Social media connects and divides us like nothing before. Its speed and scale provide new opportunities to do good or harm exponentially. This power sits in all our hands, though we rarely stop to consider its implications. This latest volume of “Flint & Steel” compels us to do just that. We cannot thoughtfully address social media’s hazards and harness its potential without first understanding its immense, unprecedented reach.

Aotearoa—the land of the long white cloud. Home to over 5 million people. Ever since the first people landed here over 700 years ago, everyone who has come to Aotearoa New Zealand, has sought a home. But there’s trouble here—a housing crisis on multiple fronts. We’re told that we don’t have enough. We can’t seem to build them fast enough. Why? On top of that, not enough people can buy their own homes to get their foot on the property ladder. We're crammed into cities with poor public transport and sub-par infrastructure.

“OK Boomer” Two words that both captured and ignited the perceived conflict between generations. Boomers have wrecked the world, Millennials are entitled snowflakes, Gen Z are the hope for the future, and wait… who are Gen X again? If we take the time to connect, we find we are all connected, we are all dependent on each other. No generation exists apart from the others. We discover that we need each other. There is great beauty in that.

Mess, brokenness, failure. These are realities that exist along- side the tidy, functioning, successful bits of life that we often prefer to focus on. Involving ourselves in broken, messy situations is hardly ever easy or cost-free. But choosing to be part of the work of recovery is an act of hope. The repairer starts with two things: what currently is, and a vision of what could be. The stories in this year’s magazine are about making that vision a reality.

What’s behind the preoccupation with our occupation? This year’s volume of Flint & Steel considers the place of paid work in our lives, and the other places we look in order to find meaning and purpose. Cover illustration by Loren Taylor.

This volume of Flint & Steel aims to look at the reality we live in the midst of contemporary New Zealand public life. What kind of love is this, that would bind us to people we’ve never met; with whom we may feel we have nothing in common?

This volume of Flint & Steel aims to look at what community is, and what is in the soil where it grows. What does community offer to us as people? What does it add to a flourishing society, and what are the conditions of place, time, and purpose that community requires in order to grow and survive?

In this issue of Flint & Steel we traverse the landscape of what we mean by sustainability. Not a hollow PR exercise, not a tree-hugging ideology—nor an attempt to sate our guilty hearts and minds—but a genuine search for truth, a hope to maintain, restore, and even create beauty; a call to us all to be responsible and accountable.

This issue of Flint & Steel aims to take you from coffee growing, to embroidering, to web coding, to toy making; to learn about how social businesses are disrupting the norm, and clearing the path for a host of novel ways to tackle old problems.

In this edition you will find a series of essays to spark your thinking on the issues of belonging and national identity and—for those who call Aotearoa home—to highlight the beauty of the nation that is ours.