ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we’ll make an argument by example for conjunctural analysis as a mode of investigation that can productively conjoin geographical thinking with the study of mediated communication. Conjunctural analysis seeks to identify the balance of conflicting forces at work within a particular social formation. Lawrence Grossberg (2010) defines a conjuncture as a “problemspace” whose “various crises and contradictions” can be illuminated in a manner that promotes “an understanding of the contingency of the present” and thus explores the possibilities for its transformation (ibid.: 57-8). John Fiske (1991) observes that conjunctural analysis is suited to the study of crisis points where “social struggle is most acute and most visible,” and thus where societies are most open to intervention and change (ibid.: 472). As Stuart Hall and his colleagues write in their preface to the 35th anniversary edition of the cultural studies classic, Policing the Crisis, a conjuncture is “a period when the antagonisms and contradictions, which are always at work in society, begin to ‘fuse’ into a ‘ruptural unity’ (Althusser, 1969: 99, italics in orignal)… which may result in a more general social crisis” (Hall et al., 2013: xv). Conjunctural analysis thus presumes that social formations are “fractured and conflictual, along multiple axes, planes, and scales, constantly in search of temporary balances or structural stabilities through a variety of practices and processes of struggle and negotiation” (Grossberg, 2010: 40-1). Our chapter will emphasize racial axes of difference within the postcolonial context of contemporary New Zealand, where the Māori Television Service (MTS) has become an important discursive presence in the past decade.
