This thesis is made up of three parts; the first is an outline and discussion of the various approaches taken in the description of Polynesian languages in the last 30 years. It provides background discussion of the model of description used in the rest of the thesis. The second deals with the phonology of the 'Ua Pou dialect, concentrating in particular on two areas; the phonetics of the glottal stop phoneme, and penultimate vowel extension. The latter is a feature which has received no mention in any literature to date but is the most noticeable suprasegmental phonetic difference between the Marquesan dialects and the other Eastern Polynesian languages. The last four chapters describe the structure of phrases in the 'Ua Pou dialect. The first two of these deals with the centripetal particles of the noun and verb phrase respectively, that is, the particles within phrases which modify the base of that phrase. Particles which relate phrases to other phrases, that is, the prepositions and ai, are dealt with separately in the last two chapters since their description requires some comments on the syntax of the language. / Thesis now published as a book. Margaret Mutu with Ben Teʻikitutoua (2002). Ùa Pou : aspects of a Marquesan dialect. Canberra, ACT: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. ISBN 0858835266.

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).

The main objective of this thesis was to understand the function, design and distribution of New Zealand adzes, aspects little studied in Polynesia as a whole. Methodology involved functional and manufacturing replication experiments and comparisons of these results with statistics derived from the analysis of almost 12,000 archaeological adzes. Methodology was guided by technological organization theory which states that technological strategies reflect human behaviours and that artefacts like adzes are physical manifestations of the strategies employed by people to overcome problems posed by environmental and resource conditions. Variability in adze morphology was discovered to be the outcome of ongoing technological adjustments to a range of conditions that were constrained by a set of functionally defined parameters. The nature of the raw material, both for the adzes themselves and to make them, had a major influence on adze technology and morphology within these functional parameters. Four basic functional adze types were identified fi-om distinct and consistent combinations of design attributes not previously recognized explicitly in previous adze typologies. It was found that design attributes previously considered significant like crosssection shape and butt reduction were more heavily influenced by raw material quality than functional specifications. It was also important to recognize that form and function changed over time with use, and because adzes were so valuable due to manufacturing costs, they were intensively curated. The majority of archaeological specimens studied for this thesis had seen major morphological and functional change. This dynamic was included ,in a typology based on 'adze state7 as findings suggested (1) that extending adze use-life and optimizing reworking potential was incorporated in initial design strategies, (2) that intensive curation may have played a major role in changes in adze morphology over time, and (3). that it had a major influence on distribution and discard patterns in the archaeological record. Having identified these influences on adze discard and distribution, two complex production and distribution networks were observed for the North Island based around Tahanga basalt and Nelson~Marlborough argillite. Each was complimentary to the other and involved other major and minor products and materials. Influential factors in the roles different settlements played in distribution included where people and raw materials were in relation to one another and the mode of transportation. The coastal location of early period settlements and important stone sources was an important aspect of these networks.

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'.

It’s like the sun and the tide. The aim of this study was to understand the meaning of ‘being aged’ through the everyday experiences of those who are aged. Philosophically, this interpretive study was informed by hermeneutics and interpretive phenomenology. The writings of two twentieth-century philosophers, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Heidegger, guided the study’s design and research methods. The phenomenon of interest is ‘being aged;’ a thing which is ordinarily taken-for-granted in the everyday. However, much is already spoken and empirically ‘known’ about the phenomenon by those who are not yet aged. Methodologically the study’s design sought to ‘put aside’ those voices and listen in closely to what elders themselves had to say about being in their everyday lives. Individual research conversations were conducted with fifteen participants; four Maori elders aged 71 to 93 and eleven non-Maori elders aged 80 to 97 years. All were living in private residences on Auckland’s North Shore and recruited by way of the general electoral roll. The conversations were focused on gathering the stories of particular everyday events as well as the person’s reflections on aging. Anecdotes drawn from the conversations formed the research text. Hermeneutics informed the interpretive engagement with this text. As a non-Maori researcher, cultural integrity of the text and the interpretations was enhanced through partnership with a Maori advisor. Dwelling hermeneutically with the anecdotal text was a way of listening to the spoken and unspoken words. Four overarching notions were illuminated and form the study’s findings. They are my interpretive descriptions of the ordinary ways of ‘being in the everyday,’ the experiences of ‘being with others’ in advanced age, the announcing of being aged in the uncomfortableness of ‘experiencing the unaccustomed’ and how ‘aging just is’ there in an everyday way. Reflecting phenomenologically on the findings, the meaning of being aged is in its ordinariness. My thesis is that being in the ordinary everyday in advanced age both conceals and reveals the phenomenon of being aged.

Educational activity preceded official British presence in New Zealand. The development of the New Zealand state from crown colony, to a system of relatively autonomous provincial councils, to a centralized administration took place within a period of four decades. Co-terminous with and essential to the state's progressive securing of its authority was the institutionalization of separate national systems of education for Maori and Pakeha. Whilst the ascendancy of the state and the securing of education as a central state concern proceeded ultimately with the sanction of the state and in accordance with its objectives it was not a straight forward process in a young nation which was born democratic, but was struggling to consolidate political and cultural unity. The various stages and the ultimate form that education in New Zealand took were closely linked to shifts in the nature and role of the state in its formative years, in the nature of its relationship with civil society, and in its official relationship with Maori. This provided the context and dynamic of the shift to state control as public schooling came to dominate over private or voluntary efforts, and as the particularism of isolated provincial settlements was replaced by a system designed to serve the nation as a whole. Positing conceptual links between the development of national education and the processes of state formation and nation building in a colonizing context, this thesis argues that the institutionally differentiated form that universal education took in New Zealand produced a site through which socially, culturally and ideologically determined conceptions of “normality” would be legitimated and become hegemonic. By nationalizing education to legitimate a culture of uniformity based on a specific set of norms, individual New Zealanders were differentially created according to class, gender and ethnicity, and to physical, intellectual, behavioural and sensory functioning.

It’s like the sun and the tide. The aim of this study was to understand the meaning of ‘being aged’ through the everyday experiences of those who are aged. Philosophically, this interpretive study was informed by hermeneutics and interpretive phenomenology. The writings of two twentieth-century philosophers, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Heidegger, guided the study’s design and research methods. The phenomenon of interest is ‘being aged;’ a thing which is ordinarily taken-for-granted in the everyday. However, much is already spoken and empirically ‘known’ about the phenomenon by those who are not yet aged. Methodologically the study’s design sought to ‘put aside’ those voices and listen in closely to what elders themselves had to say about being in their everyday lives. Individual research conversations were conducted with fifteen participants; four Maori elders aged 71 to 93 and eleven non-Maori elders aged 80 to 97 years. All were living in private residences on Auckland’s North Shore and recruited by way of the general electoral roll. The conversations were focused on gathering the stories of particular everyday events as well as the person’s reflections on aging. Anecdotes drawn from the conversations formed the research text. Hermeneutics informed the interpretive engagement with this text. As a non-Maori researcher, cultural integrity of the text and the interpretations was enhanced through partnership with a Maori advisor. Dwelling hermeneutically with the anecdotal text was a way of listening to the spoken and unspoken words. Four overarching notions were illuminated and form the study’s findings. They are my interpretive descriptions of the ordinary ways of ‘being in the everyday,’ the experiences of ‘being with others’ in advanced age, the announcing of being aged in the uncomfortableness of ‘experiencing the unaccustomed’ and how ‘aging just is’ there in an everyday way. Reflecting phenomenologically on the findings, the meaning of being aged is in its ordinariness. My thesis is that being in the ordinary everyday in advanced age both conceals and reveals the phenomenon of being aged.

Educational activity preceded official British presence in New Zealand. The development of the New Zealand state from crown colony, to a system of relatively autonomous provincial councils, to a centralized administration took place within a period of four decades. Co-terminous with and essential to the state's progressive securing of its authority was the institutionalization of separate national systems of education for Maori and Pakeha. Whilst the ascendancy of the state and the securing of education as a central state concern proceeded ultimately with the sanction of the state and in accordance with its objectives it was not a straight forward process in a young nation which was born democratic, but was struggling to consolidate political and cultural unity. The various stages and the ultimate form that education in New Zealand took were closely linked to shifts in the nature and role of the state in its formative years, in the nature of its relationship with civil society, and in its official relationship with Maori. This provided the context and dynamic of the shift to state control as public schooling came to dominate over private or voluntary efforts, and as the particularism of isolated provincial settlements was replaced by a system designed to serve the nation as a whole. Positing conceptual links between the development of national education and the processes of state formation and nation building in a colonizing context, this thesis argues that the institutionally differentiated form that universal education took in New Zealand produced a site through which socially, culturally and ideologically determined conceptions of “normality” would be legitimated and become hegemonic. By nationalizing education to legitimate a culture of uniformity based on a specific set of norms, individual New Zealanders were differentially created according to class, gender and ethnicity, and to physical, intellectual, behavioural and sensory functioning.

It’s like the sun and the tide. The aim of this study was to understand the meaning of ‘being aged’ through the everyday experiences of those who are aged. Philosophically, this interpretive study was informed by hermeneutics and interpretive phenomenology. The writings of two twentieth-century philosophers, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Martin Heidegger, guided the study’s design and research methods. The phenomenon of interest is ‘being aged;’ a thing which is ordinarily taken-for-granted in the everyday. However, much is already spoken and empirically ‘known’ about the phenomenon by those who are not yet aged. Methodologically the study’s design sought to ‘put aside’ those voices and listen in closely to what elders themselves had to say about being in their everyday lives. Individual research conversations were conducted with fifteen participants; four Maori elders aged 71 to 93 and eleven non-Maori elders aged 80 to 97 years. All were living in private residences on Auckland’s North Shore and recruited by way of the general electoral roll. The conversations were focused on gathering the stories of particular everyday events as well as the person’s reflections on aging. Anecdotes drawn from the conversations formed the research text. Hermeneutics informed the interpretive engagement with this text. As a non-Maori researcher, cultural integrity of the text and the interpretations was enhanced through partnership with a Maori advisor. Dwelling hermeneutically with the anecdotal text was a way of listening to the spoken and unspoken words. Four overarching notions were illuminated and form the study’s findings. They are my interpretive descriptions of the ordinary ways of ‘being in the everyday,’ the experiences of ‘being with others’ in advanced age, the announcing of being aged in the uncomfortableness of ‘experiencing the unaccustomed’ and how ‘aging just is’ there in an everyday way. Reflecting phenomenologically on the findings, the meaning of being aged is in its ordinariness. My thesis is that being in the ordinary everyday in advanced age both conceals and reveals the phenomenon of being aged.

Educational activity preceded official British presence in New Zealand. The development of the New Zealand state from crown colony, to a system of relatively autonomous provincial councils, to a centralized administration took place within a period of four decades. Co-terminous with and essential to the state's progressive securing of its authority was the institutionalization of separate national systems of education for Maori and Pakeha. Whilst the ascendancy of the state and the securing of education as a central state concern proceeded ultimately with the sanction of the state and in accordance with its objectives it was not a straight forward process in a young nation which was born democratic, but was struggling to consolidate political and cultural unity. The various stages and the ultimate form that education in New Zealand took were closely linked to shifts in the nature and role of the state in its formative years, in the nature of its relationship with civil society, and in its official relationship with Maori. This provided the context and dynamic of the shift to state control as public schooling came to dominate over private or voluntary efforts, and as the particularism of isolated provincial settlements was replaced by a system designed to serve the nation as a whole. Positing conceptual links between the development of national education and the processes of state formation and nation building in a colonizing context, this thesis argues that the institutionally differentiated form that universal education took in New Zealand produced a site through which socially, culturally and ideologically determined conceptions of “normality” would be legitimated and become hegemonic. By nationalizing education to legitimate a culture of uniformity based on a specific set of norms, individual New Zealanders were differentially created according to class, gender and ethnicity, and to physical, intellectual, behavioural and sensory functioning.