Police armed response officers

Police armed response officers Photo: Supplied / Bianca Brown

8:10 Will US protests prompt NZ police reform?

Khylee Quince

Khylee Quince Photo: supplied

Could the #BlackLivesMatter protests, spurred by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police, be a catalyst for police reform here in Aotearoa?

It's long overdue, according to Khylee Quince, associate professor of law at Auckland University of Technology (AUT).

Justice advocates say evidence of institutional racism is clear: in the last 10 years, two-thirds of all victims of fatal police shootings have been Māori or Pasifika, and compared with Pākehā, Māori are much more likely to be handcuffed, pepper sprayed, batoned, tasered, or have a firearm drawn against them by police.

So how do we meet the challenge of reforming our police force?

8:35 Historian Charlotte Lydia Riley: Is it OK to topple statues?

Charlotte Lydia Riley

Charlotte Lydia Riley Photo: supplied

The call to remove statues and place names that honour racist figures from history is gaining momentum.

In Bristol last weekend a statue of slave merchant Edward Colston was thrown into the harbour by Black Lives Matters protesters.

And here in New Zealand a statue of Captain John Hamilton was removed from Civic Square in Hamilton after pressure from local iwi.

Kaumatua Taitimu Maipi, who had threatened to remove the statue himself, described the battle of Gate Pā leader as a “murderous arsehole”.

Are these actions erasing history, or simply correcting it?

Charlotte Lydia Riley is a historian of contemporary Britain at the University of Southampton who's writing a revisionist history of post-war imperial Britain called Imperial Island.

The statue of Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton being removed.

The statue of Captain John Fane Charles Hamilton being removed. Photo: RNZ / Andrew McRae

9:05 Economist Robert Frank: how social pressure could help solve the world's problems

Robert Frank

Robert Frank Photo: supplied

American behavioural economist Robert Frank is interested in the power of peer pressure to influence our behaviour.

So with the world facing a deadly pandemic and potentially catastrophic climate change, in his book Under The Influence he considers how the power of social pressure can be harnessed for the general good.

 

 

9:35 Actor Jesse Eisenberg on playing mime artist Marceau in Resistance

Actor Jesse Eisenberg is best known for his portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the 2010 movie The Social Network.

In his latest role he's playing Marcel Marceau in a little-known episode of the mime artist's life story: a daring attempt to rescue 120 Jewish orphans from the Nazis in the Second World War.

Resistance opened in New Zealand cinemas on Thursday June 11th.

10:05 Pip Adam on her new novel Nothing to See

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Photo: supplied

Local author Pip Adam’s latest book Nothing to See follows intertwining characters navigating sobriety and surveillance capitalism in three snapshots taken 12 years apart.

The book follows her collection of short stories, Everything We Hoped For (2010) and the novels, I’m Working on a Building (2013), and The New Animals (2017). The latter won the Acorn Foundation Prize for Fiction.

A graduate of Victoria University’s Creative Writing program, Adam also hosts the podcast Better off Read where she speaks to other authors about reading and writing.

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Photo: Supplied / Ebony Lamb Photography

10:35 Sophie Ballagh: adventuring through Antarctica

Intrepid New Zealander Sophie Ballagh kayaked around the Antarctic peninsula with her Australian partner for 2 weeks, sleeping in a tent as they explored the region's ice-clogged waterways.

With a documentary ICEolation to tell their story, it's the latest in a long line of adventures she's been on around the world.

With exploring on hold for the foreseeable future, she joins us from Tasmania where she is plotting her next adventures.

11:05 Caroline Criado Perez: Invisible Women

Smartphones too big for female hands, air-bags designed to protect men's bodies -  in many respects it really is a man's world.

From design to government policy, from medical research to the workplace, the male experience is often assumed to be the standard.

In her book Invisible Women writer and feminist campaigner Caroline Criado Perez brings together examples gathered from across the world to show how women's experiences are ignored.

Criado Perez's past successes include getting a woman featured on English banknotes, and having a statue of suffragist Millicent Fawcett erected near Parliament in London.

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Photo: Supplied / Rachel Lousie Brown

11:45 Kate's Klassics: Defoe's A Journal of The Plague Year

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Photo: supplied

Poet and writer Kate Camp returns with another classic work of literature. This week she covers A Journal of the Plague Year, a book by Daniel Defoe released in 1722.

It documents the 1665 bubonic plague outbreak that came to be known as the Great Plague of London. So what can this tell us about our current coronavirus experiences?

 

 

Books mentioned in this show

Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work
Robert H. Frank
ISBN: 9780691193083
Princeton University Press

Nothing to See
Pip Adam
ISBN: 9781776563159
VUP

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Caroline Criado Perez
ISBN: 9781784706289
Penguin

A Journal of the Plague Year
by Daniel Defoe

 

Music played in this show

Song: Memories Are Now
Artist: Jesca Hoop
Played at: 10:37

Song: St Peter's Bay
Artist: Sarah Harmer
Played at 11:47