The Challenge of Doing Sociology in a Global World: The Case of Aotearoa/ New Zealand.

This article explores the global and local context in which practitioners are studying sociology' within Aotearoa , New Zealand, assesses new structures that are emerging to enable the practice and explores challenges these pose to sociology as both a discipline and as a set of research practices. Globalization and its attendant processes have been the dominant frame through which change and transformations, in both the object of sociology and its research activities, have been viewed since the late 1980's. For some it has led to reduction in differences and variations across nations to give increased homogeneity. Globalization thus, was seen as the triumph of modernity as it enabled greater rationalization and standardization of ideas and social and economic processes. However, for others it represents a series of transformations leading to increased diversity, fluidity and local difference thus privileging a more fine grained and contextual form of analysis, leading away from the grand narratives and structural explanations. The experience of tertiary and research reform over the past 20 years and its impacts upon the development of sociology in Aotearoa has been discussed. From the mid-1980's to the 1990's, neo-liberal reforms to both the tertiary sector and research environment resulted in extensive change to how both were done. The increased competitiveness and the creation of a less integrated system resulted in a shift to a more commercialized model of research funding, driven much more strongly by end user interests and a more consumer-centred tertiary education system. The challenge for the discipline in this new environment is to maintain its theoretical content while contributing constructively to multidisciplinary development and policy debates and refusing to accept a marginal or add-on role in research development.