Depression is one of the more common forms of mental illness experienced by people around the world. It is an illness which affects both men and women alike and does not target specific ages or nationalities. Depression is also an illness many suffer in solitude, often unable to pinpoint what exactly is wrong, rather identifying it as a “darkness” or sense of “numbness”. As we move into an age of growing technological changes, the Internet has become host to many forms of communities. These communities can be both modified versions of their offline original or whole new communities that did not exist to any great degree before the introduction of the internet. One such new form of online community are those designed for the support of peoples with depression and other mood disorders. Because of this growth in online communities and anthropology’s tradition of researching and understanding different groups of people, it is only appropriate that, as a discipline, it also moves online alongside these new communities. To do this, traditional field methods need to be reassessed and new potential problems and ethical dilemmas resolved. As online depression communities and internet ethnography are both relatively new fields of study, this thesis will examine the elements of both the online depression communities being studied, and the methods used in researching them. The reason I chose to research this topic is because, although depression as a subject has been covered many times before, and online community research is growing, there have been few studies undertaken on the two combined. In undertaking such research, this study will be of use for both academia and the public mental health sector. Academically, it provides us with an additional study venturing into online iii research and how to apply our tools within it. For the mental health sector, it provides an account as to how and why people with mental health issues deal with their problems, or at least begin to deal with them. This is important, as in the mental health sector many people with a mental illness may not reach out for help until in dire need. With the growth of online communities people may join earlier in their suffering and this knowledge could be of use for departments of mental health.

This is a descriptive, exploratory study of children’s experiences and understandings of domestic violence in the Manawatu region of Aotearoa/New Zealand. It responds to the historical absence of children in anthropological research and in studies of domestic violence. The research is based on data gathered through group activities and discussions with children, five to twelve years old, in a domestic violence education and support group. A series of life history interviews was also undertaken. The study uncovers a myriad of ways that children make sense of domestic violence; incorporate their experiences of domestic violence into their identities; and manipulate, adapt, disrupt, or reproduce cultural knowledge about domestic violence in their own lives and relationships. Special focus is given to the role of helping or compassionate social relationships in children’s lives, not only for the physical safety of children but also for their ability to cope with domestic violence and bounce back from other hardships in life. The children’s narratives shared in this study have practical implications for domestic violence service delivery in New Zealand, as well as applied research with children more generally. The study also highlights children’s capacities for powerful observations, insights, and critical analysis. The thesis itself incorporates many different modes of data (re-)presentation, including poetry, drama, vignettes, and experiments with narrative voice and researcher reflexivity. The use of these literary forms helps to weave multiple perspectives into the thesis, allowing participants to speak for themselves. It also assists in producing an engaging and accessible account of children’s lives, which shows or represents lived experience, an alternative to the large number of statistical analyses that exist in the literature on domestic violence.

Recognizing the continual restructuring of Pakeha-Maori relations as dominance and subordination, this thesis sets out to gain an understanding, through a critique of ideology, of the place of schooling in the securing and maintenance of those relations. Theoretically, it draws mainly upon the concept of ideology as interpreted by Jorge Larrain but also upon Gramsci's concept of hegemony, the notion of social amnesia as presented by Jacoby and the concept of resistance as developed by Giroux. It also examines the historical development of the concepts of 'race' and 'culture' which are employed ideologically to rationalize educational policies concerning the Maori. Tracing the progression of policies and practices in Maori education from the 1830s to the present day, the research shows the schooling of the Maori to have contributed significantly to the securing of Pakeha economic and political dominance in the nineteenth century and to the maintenance of that dominance through much of the twentieth century. Of particular significance has been the control of Maori access to knowledge. With Maori resistance playing a considerable part in the shaping of these policies and practices, the school is recognized as one of the sites of Maori-Pakeha struggle. Widespread underachievement of Maori within education - revealed in 1960 by the Hunn Report - is recognized as an outcome of these processes. Taking account of policies in recent years directed at improving Maori educational achievement, the thesis examines fieldwork research conducted within Auckland primary and secondary schools, in order to understand the extent to which current policies and practices of schools contribute towards overcoming the asymmetry in social relations. Focussing upon teacher perceptions of Maori children and their needs, the way schools sort and classify their pupils, provisions for a Maori dimension in schooling, including 'taha Maori', and the place of history in social studies programmes, the research finds that the struggle still continues, with tensions surrounding the efforts of the minority of teachers and other educationists working within the education system towards Maori interests. While a significant number of teachers, particularly in primary schools seem concerned to implement the 'taha Maori' policy and other aspects of 'multicultural education', these efforts are not matched by a concern to address the problem of Maori educational under-achievement, with teachers either explaining away the problem or accepting it as a quasi-natural state of affairs. Over all the research shows that schools in general continue, in a variety of ways, to control and limit Maori access to knowledge-power and thereby help to maintain the asymmetry in Maori-Pakeha relations. Maori children who do succeed within the education system are seen to do so primarily because they and their families have learned to deal with the system. The multicultural policies of education as presented by the Department of Education are recognized as ideological responses to Maori resistance and challenges, creating an appearance of change and of commitment to Maori interests while, in essence, functioning to maintain the asymmetry in social relations. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

This essay discusses some experiences of families, carers and people with experience of mental ill-health and recovery in New Zealand, focussing on ‘recovering moments’ in social exchanges, families, mental health settings and in anthropological research. It draws comparisons between phenomenological approaches in anthropology and practices promoted in recent mental health recovery philosophy, with a particular focus on the production and exchange of particular local expertise, much of which resists academic appropriation or definition. The value, currency and relevance of these ‘recovering voices’ relates to their being privileged, validated and transmitted in ethical exchanges in a range of social settings that exemplify aspects of Marcel Mauss’ discussion of the act of giving, receiving and repaying (1980:34).

This thesis explores the ways community-based ecotourism development in the Bouma National Heritage Park was negotiated at the nexus of Western entrepreneurship and the vanua, an indigenous epistemology. In 1990, the Bouma tribe of Taveuni, Fiji established the Bouma National Heritage Park. A growing dependence on the market economy and a desire to find an economic alternative to commercial logging on their communally-tenured land, led to their decision to approach the New Zealand government for assistance to establish the Park. The four villages involved have since developed their own community-based ecotourism enterprises. Despite receiving first place in a British Airways Tourism for Tomorrow Award category in 2002, there was a growing sense of social dysfunction in Bouma during the research period. According to my participants, this was partly due to the community-based ecotourism development process which had paid little attention to the vanua. Largely through talanoa as discussion, the people of Bouma have become increasingly conscious of references to the vanua values in their own evaluation and management of the projects. This thesis draws on Tim Ingold’s (2000) ‘taskscapes’ as, like the vanua, they relationally link humans with other elements of the environment within their landscape. This contrasts with a common Western epistemological approach of treating humans as independent of other cosmological and physical elements and as positioned against the landscape. Largely due to its communal nature, it may be argued that the vanua is incompatible with values associated with Bouma’s Western, capitalist-based ecotourism models. However, in this thesis I argue that despite numerous obstacles, the Bouma National Heritage Park is one example of a tribe’s endeavours to culturally hybridise the vanua with entrepreneurship to create a locally meaningful form of indigenous entrepreneurship for the wellbeing of its people. The Bouma people call this hybrid ‘business va’avanua’. Informal talanoa is presented in this thesis as a potential tool for political agency in negotiating issues surrounding community-based ecotourism and business va’avanua.

In this dissertation I examine the relationship between the churches and politics in Vanuatu, focusing in particular on the role of the Christian churches in the independence movement of the 1970s. I also look at the political involvement of the churches in the two years immediately following national independence. The dissertation is based on fieldwork in Vanuatu from April 1981 to June 1982. In Chapter I, I introduce and defend my national, institutional perspective on the churches. In Chapter II, I discuss the history of Vanuatu, focusing specifically on the history of the missions up to the end of the 1960s. Chapter III looks at the independence movement and recent political history. In Chapter IV I examine the relationship between the churches and politics in two contrasting rural areas: at the Catholic mission station of Walarano, Malakula, and at the Presbyterian area of White Sands, Tanna. Chapter V is concerned with the ecumenical movement in the Pacific and looks at the support of the Pacific churches for the independence movement in Vanuatu. Chapters VI to X are parallel histories of the same period. They all look at the involvement of the churches in Vanuatu politics from about the beginning of the 1970s - when the independence movement began - up to national independence on 30 July 1980. However, each chapter is written from a different perspective. Chapter VI documents the political involvement of the Presbyterian Church; Chapter VII is concerned with Bishop Raweliffe and the politics of Anglicanism; Chapter VIII looks at the political role of the Roman Catholic Church in Vanuatu; Chapter IX focuses mostly on the relationship between the Churches of Christ and Nagriamel; and Chapter X takes a look at the ecumenical movement in Vanuatu and the origins and development of the New Hebrides Christian Council. In Chapter XI I examine the post-independence developments in all the major churches. Chapter XII concludes with a discussion of three issues: localisation, independence and unity, both in the churches and in the nation.

Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy. / This is an archaeological study of Maori occupation along the lower Waihou River, Hauraki from the time of first settlement at about 1450 until 1850 AD. It identifies changes in the environment, economy, settlement distribution and demography over time, and details four pre-contact and three post-contact phases of occupation with differing economic, social, political and spatial responses. These are brought together in a developmental framework describing a series of cultural changes, thereby enabling the underlying processes to be ascertained. This research makes several arguments. Firstly, that Maori material culture has to be understood in the light of the functional and socio-political context in which the objects were made and used. Secondly, that regional analysis of this type employing a range of detailed environmental, settlement location, historical and excavation data are necessary in order to provide an historical developmental framework. Thirdly, that New Zealand settlement distribution studies have to adopt a more flexible approach using models more appropriate to Maori society. Fourthly, that cultural processes can best be analysed through the underlying ideological concepts of the society whose culture is being studied. The thesis concludes that the people of Hauraki displayed a range of dynamic socio-political responses to a variety of natural and human induced events that occurred over a four hundred year period.

This thesis describes the archaeology of the European military frontier in the province of Taranaki, New Zealand, in the years 1860-1881. In this period a series of four campaigns resulted in the expansion of European settlement at the expense of the indigenous Maori people. The First Taranaki War (1860-61) did not resolve the fundamental conflict over land and the imposition of British law. The passage of the New Zealand settlements Act in late 1863 brought European military strategy into line with political reality. Henceforth the land of 'rebel' tribes was to be confiscated, the military frontier providing a bulwark for an expanding European farming frontier. The Second Taranaki War (1863-66), the white Cliffs Scare (1869) and the Parihaka Campaign (1880-81) resulted in successive areas of Maori land in Taranaki being brought under European control. The present work is divided into two parts. In the first (Volume 1), the geography and archaeology of the European military effort in Taranaki is described; the fortifications and frontier organization are compared with those of earlier periods of imperial expansion elsewhere in the world, and the techniques employed in New Zealand are shown to be by no means unusual. The second part (Volume 2) reports the results of excavations at two European fortifications of the period. These serve to describe further the archaeology of the Taranaki frontier and also, through the recovered material culture, to demonstrate the dependent relation of the military frontier in New Zealand to the economies of the northern hemisphere.

Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy. / This thesis is a regional study using several kinds of evidence, The focus of the work is the South Kaipara peninsula, on the west coast north of Auckland and the successive Maori peoples whose home it was, There are four major sections: the social environment, the natural environment, archaeological research and, drawing these three together, a multi-disciplinary approach to analysis. The first section comprises three chapters. Chapter 1 traces the doings of the ancestors, using traditions and whakapapa gathered during the latter part of last century. Chapter 2 studies early eyewitness accounts, the advent of Europeans and the changes they effected. Chapter 3 considers the serious consequences of nineteenth century land alienation on the Maori inhabitants of the peninsula, and of population decrease through warfare, European diseases and economic change. The second section contains two chapters. Chapter 4 provides a background to subsequent chapters and covers geomorphology, soils, climate, flora and fauna. Chapter 5, using ethnographic material, explores the resources which would have been important to the Maori people, and the impact which successive groups made to the environment over time. Section 3, of two chapters, describes the archaeological research undertaken on the peninsula since the late 1950s. Chapter 6 includes results of the intensive site recording which began in 1975, and was largely completed in 1978. An overall analysis of the different kinds of sites and their locations is made in relation to soils, topography and height above sea level. Chapter 7 describes and analyses a midden sampling project which produced radiocarbon dates, palaeoenvironmental and shellfish species studies, and a detailed examination of the common cockle which occurred in all middens. The fourth section, Chapter 8, analyses settlement patterns. Because of the very large number and concentration of sites, the peninsula is divided into 14 geographic units so that aspects of these could be compared. Included are 1) landscape and topographic features, 2) historical settlement information, 3) the recorded sites and their frequencies, and 4) site type locations and frequencies. The findings for the areas are compared and conclusions drawn to suggest an overall culture history of the Maori people of the South Kaipara Peninsula.

The Maoris today occupy a unique position in the wider New Zealand society. On the one hand, following over a century of intensive contact and political integration with the people of European origin, they now form an inseparable part of the national society. But on the other hand, they also constitute a distinctive minority in the country accounting for 6.9 per cent of the total population of 2.4 million (in 1961). Their distinctiveness may be described in various ways, some qualitative and others statistical. However, in the overall socio-economic scene of the country, the position of the Maoris is far from static. Social and cultural changes are continuing processes and one can notice important trends in contemporary Maori life.