<p>This thesis makes an ethnographic contribution to the anthropological debates about the contested nature of &lsquo / culture&rsquo / as a central term in the discipline. It examines discourses as tools that create, recreate, modify and transmit culture. The research was done in the town of Rundu in Kavango region, northeastern Namibia. In attempting to understand the local notions of culture this study focused on two main events: the Independence Day celebration on 21 March 2006 and a funeral that was held earlier in the month of January. During the study two particular media through which cultural ideas are negotiated, language and clothing were observed.</p>

Lapita is the name given by archaeologists to a material culture complex distributed from Papua New Guinea to Samoa about 3000 years ago, which marks major economic changes in Near Oceania and the first settlement by humans of Remote Oceania. Those parts of Solomon Islands that lie in Near Oceania, together with Bougainville, comprise a large gap in the recorded distribution of Lapita, which the current research seeks to explain. At Roviana Lagoon, centrally located in this gap, scatters of pottery, stone artefacts, and other stone items are found in shallow water in this sheltered, landlocked lagoon, initially thought to be late derivatives of Lapita. This research seeks method and theory to aid in the interpretation of this type of archaeological record. Intensive littoral survey discovered a wider chronological range of pottery styles than had previously been recorded, including materials attributable directly to the Lapita material culture complex. A study of vessel brokenness and completeness enabled sample evaluation, estimation of a parent population from which the sample derived, assessment of the state of preservation of the sample, and systematic choice of unit of quantification. Studies of wave exposure of collection sites and taphonomic evidence from sherds concluded that the cultural formation process of these sites was stilt house settlement (as found elsewhere in Near Oceania for Lapita) over deeper water than today. Falling relative sea levels and consequent increasing effects of swash-zone processes have resulted in high archaeological visibility and poor state of preservation at Roviana Lagoon. Analysis of ceramic and lithic variability and spatial analysis allowed the construction of a provisional chronology in need of further testing. Indications are that there is good potential to construct a robust, high-resolution ceramic chronology by focussing on carefully controlled surface collection from this sort of location, ceramic seriation and testing/calibration using direct dating by AMS radiocarbon and Thermoluminescence. Data on preservation and archaeological visibility of stilt house settlements along a sheltered emerging coastline allows preservation and visibility for this type of settlement to be modeled elsewhere. When such a model is applied to other areas of the Lapita gap, which are predominantly either less favourable for preservation or less favourable for archaeological visibility, the gap in the distribution of Lapita can be seen to be an area of low probability of detection by archaeologists, meaning there is currently no evidence for absence of settlement in the past, and good reason to think that Lapita was continuously distributed across Near Oceania as a network of stilt village settlement. This finding highlights the need for explicit models of probability of detection to discover or read the Lapita archaeological record. Keywords: pottery; Lapita; formation processes; surface archaeology; tidal archaeology; Oceania

This thesis examines the archaeology and history of Te Puna, a Church Missionary Society (CMS) mission station in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand. Te Puna was first settled in 1832 following the closure of the nearby Oihi mission, which had been the first mission station and the first permanent European settlement in New Zealand. Te Puna, located alongside the imposing Rangihoua Pa, was the home of missionaries John and Hannah King and their children for some forty years. As well as being a mission station, Te Puna was also the site of the family’s subsistence farm. The research is concerned with the archaeological landscape of Te Puna, the relationship between Maori and European, the early organisation and economy of the CMS, the material culture of New Zealand’s first European settlers, and the beginnings of colonisation and the part that the missions played in this. Artefacts recovered from archaeological investigations at the site of the Te Puna mission house are connected with other items of missionary material culture held in collections in the Bay of Islands, including objects donated by the King family. The archaeological record is also integrated with documentary evidence, in particular the accounts of the CMS store, to produce a detailed picture of the daily life and economy of the Te Puna mission household. This integration of a range of sources is also extended to produce a broader view of the material culture and economy of missionary life in the Bay of Islands in the first half of the nineteenth century. The humble, austere artefacts that constitute the material culture of the Te Puna household reveal the actual processes of colonisation in daily life and everyday events, as well as the processes of the mission, such as schooling, the purchase of food and domestic labour, the purchase of land and building of houses, the stitching of fabric and ironing of garments. These practices predate, but also anticipate the grand historical dramas such as the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, glorified but also critiqued as the defining moment of the relationship between Maori and Pakeha and of colonisation. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

The study explores the motivational role of the personal constructions of Italian identity (Italianità) of five learners of Italian descent studying their heritage language by means of traditional foreign language courses in Wellington, New Zealand. By adopting a social constructivist perspective on both language learning and the motivational processes underlying it, and by applying such concepts as investment (Norton, 2000), ideal L2 self (Dörnyei, 2009) and language learning as identity reconstruction (Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000), the study aims to further our understanding of heritage language learning motivation as a socially mediated process (Ushioda, 2003). Qualitative data was collected through waves of semi-structured interviews from five case-study participants over the course of several months of learning. Responses were used to map the influence that the participants’ constructions of their own Italianità exerted on three aspects of their language learning motivation: their reasons for learning the language, the decision to embark on the study of it, and the maintenance of their interest and learning efforts throughout the learning process. Detailed observations of learning sites, classes and materials, and interviews with teachers provided rich contextual data concerning key episodes identified by the students as relating to different aspects of motivation. The findings suggest that Italianità is heavily implicated in the initial stages of motivation, but that its influence is mediated by the learners’ personal constructions of a multitude of internal and external factors, through which they come to personalise and prioritise their own objectives and identity ambitions in ways that guide their motivational arousal, their decision to pursue the language and their creation and visualisation of learning goals. Italianità is also found to have an influence on the maintenance and shifts in the participants’ motivational states throughout their learning, supporting a socially mediated view of L2 motivation in which motivational fluctuations are explained as the result of the learners’ own processing of and reaction to elements of their context, including critical events inside and outside the classroom, exchanges with teachers, peers and speakers of Italian, and ongoing developments of opportunities and challenges for the achievement of the personal goals and identity ambitions driving their learning.

The implicit position of writing during Research Higher Degree (RHD) candidature shapes how students in science approach the task of writing their theses. The dedication of universities to the principles of research has pushed writing to the fringes of the research higher degree. When writing is pushed to the fringes, it is rarely taught explicitly as an integral part of the postgraduate program. This research has found that students who are concerned with writing a thesis often require writing to be discussed explicitly during their education. In response to the absence of explicit instruction on writing, students turn to the principles of research to discover how to write their theses. However, students find that writing belongs to a different epistemological tradition than scientific research. This investigation found that as students realise that research is different from writing, they often write their theses by mimicking the work of other published authors in the same field. These findings emerge from eight semi–structured interviews with linguistically homologous students from a science faculty at a research-intensive university in Australia. These interviews show that students are initiating their own writing groups to learn more about writing. This research presents a case study which culminates in recommendations about how to re-position writing as an explicit discourse requiring attention during the research higher degree. These writing recommendations are developed in this research by analysing the principles of writing programs, examining the literature on writing groups, and reflecting the experience of students during the research higher degree.

This thesis investigates the iwi (Māori tribal) organisations established in New Zealand in the 1980s and 1990s to manage resources being transferred as a result of Treaty of Waitangi settlements and the devolution of government services. The research has two objectives. Firstly, it aims to document iwi organisations’ establishment and operation from the viewpoint of those working inside the organisations. Secondly, it compares insider perspectives with economic theories concerning the causes, consequences and development of economic institutions. To address the first objective, the research gathers qualitative data for three iwi organisations and uses these to construct case reports. An inductive comparison across cases finds that while the underlying motivation for creating the iwi organisations is a desire to live as Māori, the immediate stimuli are opportunities negotiated with government. Iwi are chosen, in preference to other Māori groups, because of their size and traditional status and organisational success is dependent on meeting the requirements of both members and external parties. To address the second objective, the research examines a number of theories from new institutional economics which assist understanding of the empirical findings. To adequately explain iwi organisations as a whole, however, and to assess the relative explanatory power of the theories, they must be connected into a single explanatory framework. The research constructs a framework using the concept of social capital, understood as the combination of all the socio-economic institutions operating to make collective action possible. The framework proposes that socio-economic institutions can have an influence and value independent of other forms of capital. Viewing new iwi organisations through the constructed theoretical framework casts them as intermediaries, managing relational contracts between tribal members and external parties. The relational contracts with members constitute bonding social capital and are characterised by informal institutions of high intrinsic value, considerable relationship-specific social capital, transferability across tasks but not persons, and a preference for voice over exit. Relational contracts with external parties are primarily instrumental in value and formal institutions play a significant role; they show variability in the importance of informal institutions, relationship-specific social capital, transferability and preference for exit over voice. The thesis presents an insider’s view of new iwi organisations and then translates this view into the concepts of new institutional economics. In doing so, it contributes to two discussions: first, on the appropriate way to understand new iwi organisations; second, on the appropriate way for new institutional economics to understand society’s economic institutions.

Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy. / The texts of Maori oral tradition preserve special information for communication within Maori society. The forms in which that information is communicated are varied and in named types. Whakataukii are one of those types and they are one means of making public and preserving knowledge about Maori society. The knowledge which is contained in whakataukii, or referred to by them, ranges from simple observations of daily life, to philosophical concepts and records of history. This thesis proposes that whakataukii are a genre of Maori oral tradition. By examination and interpretation of a selection of sayings arranged in two categories, one which relates to Maori society as a whole and the other which relates to individual tribes, it considers the role of these texts in transmitting cultural information. Oral texts are often represented as unsophisticated forms of language, dependant for sophistication on a development to writing. Sayings are generally studied as colloquial texts and are seldom the subject of the serious interpretative study given to written literature. In this thesis the sayings of Maori oral tradition, with their culturally distinct but highly developed use of language, are regarded as comparable in their own sphere to compositions of written literature.

This thesis is a case study that examines the educative activities of two Church Missionary Society (CMS) women, Marianne Coldham Williams and her sister-in-law Jane Nelson Williams, during the period 1823-1835. This study examines the role and status of these two missionary women in the early CMS mission station at Paihia in northern New Zealand. Marianne and Jane Williams were missionary educators whose primary task was to establish schools for local Maori pupils and resident missionary pupils. These first mission schools were established according to a perceived hierarchy of "need." Consequently, the first schools, established in 1823 were for Nga Puhi women and girls followed by a school for the missionary daughters in 1826. A school for Nga Puhi men and boys was not established until 1827 and a school for the missionary sons was delayed until 1828. Through the re-formation of Maori women as Christian women, Maori society was to replicate the "pleasantries" of (Pakeha) "Christian society." The schoolroom, not the pulpit became the central site to instigate changes in Maori society and the CMS initially charged Marianne and Jane Williams with the responsibility for this task. One of the strategies developed by Marianne and Jane Williams to survive in a frontier society was to form a network based on their sister-hood. Through the exchanging of letters between the two women in New Zealand and their "sisters" in England, a reciprocal friendship was created that provided Marianne and Jane with the support they sought. These letters and diaries provide valuable autobiographical accounts of the daily lives and missionary activities of Marianne and Jane. This study, therefore, presents a challenge to prevailing historical narratives that position men at the centre of missionary activities. Missionary policy documents and manuscript material written by early nineteenth century missionary women and men reveal that in New Zealand women played a critical role in the "Christianising" and "civilising" policies and practices. In placing women at the centre of historical inquiry and as historical agents, this study re-presents the historical narrative in a different voice.

This thesis examines modern iwi governance systems and their effect on whakapapa as an organisational framework in Māori societies. The main question addressed was; can whakapapa survive as an organisational process, or will it be stifled, as Māori societies struggle to establish a strong identity in contemporary New Zealand. As an organisational framework for Māori societies, whakapapa works through a series of principles that function through relationships between people, and between people and other elements that make up the world. Contemporary Māori groups continue to claim that they are whakapapa-based societies. This thesis examines that claim by investigating to what extent of "being Māori" today is about adherence to those principles and to whakapapa-based processes and relationships, and how much is it about being shaped by non-Māori constructs that have been formed by state-intervention and legislated changes to Māori social organisation. If being Maori today has as much or more to do with the latter, what place does whakapapa have in contemporary Māori society, and to what level and to what extent can the principles of whakapapa be upheld as the basis for contemporary Māori societies. A series of stories and case studies were used to answer the questions posed in the thesis. The case studies demonstrated the ways in which whakapapa worked in everyday situations, and how the people who take part in whakapapa-based relationships understood them to work. They also demonstrated how state intervention through legislation has challenged the way Māori groups structure themselves when new circumstances have required compromise and change. The institutionalised evolution of Māori societies is examined in more detail using one example of a modern tribal structure, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu. The Ngāi Tahu example typifies the implications for Māori if they choose to move from a whakapapa-based organisational model of governance to a centralised legalbureaucratic model of governance. The adoption of the new centralised governance structures, such as Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, will mean that Māori hapū and iwi societies are in danger of disappearing to be replaced by a generic group,shaped by legislation and integrated into the wider nation-state of New Zealand. Whakapapa can only remain at the core of Māori societies, if Māori allow it to, but when Māori adopt centralised "generic" system of governance, hapū and iwi societies, become censored versions of their former selves. / Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

This study investigates the nature of the relationship that the state in New Zealand, the Crown, has established with Māori as a tribally-based people. Despite the efforts of recent New Zealand Governments to address the history of Crown injustice to Māori, the relationship of the Crown with Iwi Māori continues to be fraught with contradictions and tension. It is the argument of the thesis that the tension exists because the Crown has imposed a social, political, and economic order that is inherently contradictory to the social, political, and economic order of the Māori tribal world. Overriding an order where relationships are negotiated and alliances built between autonomous groups, the Crown constituted itself as a government with single, undivided sovereignty, used its unilateral power to introduce policy and legislation that facilitated the dispossession of whānau and hapū of their resources and their authority in the land, and enshrined its own authority and capitalist social relations instead. The thesis is built round a critical reading of five Waitangi Tribunal reports, namely the Muriwhenua Fishing Report, Mangonui Sewerage Report, The Te Roroa Report, Muriwhenua Land Report, and Te Whanau o Waipareira Report.