, Vol 9, No.6, pp.24-26. It appears it is published in hard copy only.
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Categories : Christian writing, Published Writing
Shall we dance?
11 09 2009Last year, before we got married, we took dancing lessons, in preparation for our first dance as a married couple.
I’d learned ballroom dancing as a teenager while at secondary school for two hours per week in my 6th and 7th form years. I can still remember the foxtrot and the waltz. Even the awfully named Gay Gordons. But I don’t think it got any more complicated than that.
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Categories : Uncategorized
Absolutely, positively, diversity
6 09 2009Last week, we launched the last of the series of papers I’ve commissioned and edited on Asians in New Zealand, looking at Wellington.
I was interviewed for an article about this report for Wellington’s Dominion Post, which you can read here. There’s also an editorial from the same issue, here.
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Categories : Media articles
A rice less ordinary
21 08 2009Last night I was listening to a preacher talk about “ordinary food” and “rice” as if they were two distinct planets in a culinary solar system.
It’s worth pointing out, for this will give some context to his comment, that he is British and white and about fifty.
I say these things because it seems to me that for the vast majority of the world’s population “rice” and “ordinary food” are synonyms, not antonyms.
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Categories : Christian writing, Meditations
Higher Education Summit paper
19 08 2009Read online the PowerPoint presentation I gave recently at the Higher Education Summit in NZ on thinking beyond international degrees, with reference to NZ’s Asian alumni.
A longer and more detailed version of this presentation is being prepared for the ISANA conference in Australia later this year and also as a written paper to be published in New Zealand, so watch this space.
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Categories : Academic writing, Conference papers