No description available.

This thesis represents a transdisciplinary study based on qualitative research and critical analysis of oral history interviews and the personal narratives of sixty-seven Australian-born Chinese. It uses cultural studies approaches to investigate the diverse ways Chineseness becomes inscribed into the lives of Australian-born Chinese. It investigates diverse ways Chineseness becomes inscribed into the lives of Australian-born Chinese within three social and cultural spaces Australian-born Chinese inhabit. These are the family, mainstream Australian society and Chinese diasporic spaces located in China and Australia. In examining these three social and cultural spaces, this study seeks to demonstrate that Chineseness represents an inescapable ‘reality’ Australian-born Chinese are compelled to confront in their everyday lives. This ‘reality’ exists despite rights of birth, generational longevity, and strong national and cultural identities and identifications grounded in Australia, and whether or not Australian-born Chinese willingly choose to identify as ‘Chinese’. Nevertheless, despite the limits of Chineseness Australian-born Chinese experience in their lives, this study demonstrates that Australian-born Chinese are individual agents who devise a range of strategies and tactics which empower them to negotiate Chineseness in relevant and meaningful ways of their own choosing.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis represents a transdisciplinary study based on qualitative research and critical analysis of oral history interviews and the personal narratives of sixty-seven Australian-born Chinese. It uses cultural studies approaches to investigate the diverse ways Chineseness becomes inscribed into the lives of Australian-born Chinese. It investigates diverse ways Chineseness becomes inscribed into the lives of Australian-born Chinese within three social and cultural spaces Australian-born Chinese inhabit. These are the family, mainstream Australian society and Chinese diasporic spaces located in China and Australia. In examining these three social and cultural spaces, this study seeks to demonstrate that Chineseness represents an inescapable ‘reality’ Australian-born Chinese are compelled to confront in their everyday lives. This ‘reality’ exists despite rights of birth, generational longevity, and strong national and cultural identities and identifications grounded in Australia, and whether or not Australian-born Chinese willingly choose to identify as ‘Chinese’. Nevertheless, despite the limits of Chineseness Australian-born Chinese experience in their lives, this study demonstrates that Australian-born Chinese are individual agents who devise a range of strategies and tactics which empower them to negotiate Chineseness in relevant and meaningful ways of their own choosing.

This thesis explored the socio-political experiences and views of seven Maori women from the tribe of Whakatahea. The project adopted a Maori-centred theoretical and research approach that included the researcher as a member of the researched group. It aimed to draw out the common themes, from the women's recollections of their experiences and views of the socio-political decision-making affairs within whanau, hapu, and iwi. The women identified barriers to participation and strategies to overcome these barriers. Qualifications reflected traditional Maori values and practices. Rights according to whakapapa, and the principle "he kanohi kitea", being seen, were the obvious criterion. Poor information channels, minimal consultation, gender bias, age and time constraints were some of the issues identified as barriers to participation. It was found that whanau governance committees more closely reflected traditional values and customs that saw women and men as sharing power, more so than hapu and iwi organisations. The gender imbalance was viewed, by the women participants, as problematic. They concluded that better gender balance at all levels of the socio-political affairs of Whakatohea would ensure greater informed decision-making for the social, educational, economic, and spiritual well-being of the tribe today and for future generations.

Bearing in Mind: Birth, Fathers, Ritual, and 'Reproductive Consciousness' in Transpersonal Anthropological Perspective is an exploration of 'unusual' psychospiritual experiences among a small group of procreative fathering males in New Zealand and the viewing of these experiences through a transpersonal anthropological lens. I have used the transpersonal literature and the anthropological record, coupled with fieldwork among contemporary males to explore some of their more 'non-ordinary' responses to childbirth, paying close attention to the symbolic and therapeutic dimension implicated in their participation The term 'non-ordinary' pertains to NOSC or non ordinary states of consciousness (see glossary). Frequently their narratives suggest psychological encounters with death and transpersonal states of consciousness. This research examines these states of consciousness, the broad cultural context from which they arise and their relationship to birthing. Two basic themes are explored: 1) the social shaping of birth as a transpersonal event and ritual at the time fathers joined their partners in birthing during the late 1960s, and 2) an investigation of the transpersonal experience itself. Such phenomena have wide anthropological ramifications which opens a third theme for exploration: the possible parallels with more traditional, shamanistic, and/or indigenous midwifery and obstetrical manoeuvres (and therefore religion) – these parallels will be outlined and explored. This thesis relies heavily on a reinterpretation of the transpersonal and anthropological literature; however it is the fieldwork (gathering birth stories from men and women) that is crucial because it is the transpersonal content of their stories that drives the theoretical component.

For people who live with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity syndrome illness is a hidden construct. The body does not display the chronicity of the internal experience. This thesis removes the barrier between what is experienced and what is visible by creating visual means of communicating the body’s hidden experience. The place of the viewer is part of this discussion. Through visual methods digital photographic techniques and the current interest in sensory anthropology the embodied sensory chronic illness experience is explored. The hidden experiences were made visual creating “MeBoxes” and masks which showed both the external and embodied internal experiences of chronic illness. As the process of working with and walking beside the participants developed, I found that the discourse on imaging within the literature was inadequate to show the real lived experiences of those with chronic illness. My interactions with the people of this thesis and the process of honouring their experiences required a model that would encourage the viewer to new and perhaps unrealised depths of participation to understand the participant’s multi-faceted and multi-layered experiences. Part of the discussion is the ability of images to communicate sensory experience as is the case with Munch’s The Scream and Picasso’s Guernica. Through the use of a hypertextual self-scape I show how participants created access to their experiences through their visual representations and through a collaborative approach became composite hypertextual self-scape metaphors.