This thesis consists of two sections. The intention of Section One, 'Biographical Texts: Theoretical Underpinning', is to explore and discuss the theoretical underpinnings of Maori feminism and Kaupapa Maori as they relate to biography as a research method into the lives of Maori women. Biography, as a literary genre is also examined with particular reference to feminist, women of colour and Maori biography. Section One is a wideranging section, encompassing a broad sweep of the literature in these areas. It both draws from existing literature and contributes to the discourse regarding Maori feminism, Maori biography and Maori research. It is relevant to but unconstrained by the content of Section Two. The intention of Section Two, 'Locating the Story of Betty Wark; A Biographical Narrative with Reflective Annotations', is to provide an example of the biographical method and what might constitute Maori biography. The subject of the biographical narrative, Betty Wark, was a Maori woman who was actively involved with community-based organisations from the 1950s until her death in May 2001. Several major themes which emerged from Betty's biographical history occur throughout her narrative and provide a framework in which her story is located. One of the most significant themes was the notion of 'home'; both literal and metaphorical. This theme is reflected in the title of the thesis, Writing Ourselves 'Home'.

This research is concerned with the way in which general managers work in the island nations of the South Pacific: what they do, how they make policy decisions and manage the various resources of their organization. It looks particularly at the impact of their culture on management decision making. A literature review revealed that until recently most of the research work on managers was done in the west. In recent years there has been a proliferation of research on Japanese management practices and the decision making styles of Japanese managers. However, there is little research on managers and management in developing countries, and hardly any on managers and management, in the South Pacific island nations. This was dramatically evident when a computer search was completed early in this study. There were thousands of references available on managers and management. As more key words were included the number of references declined. Eventually when 'the South Pacific' was added there was a blank. The south Pacific is very much virgin territory when it comes to research information and data on managers and management. The question 'what do managers do?' appears simple but is difficult to answer. The traditional view of the manager's job comes from the classical school of writers who describe their work in terms of a composite of functions. Fayol defined it, in terms of five basic managerial functions planning, organizing, coordinating, commanding and controlling. In the 1930s Gulick introduced the concept of POSDCORB. Among later empirical works one of the most comprehensive studies on managers has been by Mintzberg who defines a manager's job under its distinguishing characteristics, the working roles, the variations in the manager's job, and the scientific nature of work. In this study the general manager's work has been examined by gathering data from in-depth interviews and observations of twenty general managers/chief executives from the South Pacific region. Four general managers each from Fiji, Western Samoa, Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Tonga were observed and interviewed for a week each over a seven month period and the results of the study are reported in this thesis. The study revealed that the work of general managers in the South Pacific islands is fragmented and they are engaged in a lot of activities with short duration. Furthermore routine administrative functions consume much of the chief executive's time, while little time and attention is devoted to planning and development work. The various indigenous South Pacific cultures are not supportive of managers, management and businesses in their endeavour to be successful and progressive. The cultures are conservative and generally do not want change, at least rapid change, and wish to preserve and maintain their culture and way of life. / Note: Thesis now published as a book. General managers in the South Pacific / Narendra Reddy. Published: Aalborg, Denmark : Aalborg University Press, 2001

Tryst Tropique questions some of the assumptions that have been made about the heterosexual trajectory described by European desire as it has informed literary, artistic and anthropological representation of the South Pacific. It reads a series of contact encounters and Pacific residencies for their unfolding of European sexual inscription and discovers their inevitable entanglement with problematics of homosexual definition. This thesis arcs between two readings wherein the sexual conduct of Polynesian men both requires and escapes European definition. The first, which settles on the documents of Cook's third voyage, uses British indifference to Hawaiian sodomitical desire to help measure a representational space from whence the European homosexual will emerge (Chapter Two). The next reading considers the erotics of male visibility legible across a number of Marquesan contact texts including Herman Melville's Typee (Chapter Three). Chapter Four discovers that the suspicion of sodomitical misconduct which clouded the career of William Yate, an early nineteenth-century New Zealand missionary, continues to involve twentieth-century commentators in the interpretative dynamics of sexual entrapment. Chapter Five turns to Gauguin's Tahitian writings and paintings to engage with the place of ambivalence in contemporary analyses of colonial discourse. Chapter Six extends the parameters of the thesis in terms of gender and of geography, taking up the controversy generated by Derek Freeman around the early Samoan fieldwork of Margaret Mead. It argues that in the example of Mead's career, we can observe the way in which female sexuality acts as the cipher by which culture multiplies and maintains ignorances and knowledges across the discursive field of sex in both cosmopolitan and primitive locations. The final chapter, which analyses a contemporary documentary representation of Samoan fa'afafine, finds the pertinence or applicability of European sexual description to Polynesian behaviour again at stake, though now we find that the liberal gesture of cultural relativism is co-optable to a homophobia already drilled and proficient in erecting a difference without to forestall a difference within. Reading against the grain of much postcolonial work on the South Pacific, Tryst Tropique finds that it is the male body-whether native or European-not the female, which provides the sexual vanishing point which structures many of these narratives. In each of these Pacific moments a privileged figuration occurs: the body which stands as a placemarker for erotic capacities-both indulged and forsworn-is indicatively male. These inscriptions of masculinity betray a certain amplifying anxiety; the discrepant sexual availabilities recorded in each text break with increasing urgency on the shore of heterosexual and homosexual definition. Even as these Pacific journal keepers, these writers and artists, map identity more and more ferociously onto the known grid of gender, it seems as if the horizon of sexual certainty further and further recedes.

Biculturalism is a relationship in government between the British Crown and the indigenous [Māori] people of New Zealand. I show that this relationship permeated some Māori healing practitioners’ healing knowledge and perception. A key way in which this occurred was through the practitioners recognizing biological and social boundaries between Māori and Pākehā [New Zealanders of European descent]. A second was through the practitioners’ embodiment of connections with social groups including the nation, a history and present shared between Māori and Pākehā and an idealized pre-contact past. A fundamental principle of Te Oo Mai Reia was that for the practitioners to harness the power of the various forces that sustained life they had to be in touch with their whakapapa [genealogy] for it was through their ancestors that they could commune with the Ultimate Deity, Io, the source of the most potent of all forces of life. A further key principle was that spiritually inspired and traditional Māori culture heightened the wellbeing of Māori, not modern, Pākehā culture. Spiritual and ancient knowledge was supra-conscious and made knowable through an embodied awareness of self and other. To make my argument I draw on literature inspired by Foucault that shows how states govern by implementing their operations and securing their penetration into the citizenry by drawing and building upon pre-existing bodies of knowledge and relations of power. I also draw on literature that shows how the human body bears the effects of such practices of government. To this literature I integrate perception by showing how, in this Māori healing context, the government of the bicultural nation-state worked through the ways the practitioners made sense with the body (especially through feeling, seeing and touching).

Background Prior to the commencement of this study, gambling was not considered a significant health issue for Maori, even though the first national gambling prevalence study in New Zealand in 1991, identified that Maori had at least three times the risk of problem gambling of non-Maori. In the early 1990s, through the provision of a gambling telephone helpline and gambling counselling services, it was identified that Maori and in particular Maori women, were increasingly seeking help with problems with gambling. Gambling is an integral part of the culture of New Zealand. To understand gambling and problem gambling requires an understanding of the social, economic and cultural context it plays in being Maori. Aim of Study This study investigated whether gambling and problem gambling is an emerging health issue for Maori and if so, the extent of the problem, its effects on Maori and health approaches, and interventions which are likely to be effective for Maori. A public health approach to address problem gambling has been investigated and a plan developed. Methodology This study has been undertaken from a Maori-centered and an action-oriented research approach. It has involved integrating existing and new information from the following sources: Maori patterns of gambling and expenditure, gambling prevalence data, Maori utilisation of gambling treatment services and gambling by indigenous people. Fifteen Maori problem gamblers have been interviewed to understand from the "inside looking out" their experience of problem gambling. Thirty key informants have also been interviewed to understand from the "outside looking in" their perspective as to whether gambling is an emerging health issue for Maori. This research has involved quantitative analysis and qualitative research. Findings This study has found that problem gambling is an emerging public health issue for Maori. The effects of problem gambling for Maori are invisible and masked by other health problems such as alcohol abuse or mental health problems. Maori prevalence of problem gambling is similar to other indigenous populations which have shared similar historical and socio-economic experiences. Problem gambling often leads to crime, imprisonment, development of other health problems and the break down of families. Focusing alone on problem gambling ignores the real issues for Maori, a wider perspective is needed which focuses on Maori and tribal development. A public health strategy is proposed to reduce Maori gambling related harm.

This is a study of the social dynamics of the current Chinese migrant community in New Zealand through a critical analysis of the Auckland-based Chinese-language media. It combines two research fields, international migration studies and media studies, to conceptualise Chinese-language media as a specific type of alternative media in contemporary New Zealand. The Chinese population in New Zealand has rapidly increased through immigration since the passage of the 1987 Immigration Act; Chinese now comprise 3.4% of the New Zealand population, and a wide variety of Chinese-language media have accordingly thrived in New Zealand. In contrast to New Zealand mainstream media, these Chinese media serve the specific needs and interests of newly arrived and only minimally acculturated Chinese migrants. The research was conducted in three phases: quantitative and qualitative data were acquired from the content of Chinese-language media during the period of the 2005 New Zealand general election; qualitative data were obtained from focus groups and interviews with members of the Chinese audience subsequent to the election; qualitative data were generated from Chinese media personnel. The findings suggest that these Chinese-language media closely reflect and depict recent PRC Chinese migrants’ perceptions of New Zealand and aspirations towards their new life in the host country. Within the global context of the Chinese diaspora in historical and contemporary times, this research also introduces a new angle for exploring the socio-economic impacts of China as a rising superpower on New Zealand and the Pacific Rim.

This thesis consists of two sections. The intention of Section One, 'Biographical Texts: Theoretical Underpinning', is to explore and discuss the theoretical underpinnings of Maori feminism and Kaupapa Maori as they relate to biography as a research method into the lives of Maori women. Biography, as a literary genre is also examined with particular reference to feminist, women of colour and Maori biography. Section One is a wideranging section, encompassing a broad sweep of the literature in these areas. It both draws from existing literature and contributes to the discourse regarding Maori feminism, Maori biography and Maori research. It is relevant to but unconstrained by the content of Section Two. The intention of Section Two, 'Locating the Story of Betty Wark; A Biographical Narrative with Reflective Annotations', is to provide an example of the biographical method and what might constitute Maori biography. The subject of the biographical narrative, Betty Wark, was a Maori woman who was actively involved with community-based organisations from the 1950s until her death in May 2001. Several major themes which emerged from Betty's biographical history occur throughout her narrative and provide a framework in which her story is located. One of the most significant themes was the notion of 'home'; both literal and metaphorical. This theme is reflected in the title of the thesis, Writing Ourselves 'Home'.

This research is concerned with the way in which general managers work in the island nations of the South Pacific: what they do, how they make policy decisions and manage the various resources of their organization. It looks particularly at the impact of their culture on management decision making. A literature review revealed that until recently most of the research work on managers was done in the west. In recent years there has been a proliferation of research on Japanese management practices and the decision making styles of Japanese managers. However, there is little research on managers and management in developing countries, and hardly any on managers and management, in the South Pacific island nations. This was dramatically evident when a computer search was completed early in this study. There were thousands of references available on managers and management. As more key words were included the number of references declined. Eventually when 'the South Pacific' was added there was a blank. The south Pacific is very much virgin territory when it comes to research information and data on managers and management. The question 'what do managers do?' appears simple but is difficult to answer. The traditional view of the manager's job comes from the classical school of writers who describe their work in terms of a composite of functions. Fayol defined it, in terms of five basic managerial functions planning, organizing, coordinating, commanding and controlling. In the 1930s Gulick introduced the concept of POSDCORB. Among later empirical works one of the most comprehensive studies on managers has been by Mintzberg who defines a manager's job under its distinguishing characteristics, the working roles, the variations in the manager's job, and the scientific nature of work. In this study the general manager's work has been examined by gathering data from in-depth interviews and observations of twenty general managers/chief executives from the South Pacific region. Four general managers each from Fiji, Western Samoa, Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Tonga were observed and interviewed for a week each over a seven month period and the results of the study are reported in this thesis. The study revealed that the work of general managers in the South Pacific islands is fragmented and they are engaged in a lot of activities with short duration. Furthermore routine administrative functions consume much of the chief executive's time, while little time and attention is devoted to planning and development work. The various indigenous South Pacific cultures are not supportive of managers, management and businesses in their endeavour to be successful and progressive. The cultures are conservative and generally do not want change, at least rapid change, and wish to preserve and maintain their culture and way of life. / Note: Thesis now published as a book. General managers in the South Pacific / Narendra Reddy. Published: Aalborg, Denmark : Aalborg University Press, 2001

Tryst Tropique questions some of the assumptions that have been made about the heterosexual trajectory described by European desire as it has informed literary, artistic and anthropological representation of the South Pacific. It reads a series of contact encounters and Pacific residencies for their unfolding of European sexual inscription and discovers their inevitable entanglement with problematics of homosexual definition. This thesis arcs between two readings wherein the sexual conduct of Polynesian men both requires and escapes European definition. The first, which settles on the documents of Cook's third voyage, uses British indifference to Hawaiian sodomitical desire to help measure a representational space from whence the European homosexual will emerge (Chapter Two). The next reading considers the erotics of male visibility legible across a number of Marquesan contact texts including Herman Melville's Typee (Chapter Three). Chapter Four discovers that the suspicion of sodomitical misconduct which clouded the career of William Yate, an early nineteenth-century New Zealand missionary, continues to involve twentieth-century commentators in the interpretative dynamics of sexual entrapment. Chapter Five turns to Gauguin's Tahitian writings and paintings to engage with the place of ambivalence in contemporary analyses of colonial discourse. Chapter Six extends the parameters of the thesis in terms of gender and of geography, taking up the controversy generated by Derek Freeman around the early Samoan fieldwork of Margaret Mead. It argues that in the example of Mead's career, we can observe the way in which female sexuality acts as the cipher by which culture multiplies and maintains ignorances and knowledges across the discursive field of sex in both cosmopolitan and primitive locations. The final chapter, which analyses a contemporary documentary representation of Samoan fa'afafine, finds the pertinence or applicability of European sexual description to Polynesian behaviour again at stake, though now we find that the liberal gesture of cultural relativism is co-optable to a homophobia already drilled and proficient in erecting a difference without to forestall a difference within. Reading against the grain of much postcolonial work on the South Pacific, Tryst Tropique finds that it is the male body-whether native or European-not the female, which provides the sexual vanishing point which structures many of these narratives. In each of these Pacific moments a privileged figuration occurs: the body which stands as a placemarker for erotic capacities-both indulged and forsworn-is indicatively male. These inscriptions of masculinity betray a certain amplifying anxiety; the discrepant sexual availabilities recorded in each text break with increasing urgency on the shore of heterosexual and homosexual definition. Even as these Pacific journal keepers, these writers and artists, map identity more and more ferociously onto the known grid of gender, it seems as if the horizon of sexual certainty further and further recedes.

Biculturalism is a relationship in government between the British Crown and the indigenous [Māori] people of New Zealand. I show that this relationship permeated some Māori healing practitioners’ healing knowledge and perception. A key way in which this occurred was through the practitioners recognizing biological and social boundaries between Māori and Pākehā [New Zealanders of European descent]. A second was through the practitioners’ embodiment of connections with social groups including the nation, a history and present shared between Māori and Pākehā and an idealized pre-contact past. A fundamental principle of Te Oo Mai Reia was that for the practitioners to harness the power of the various forces that sustained life they had to be in touch with their whakapapa [genealogy] for it was through their ancestors that they could commune with the Ultimate Deity, Io, the source of the most potent of all forces of life. A further key principle was that spiritually inspired and traditional Māori culture heightened the wellbeing of Māori, not modern, Pākehā culture. Spiritual and ancient knowledge was supra-conscious and made knowable through an embodied awareness of self and other. To make my argument I draw on literature inspired by Foucault that shows how states govern by implementing their operations and securing their penetration into the citizenry by drawing and building upon pre-existing bodies of knowledge and relations of power. I also draw on literature that shows how the human body bears the effects of such practices of government. To this literature I integrate perception by showing how, in this Māori healing context, the government of the bicultural nation-state worked through the ways the practitioners made sense with the body (especially through feeling, seeing and touching).