Ep 21: Moana Cosmopolitan with Lana Lopesi

AUT doctoral candidate Lana Lopesi joins this episode, bringing a rich background in art, writing, and scholarship. We cover several topics and begin with the question; how do we hold on to the changes that once seemed impossible yet became ‘essential’ when global crises collided? We also discuss the relationships that are forged in the undercommons of the university and what that looks like in our context. Lana introduces the ‘Moana Cosmopolitan’, a concept she has coined and developed that seeks to identify current practices of being locally rooted in Oceania, yet globally mobile as digital natives. How can we better understand differences that intersect online, while holding multiple layers of connection and tension at the same time? We discuss the possibilities of moving beyond comfortable ideas by working through messy and often clumsy conversations. Seeking to remember our dynamic identities, we challenge fixed and problematic narratives of authenticity, giving room and language for an already present practice of inhabiting and belonging to many worlds.

Topics: Society, Education, Relationality, Mobility, Oceania.

Terms: Undercommons (see Moten and Harney, 2013: relationships between people are sites of learning and study, a community of intellectual refugees), Moana Cosmopolitan (locally grounded in Oceania, while being physically, intellectually, and digitally mobile), Whakapapa (Māori word for genealogy, lineage, descent, layers), Teu Le Vā (see Anae, 2016: Sāmoan relational ethics of both secular and sacred respect and reciprocity through the space in between; to nurture and/or tidy up relational space).