Sarah Edwards

• PhD
• Researcher at Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research

Data is essential to governing those emerging matters of concern that confront the agrifood every day. But data is no neutral intermediary. It disrupts, exposes, and creates new social, economic, political, and environmental possibilities, whilst simultaneously hiding, excluding, and foreclosing others. Scholars have become attuned to both the cons...

Cats (Felis catus) are among the most damaging invasive predators in the world, and their impacts in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) are particularly severe. However, unlike the invasive predators that are targeted for eradication under the Predator Free NZ initiative, cats are also highly valued by people and therefore will likely remain widespread in N...

With increasing urbanisation, there is a growing disconnect between soil, food, and people, centred around those relying on Western food production models. This ‘wicked’ problem is challenging sustainable soil use and food insecurity. Knowledge of soils through scientific studies alone are unable to address this problem, and we need to extend the b...

Agricultural and pastoral (A&P) shows have a long history in New Zealand, dating back to the early settler-colonial period. We approach A&P shows as places where non-farming publics can experience agricultural activities, which can help to build the trusted relationships needed for a social licence to farm. Drawing on participant observation at fiv...

Addressing the complex challenges of soil and food security at international and local scales requires moving beyond the boundaries of individual disciplines and knowledge systems. The value of transdisciplinary research approaches is increasingly recognised, including those that value and incorporate Indigenous knowledge systems and holders. Using...

In agri-environmental decision-making, data are essential to defining problems and informing solutions. Nevertheless, it is important to consider not only how data can be used but also what data does in agri-environmental contexts. We argue that the liveliness of data relations can be explored by attending to their infrastructural, performative and...

For some time, there has been a disconnect between urban citizens and consumers and the farmers that produce our food in Aotearoa New Zealand (A-NZ). As the urban footprint of A-NZ expands, the peri-urban areas of cities provide an opportunity for farmers, consumers and citizens to connect, build relationships, trust and eventually negotiate a soci...

Genetically modified (GM) ‘tearless’ onions were developed in a New Zealand laboratory facility in 2007, but efforts to initiate a field test were unsuccessful, and by 2012 the project had been almost completely dismantled. The overall trajectory of this project was influenced by a collaboration between teams of scientists in Japan and New Zealand;...

Volume 11 of the Lincoln Planning Review includes research articles, case studies and field notes on Urban Seascaping (Soo Jung Ryu), Urban water sensitive design (Mark Christensen), Managing biodiversity in the Waikato region (NZ) (Katie Nimmo), Personhood of the Whanganui River (Emily Ireland), Accommodation-sharing platforms and small towns in t...

This article introduces several concepts from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) through problematising the athlete as a heterogeneous entity that is multiply enacted. Through these concepts, we reject the notion that there is only a single underlying biological body as the essence of athletic performance. We instead argue that the athlete is enacted by a...

In this paper, we highlight some of the challenges associated with strategic spatial planning, including long-time frames, limited control, translation and implementation gaps. We then explore how tactical urbanism might, in theory, address these s given its emphasis on small-scale, immediate, experimental action for long-term change. Our research...

The paper explores a user-centred methodology for collecting, categorising, visualising, and interpreting data on urban cycling infrastructure and related cycling events. It develops a mobile mixed methods approach combining audio, video, sensor, and geospatial data sources. The method responds to stakeholders’ feedback and related concerns about n...

Knowledge brokers are often portrayed as neutral intermediaries that act as a necessary conduit between the spheres of science and policy. Conceived largely as a task in packaging, brokers are expected to link knowledge producers and users and objectively translate science into policy-useable knowledge. The research presented in this paper shows ho...

Soft infrastructure for hard times documents 6 case studies of collaborative planning ranging from community-led to community-based disaster recovery. Some key principles for collaborative disaster recovery are proposed. This research was supported by the Building Better Homes, Towns and Cities National Science Challenge.

New Zealand is known around the world as a country that is clean, green and “100% Pure.” The existence of genetically modified organisms in New Zealand is generally viewed as inconsistent with this identity, and there is therefore considerable public controversy surrounding research that utilises genetic modification techniques. In this paper, I ex...

This paper is situated amidst concerns that public spaces are diminishing in both quantity and quality (Low & Smith, 2006), with this trend exacerbated by the excising of state budgets for their provision, maintenance or development, their privatisation and/or devolution of their management to corporate interests. Here we interrogate what ‘public s...