So Sunshine and I have lived in Dunedin NZ for 2 years now. That’s a long time in my mind, but it seems I have a lot more time to go before I can say that we’ll feel connected here š¦
In Australia, I felt quite connected in my profession – even though I was only in it for a similar amount of time 2001 – 2005. I was regularly on the phone with fella edubloggers, editing up the next wiki page, toying with new ideas, and being invited to join in talks all over the place, at conferences and stuff. Actually, I still get called across the ditch to talk at conferences, although the number is dropping. It seems my move to NZ, and taking a job inside an educational institution has distanced me from my Australian connections, but I can’t say that a sense of local connection has taken its place.
A technorati alert has introduced a link with John Vietch, a rare as hens teeth and not very prolific NZ blogger who is also dwelling on the widley acknowldged social distance, isolation and seeming disconnect in NZ culture:
…The problem behind the poor success rate on social networks is not in Ryze, Xing, Facebook or LinkedIn, it’s in our own heads and in the community.Ā There is a lack of social permission in the community to be strongly involved in these networks…
Weak uptake of read write communications in NZ is not really a measure of the phenomenon that John is alluding to though. I’d say the phenomenon is widely recognised before considering the uptake of Internet, because the few local friends I do have here know that it is hard to make friends or make connections in NZ, especially southern NZ. There’s a reputation in Dunedin that to be successful in business here, its not so much who you know, but who your farthers farther knew! š I’m not sure how true that is, but its certainly not hard to strike up conversation about the strange and very subtle cultural phenomenon that evades words for me at the moment. And I should acknowledge my own cultural background as being different to here and so may be having an impact on any observation I try to make as well.
I have tried with varying degrees of success, but mostly failure to establish professional communication networks through Internet channels. The face to face and corridor talk still prevails however, and projects remain crippled by low numbers, reliance on physical meetings and poor coordination and reach.
John seems to have a lot more experience then I do working on this in NZ, and I wonder if he’ll continue to reflect on it over the coming days?
Will improved internet communications infrastructure in NZ (particularly southern NZ) necessarily translate into better uptake and use of the Internet? Will it generate a networked, more informed and perhaps more communal NZ? Or will a deep seeded sense of isolation prevent the extroverts within from reaching out and making new connections? Or will the migration of popular media and communications to the Internet (like Google Video and Youtube, Facebook and Beebo) effect a cultural change in NZ and help to undo the private and almost invisible restraint within Southern NZers?
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January 22, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Barbara Dieu
I’m not a New Zealander but from your description “the face to face and corridor talk still prevails however, and projects remain crippled by low numbers, reliance on physical meetings and poor coordination and reach”, I recognize a pattern that goes beyond nationality and technical expertise. Some people just have other forms of connecting and bonding. Why should an Internet network be better than one that relies on f2f contact?
Also, someone, like you, who has traveled or has been in contact with diverse places and people will find it very difficult to fit in a homogeneous environment with people who have never experienced this. Your head processes ideas in a different way and if you went back to OZ, you would also probably find fault in those who did not move – because you changed, and they didn’t. Now, whether the change is for better or worse is another point for discussion š
January 23, 2008 at 8:39 am
Carolyn McIntosh
Would you mind popping by my blog. I need a blokes perspective at the moment. http://mymidiblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/fathers-roles-at-birth-and-parenting.html
January 24, 2008 at 10:32 am
Janet Burstall
Hi Leigh,
When we go and live somewhere completely different, or even just travel to a new place, it’s amazing what we perceive as “outsiders”, cultural phenomena that the locals take for granted. It’s intriguing that you observe the constraints of geographical space/place in the context of online interaction, the space/place buster. I think that your experience illuminates for me a sense that I have – that online communication and online networks are deeper, more connected, more sustained where they are nourished by face to face contact (and vice versa).
Your story also made me wonder – if apart from cultural differences, one of the BIG factors in the success of online interaction and community amongst educators in Australia, has been the seeding funding – through projects such as the AFLF and to a lesser extent Reframing the Future. Those projects allowed people to work together across the country, and also brought international guests to Australia and enabled some Australians to travel overseas to meet the “gurus”. What difference do you think they made? Is there anything like that in NZ?
January 24, 2008 at 11:52 am
Leigh
You’re right Janet. All of that is impacting, and the lack of funding is certainly an issue – or my lack of knowledge of funding perhaps? The funding in Australia you mentioned – all of them benefited me and my development certainly…
January 29, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Sarah Stewart
I know how you feel, Leigh. We’ve been here nearly 10 years and are only now feeling settled, although our personal network is still very small.
My theory: the weather is so crap, we don’t want to get out and socialize and network!!
February 4, 2008 at 3:36 am
Alan
This is fascinating Leigh to speculate on the unknown social chemistry of two cultures… its not that one is better or dominant, and in some time there ought to be some give and take between the new net culture and the deeply rooted southern NZ culture. There’s also a factor of time scales on how this plays out; internet time distorts or perhaps creates over-expectations for our world cultures to move where change there is more on a generational scale if that.
Mostly its interesting, because we just cannot really predict how it will go, its such a complex system. But I hear the struggle with staying on that path.
I’m trying something similar but not exactly, moving from Phoenix, a 3+ million metro area to a town of 800 people in the mountains 90 miles away. My difference is my work is not with the locals nor do I have to pursue funding for it, but am trying to find what happens with my mostly online social culture and the local one here, where one is a “flat lander” (meaning from the big cities in the flat desert) for a long time.
It means I have a lot of local research to do in the local pub š
cheers across the waters
February 4, 2008 at 9:23 am
leighblackall
Nice one Alan! You captured it for me right there.. the tendency for the online to distort the real line..
Moving to the mountains hey! 800 people! yikes, that is a small town. I wonder if the local pub owner will let you rig up some wireless š When Sunshine and I moved to the Mountains West of Sydney (I think you went hiking there recently) we had a local pub on Wireless.. it was great. While those around me read the paper with a beer, I’d be on a laptop..
Mountains! Especially your USA kind.. great for the spirit I reckon. Hope you’ll keep us posted…
February 13, 2008 at 2:42 am
alexanderhayes
From this side of the ditch (to coin your descriptor ) I feel that you “have’ had to distance yourself to ascertain any connection where in fact the moral of the story is that you have friends and mates who consider you and always will consider you a friend, a mentor, an inspiration and a complete mind-f* all in the one instance.
I’m in your boat twice removed. Have swapped highrise penthouse apartments and triple shot latte’s for green tea, a son, a ute and working with a seriously opaque mob of …..people will eventually relent and call me an Orangarian….close to Orangutan but not too close.
Perhaps it’s about polar magnetisation. Connection with land…cultural dispensation…..hopes and dreams of a better mountain to climb….
It’s got little to do with pubs and more to do with the opera….the arts side of Leigh Blackall that occasionally Flickr’s itself like a beacon across a great sea and tide and change….the challenge is in being alone….and enjoying it.
Relish the ‘silence’.
It is a rare and fleeting thing.
March 19, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Merrolee
Hi Leigh
Sorry to hear that connecting in Dunedin feels hard even after 2 years? (has it really been that time??)
We didn’t come from this far south at all (in fact my roots are Australian as you know with a mixture of North Island living)… we came here from the UK (after a working holiday for three years)- so in part it felt like coming home…. but Dunners certainly wasn’t home (Australia was at that stage).
However, we felt that we settled very quickly into Dunedin (particularly as we thought were were only going to be here for 3 years – which can limit engagement in the community!). Perhaps it was easier for us as we had two young children and they were our passport into our local Andy Bay community – they went to school here, and my husband was an active member of the church attached to the school. So we quickly became very active members of a real face to face community…..and that community was one of the reasons we have stayed for 15 years ( it was only supposed to be 2 – 3 )!
However… your point I think is more about the professional community that feels less supportive/less able, less involved than your Australian professional community. Having met you soon after you arrived here.. and knowing where OP was then and where it is now…. I’m wondering if you were in fact a follower (not meant as derogatory)… in that in Australia there was a structure, culture that was developed that you slotted in, and could then find a place within that allowed you to ‘lead’ in activities…. whereas when you came here, you came as a ‘leader’ – so you have been out of step with the majority for your time with us….you also challenge often… which a leader needs to do, but does mean that the community can at times struggle with the ideas..
Anyway.. it seems to me that to feel settled means more physically engaged in the real world – then the permaculture course just has to be the way to go – every Sunday immersed in hopefully doing activities with the rest of the group – from an OT’s perspective – this can’t fail to meet your need… oh… and it would be worth checking out the popping by for a coffee and chat idea – are you around this weekend???? My experience of living in other places (Australia, England, Dunedin – but not Scotland so much).. the newcomer does the reaching out and breaking in…..
Hope this helps? And by the way we are home all Easter if you are dropping by – I’m putting the garden to bed.. and Lindsay – hmm painting next door I think!
March 19, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Leigh
Thanks Merrolee,
I hear what you’re saying and have made some connections with a local crowd who I go trekking with etc. Also, a lovely group for a Wednesday evening tango dance. The permaculture course is putting me in touch with good n earthy people, but even in that course there is another Australian who just came out with complaints like mine above. I said nothing!
I’ve almost finished my deck too.. its a big one and I plan to have little film nights š I’ll add you to the list..