This document discusses two "critical and cringe" moments experienced by early career social researchers working for a Crown Research Institute in New Zealand. The first moment involved a toilet that did not flush in an Auckland cubicle, and the second involved glasses clinking in a meeting room in Wellington. These everyday occurrences prompted reflection on the relationships between nature, society, urban development, policy, research, and sustainability. The researchers argue that more creative, critical, and reflexive engagement is needed between research, policy, and practice to move beyond dominant narratives that limit New Zealand's sustainability.

1. Critical & ‘cringe’ moments Alison Greenaway Shona Russell Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research

2. this session asks scholars to share moments where they have been perplexed or challenged by the way sustainability is understood and/or practiced in any context relevant to their teaching or research.

3. Problematise, rearticulate & re-fresh our understandings of doing sustainability & research Practice reflexivity Ground our theoretical thinking in our lived experiences Do a more creative research performance than we have done before Continue the conversation …

4. Cringe

5. Critical: making cringe creative

6. Key points Reconstituting boundaries Making & giving accounts Research as performative

7. Methods talk liberates and deepens the conversation allowing us to more effectively connect politics and practice Barnes, T. Peck, J. Sheppard, E. Tickell, A. (2007) Methods matter : transformations in economic geography in Politics and Practice in Economic Geography. Eds. Tickell, A. et al .London:Sage.

8. Have you cringed? How do you negotiate the boundaries of research & practice? How do these experiences resonate with you? How do you share these experiences?

9. “It is in the terms of engagement among these intersecting trajectories that lie the politics, the productivity, the questions, the expectations and the potential for surprise” (Massey 2003 p118). Massey, D. (2003). Some times of space. OlafurEliasson. S. May. London, Tate Publishing: 107-118.

10. Critical and ‘cringe’ moments for research and practice: navigating pathways for sustainability research in NZ A toilet didn’t flush in a cubicle in Auckland and glasses clinked in a meeting room on the 16th floor in Wellington. Two everyday moments of sustainability research in New Zealand – moments where nature-society relationships were constituted once more. Narratives of urban development, foreign investment, policy relevant science, interdisciplinary research and environmental justice flowed through these rooms and permeated these moments. As early career social researchers working for a Crown Research Institute we have regularly participated in moments where we were perplexed or challenged by the way sustainability was understood, practiced and researched. We are informed by the sentiment that “It is in the terms of engagement among these intersecting trajectories that lie the politics, the productivity, the questions, the expectations and the potential for surprise” (Massey 2003 p118)[1]. Our presentation illustrates two moments, identified because they informed our critical practice and because they made us cringe. We present the possibilities and politics of performing social research in this context and address relationships between science and social science; research and policy; plus research and practice. It is our contention that more careful, creative, critical and reflexive engagements between research, policy and practice will assist us to move beyond the dominant relationships and narratives limiting the sustainability of NZ. Massey, D. (2003). Some times of space. OlafurEliasson. S. May. London, Tate Publishing: 107-118. CSEAR Abstract 1-3 September 2010 Key words: nature-society, performance, possibility, research, sustainability