Bryce Edwards, writing in the New Zealand Herald, has called ESRA “potentially the most important leftwing project for many years”,
“This is the first real leftwing think tank in New Zealand, and it has the intention of carrying out research and disseminating issues to the wider public. The project has been a long time in the making, and arises partly out of Bradford’s recent PhD thesis – which you can read online: A major left wing think tank in Aotearoa: an impossible dream or a call to action?. What also distinguishes Bradford’s new project is a renewed focus on issues of economics and social class – which has been de-emphasized in social movements for some time in New Zealand.
“Bradford’s ESRA is being launched on the back of one of the biggest conferences of the political left for decades – the Social Movements, Resistance and Social Change conference at Victoria University of Wellington, which opened yesterday. This is actually the third annual conference of this type, but the conference has doubled in size since last year, with 400 registered activists and academics, and more than 100 turned away.”
Check out the full article here.
Project Coordinator Sue Bradford spoke to Waatea News, saying,
“What’s different about this is it is very geared to a kaupapa that is highly political, that is about challenging the very structures of our society, very clearly grounded in economic and social and ecological justice and in a treaty and tino rangatiratanga kaupapa.”
And you can also listen to a Radio New Zealand interview with Sue talking about how ESRA will challenge neoliberal capitalism.
Stay tuned as we’ll have video of the launch up shortly, and if you haven’t already, head over to our sign up page to sign up for our mailing list.
