When Tom Doig started reading about doomsday preppers and survivalist subcultures, his first question was: “What if they’re crazy?” His second question was: “What if they’re right?”
Participation in religion may be dwindling overall, but the practice of faith remains a highly visible and active component of New Zealand society.
The world is complex and confusing, and much of it doesn’t make sense. But there is information available at our fingertips—information of wildly varying quality. Sometimes, this information gets dangerous, especially in situations when we desperately want answers to questions that don’t have answers. So, how’s a rational person to tell truth from fiction these days? How do we, as a society, agree upon what’s true? And why have we been so catastrophically unable to agree in 2021?
Last century, firearms flooded into New Zealand with returning servicemen, and during peacetime guns became synonymous with an honest, healthy way of life in the hills. Now, there are thought to be 1.5 million firearms in New Zealand—one for every three people—used as conservation or farming tools, or simply for sport. To some, firearms symbolise self-sufficiency and responsibility. To others, they’ll never be more than instruments of death. But is this issue as clear-cut as it seems?
As the sun sets on New Zealand’s manufacturing industries, a photographer visits a foundry and steel mill that represent the last of their kind.
What happens when you lose a limb?
Since 1969, Gloriavale Christian Community has set itself apart from New Zealand society. Over the past six years, nearly 100 people have left or been expelled from the 550-strong group on the South Island’s West Coast. Gloriavale leavers know only the communal lifestyle, religious rules and conformity demanded by their former leaders. For them, Timaru might as well be a foreign country.
The number of New Zealanders seeking help for mental illness is rising: it’s now the third-highest cause of ill health in the country, and doctors, specialists and community organisations are struggling to meet the need for treatment and intensive care. Meanwhile, researchers are attempting to identify what takes place in the brain before and during a mental illness. It’s a young and inexact science—and at the moment, it’s all we’ve got.
We can’t decide what to call it—marijuana, dope, pot, grass, bud, green, hash, weed, devil’s lettuce, jazz cigarettes—or how to manage it. One thing is certain: cannabis is undergoing a radical image makeover.
Carmelite nuns live in seclusion, rarely venturing from their cloister. Instead, they devote themselves to prayer and contemplation. Eighty years after it was established, a glimpse inside an Auckland monastery reveals simplicity and contentment born of another time.
The tradition of kava has brought people together and consummated important social occasions in the Pacific for 3000 years. The use of kava is growing in New Zealand, with some 25,000 drinkers consuming up to 32 times the recommended pharmacological limit on any given weekend, then driving home. What is kava, and what role does it play in our society?
Cameron McLaren’s story on P was more than two years in the making.
Fifteen years after methamphetamine use exploded in New Zealand, the drug remains a serious problem in many communities. Now, amid reports of large international drug busts and figures showing contamination in state housing is increasing, a second generation of meth dealers and users is coming of age. What can be done to control its spread?
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