In acknowledging continual educational under-achievement of Maori children, this thesis investigates the relationship between education policy and Maori under-achievement. It argues that under-achievement is framed within boundaries of changing recognitions and realisations of power and difference: that conceptions of difference have influenced education policy and schooling practices for Maori. Theoretically, the thesis examines 'what counts as difference' and 'what differences count'. In recognising that unequal power relations between dominant and subordinate groups produce distinct views about difference, 'what counts as difference' encompasses the perspectives of dominant groups and 'what differences count', subordinate groups. The former view is developed to expand the basis for investigating 'Pakeha conceptions of difference', and the latter, 'Maori conceptions'. The thesis traces the interactions and relationships of 'difference' and 'power', and examines, historically, how they have contributed to and sustained Maori educational under-achievement. The contribution of these conceptions of difference to informing schooling practices is investigated through four sequential 'Classification Schemes' of Assimilation, Integration, Multiculturalism and Biculturalism. The thesis argues that Biculturalism is based on a positive view of Maori cultural differences, and examines the extent of Maori influence on four recent education policy making processes. The thesis also acknowledges a Maori focus on the importance of structural differences for addressing their needs. On the basis of those two different perspectives, the thesis develops the concepts 'Maori-friendly' and 'Maori-centred', to examine processes, and structures and the relative influence of Maori on mainstream policy forming processes. The thesis shows that Tomorrow's Schools, Education for the Twenty-First Century and the Maori Affairs Select Committee Inquiry encapsulate different degrees of both Maori-friendly and Maori-centred approaches, though arguing that ultimately, it is Pakeha conceptions of difference that inform and influence all the policy forming processes. However, the fourth policy process examined was originally a wholly Maori-centred initiative - Te Kohanga Reo. The thesis points to and traces the incorporation of Te Kohanga Reo into the mainstream education system and its consequences for Maori, and concludes that structural differences ensure continuing Pakeha control over Maori conceptions of difference and henceforth Maori educational under-achievement.

This thesis is based on 18 months fieldwork in 1979-80 in the Solomon Islands. The study was carried out among the Tikopia people both on their home island and in the settlement of Nukukaisi in Makira. The central focus of this study is an analysis of the women of Tikopia from several perspectives. First they are examined in time: the women of Professor Raymond Firth's study of 1929 are contrasted with women 50 years on. Next they are described in different geographical settings - the home island and the settlement. Special attention is paid to two categories of women: the fafine taka 'unmarried women' and the fafine avanga 'married women'. These two groups stand in strong contrast with one another. The unmarried women have considerable social and sexual freedom. However, their structural position in society is undergoing some redefinition as they are required to replace in the domestic workforce their brothers who have migrated as wage labourers to other parts of the Solomons. The departure of the young men has caused some demographic imbalance among the young and their absence decreases opportunities of marriage for the young women. No other career is available to young women as they do not leave Tikopia for schooling or work as their brothers do. By contrast, the married women, to whom marriage ostensibly brings social maturity, are the most tightly controlled section of the population, being responsible to the patriline into which they have married. The social and symbolic elements of gender relations in Tikopia are therefore examined through the lives of these two groups of women. A further concern which underlies this work are the developments in theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of gender by anthropologists, with special reference to their application in the Pacific area.

Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy. / This thesis is a history of Maori ship and flourmill ownership set into the wider economic context of mid-nineteenth-century New Zealand. It examines why and how Māori purchased flourmills and trading ships in this period and questions the currently popular view that these were ill-advised investments driven by a desire for status symbols or mere fads resulting from a culturally characteristic neophilia. It argues that both industries were generally well-considered enterprises, appropriate to contemporary conditions, and that they made significant contributions to the New Zealand colonial economy at a particularly fragile stage. An examination of Māori trading practices from the time of European contact establishes that certain aspects of their social relationships and commercial practice were 'traditional' and therefore provide points from which to consider the process of change. It is argued that customary modes facilitated the optimisation of economic benefits presented by a hugely expanded marketplace but that contemporary Christian and western political economic ideas, which gave ideological support to flourmill and ship ownership, also contributed significantly to the involution of Māori commercial enterprise. Māori necessarily responded to these teachings, but a consideration of the rationale behind their acquisition of these assets supports the appropriateness of such investments under contemporary conditions. Evidence from a wide range of Māori and Pakeha sources forms the basis for examining the motivations and management of Māori shipping and flourmilling enterprises and for tracking changes in understandings of proprietary rights. In this context, philosophical and political intervention by missionaries and other Pakeha agents, including the valorisation of individual ownership and enterprise, can be seen to have enticed those from the lower echelons of Māori society to forsake the obligations of a communal economy. As well as undermining the communal nature of Māori society and the authority of traditional leaders, these interventions also fostered greater rigidity in Maori social, economic, and political structures so that the advantages of customary ways were lost. Combined with the loss of resources and a concomitant rise in the political power of the rapidly growing Pakeha population, these changes made it increasingly difficult for Māori to sustain their economic predominance.

This research conducts a feminist poststructuralist examination of the vocabularies of heterosex: it investigates those terms, modes of talking, and meanings relating to sex which are associated with discourses such as scientific and popular sexology, medicine and psychiatry, public health, philosophy, and some feminist critique. The analysis of these various representations of heterosex involves the deconstruction of binaries such as presence/absence, mind/body, inside/outside and masculine/feminine, that are endemic to Western notions of sex. It is argued that such dualisms (re)produce and perpetuate differential power relations between men and women, and jeopardize the negotiation of mutually pleasurable and safer heterosex. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which sexological discourse deploys such dualisms as normal/abnormal, natural/unnatural, and healthy/unhealthy sex, and produces specifically gendered 'experiences' of sexual corporeality. The thesis examines a variety of written texts and excerpts from film and television; it also analyzes transcript material from individual and group interviews conducted by the researcher with heterosexual women and men, as well as sexual health and mental health professionals, in order to identify cultural pressures influencing participation in risky heterosexual behaviours, and also to identify alternative and safer pleasurable practices. Some of these alternative practices are suggested to rely on a radical reformulation of sexual relations which derives from the disruption of particular dualistic ways of understanding and enacting sex. The overall objective of the thesis is to deconstruct cultural imperatives of heterosex and promote the generation and acceptance of other modes of erotic pleasure. It is hoped that this research will be of use in the future planning and implementation of sex education and safer sex campaigns in Aotearoa/New Zealand which aim to be non-phallocentric and non-heterosexist, and which might recognize a feminist poststructuralist politics of sexual difference. / Note: Thesis now published. Potts, Annie (2002). The Science/Fiction of sex: feminist deconstruction and the vocabularies of heterosex. London & New York: Routledge. ISBN 04152567312. Whole document restricted, see Access Instructions file below for details of how to access the print copy.

Recent research focusing on improving educational outcomes for Māori students in mainstream secondary schools in Aotearoa/New Zealand have asserted that building positive student-teacher relationships in the classroom are fundamental (c. f. Bishop, Berryman, & Richardson, 2003; Bishop & Tiakiwai, 2003; Ministry of Education, 2002, 2006). In contrast, attempts to investigate the educational benefits associated with Māori students participating in cultural learning activities, such as kapa haka, and the implications for improving levels of Māori student achievement, remains relatively unexplored. To embark on such an investigation, Māori kapa haka students and teachers from four mainstream secondary schools were invited to take part in an interview process informed by using a Kaupapa Māori theoretical approach. As a result, the study revealed quite emphatically that not only does kapa haka provide Māori students with an appropriate ‘culturally responsive’ learning experience, but that they also feel more confident and optimistic about school and their education. Moreover, kapa haka provides the opportunity for students to celebrate who they are as Māori and as ‘culturally connected’ learners in mainstream schooling contexts. In addition, Māori students through the kapa haka experience learn to ‘protect’, ‘problem-solve’, ‘provide’, and ‘heal’ their inner self-worth, essence and wellbeing as Māori. Similarly, most teachers agreed that kapa haka provides Māori students with a creative, dynamic and powerful way to access their learning potential as cultural human beings. An overwhelming response by both students and teachers is that kapa haka should be timetabled as an academic subject to provide greater access to indigenous and cultural performing art that affirms their identity as Māori, and our uniqueness as New Zealanders. Finally, the research proposes a ‘culturally responsive’ learning strategy to assist what mainstream secondary schools and teachers provide as valid and purposeful learning opportunities for ‘culturally connected’ learners who are Māori.

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.

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.