Nicolai Skiveren

2027 MLA Convention, ASLE Panel Organizer - The Uses of Narrative: Empirical Approaches to Environmental Storytelling: Emancipatory Narratives

In what has been described as an “age of total narrative,” storytelling plays an increasingly central role in public discourse, professional practice, and everyday life. Yet, systematic exchanges between research on narratives and applied narrative practices remain surprisingly limited. This workshop addresses this gap by examining how narratives operate in real-world settings: how they persuade, mobilize, include and exclude, stabilize identities, and shape ethical judgments across domains such as healthcare, management, organizational consultancy, environmental activism, education, and digital media. Positioning itself within the rapidly expanding field of applied narratology (the study of narratives), the workshop introduces an ethical applied narratology that foregrounds questions of responsibility, power, and consequence. It treats storytelling not as a neutral tool but as a culturally and politically charged resource whose use demands critical reflection. Participants will be invited to reflect on how narrative practices can be designed, evaluated, and intervened in to foster greater justice, reflexivity, and sustainability. To this end, the workshop deliberately moves beyond narratology’s traditional focus on literary texts and abstract models while retaining the field’s critical orientation toward narrative as a formative social and ethical force.

The New Zealand Political Studies Association | Te Kāhui Tātai Tōrangapū o Aotearoa was formed in Christchurch in September 1974. The first conference of the Association was held in Wellington in May 1976. It then met in Auckland in August 1977, and held its third conference in Christchurch in May 1980. Since then it has developed into an annual conference that is held on a rotational basis at the different universities in New Zealand. In 2011, the inaugural Postgraduate Pre-Conference Workshop was held and it has now turned into an annual event. In 2015, the NZPSA adopted a new Constitution, and became an incorporated society and a constitutent member of the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi. For a number of years the NZPSA was an affiliate of the Australasian Political Studies Association (APSA). This affiliation gave the NZPSA the right to elect a member to the APSA executive and led to the joint holding of the NZPSA and APSA Conferences at the University of Canterbury in 1999 and at the University of Otago in 2005. When the APSA AGM voted in 2007 to transform itself into the Australian Political Studies Association this affiliation came to an end, although links with APSA have been maintained and are currently being strengthened. We continue to provide members’ rates at each others’ conferences and reciprocal postgraduate awards for conference attendance.

The Pacific Talanoa Staff Development Day provides participants with the opportunity to; develop a deeper understanding of the UC Pacific Strategy 2024 – 2030 learn more about the Pacific Culture and Knowledge hub (PAKC), and what each entity focuses on understand more about Pacific histories, world views, values, epistemologies and indigenous knowledges grow an awareness of the historical and current Pacific community profile within New Zealand gather tools, approaches and strategies to engage effectively with Pacific students, their families and communities make a significant contribution to Pacific student recruitment, retention and completion rates at UC enrich your teaching and learning practices to support Pacific learners at UC

Internet publication

Anonymous peer review

Organization of two-day workshop-based conference "Narratives for Ecological and Sustainable Transition(s)"

Anonymous peer review

Due to the interdisciplinary nature of our field, and the radical call for disruption of the status quo at the heart of most of our research, Human-Animal Studies (HAS and Critical Animal Studies (CAS)) students and scholars may feel isolated within their academic institutions. One of the ways we can work through this is by building a strong network of like-minded emerging HAS and CAS scholars. We are each other’s peers and we would like to get to know each other better because together, we are stronger. The purpose of this conference is to create community and strengthen connections so that we can better serve our scholarship and the animals who occupy our hearts and minds.

AANZCA is a premier academic association that brings together researchers, students, and teachers from an array of communication disciplines to promote scholarship, inform social policy, and encourage progress in the broad field of media and communications.