This work explores human consciousness, using a framework of the Structure of Feelings and Experience developed from the work of Raymond Williams and Bernard Smith. It then examines aspects of the consciousness of the Mentally Ill, the Intellectually Disabled, Addicted and Indigenous people, with three aims: 1/. To identify a model of consciousness which reflects the major indicators arising from the structure of feelings and experience, and those arising from consideration of the four subject groups, representing the plurality of human consciousness. 2/. To explore some of the lessons for mainstream citizens, arising from alternative aspects of consciousness, both positive and negative, which these groups exhibit. 3/. To suggest ways the model of consciousness can be used to empower those with mental illness, or intellectual disability, by acknowledging and strengthening their opportunities to take responsibility for their lives. By engaging them more in active roles in the planning and delivery of their health, rehabilitation and community services. And to illustrate some examples of practical applications of person-valuing and spirit-engaging healing and empowering processes, used in groups in Australia and overseas, which point to ways of improving health and rehabilitation policy and practice in Australia / Master of Arts (Hons)

The vesting of pounamu back to Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu brings to the fore a whole new dimension of resource mangement to New Zealand�s wider resource management environment. As is highlighted in this study and noted by a number of academics, Maori people, like other indigenous communities, have their own planning systems values and appropriate processes for decision-making about the environment. But the relevance of such indigenous management systems has long been overlooked by the decision makers and authorities to the continued frustration and anxiety of indigenous peoples. This lack of recognition has been at the fore as a concept fundamental to many indigenous peoples grievances, both past and present. The subsequent vesting of pounamu has brought about the validation that Maori have to resource management rights. In identifying issues associated with the management of natural resources by indigenous peoples, this study provides an examination of number theoretical concepts and a practical dimension associated with the management of natural resources by indigenous peoples and has placed pounamu in context. The placement of pounamu in context has provided the basis from which a number of central issues were identified and discussed. A combination a literature study, analysis of an application traditional knowledge in a contemporary context and in-depth interviews and liaison with key stakeholders involved directly and indirectly in the management of pounmau were undertaken, has established that the management of natural resources by indigenous people is more about the management of number of associated processes rather than about the management of a single commodity, in this instance pounamu. Within these processes there exist a number of complex relationships that reflect the fundamental transaction of power and privilege associated with natural resource management. Further conclusions that this study has made, is the increasing need and importance of legislatures and planning professionals alike to further recognise the validity and become familiar with alternate methods of resource management and the application of indigenous systems and methods.

This thesis approaches the issue of bicultural nationhood as articulated through a Maori/Pakeha binary in Aotearoa/New Zealand by interrogating the deeply entrenched social forms that inform liberal democracy and that institutionalize capitalism in the modern nation-state. More specifically, it explores the concepts of �self-governing people�, �public sphere� and �free market� as three forms of collective agency that discursively construct �society� within the social imaginary and that interact to set the terms of democratic citizenship. Central to this discussion is the indigenous/non-indigenous binary constituting biculturalism and the manifestation of �indigeneity� as both unassimilable difference in the project of modernity and as political struggle for recognition and power. This study elaborates through the mediated texts of the mediasphere and argues that there is a constant relation between nation, culture and class wherein culture-as-difference provides a framework for masking class struggle in capitalist relations of production as well as for enabling the dominant group to discursively construct their own ethnicity as national cultural identity. What is at stake in this discussion is the contrast between cultural difference as it emerges in the performance of everyday life and as reaction to issues of economic marginalization and cultural difference as it is contrived by the nation-state in terms of a Maori/Pakeha binary. The aim of this thesis is to highlight the necessity of difference in cultural identified, labeled and marketed as a fixed concept, but is an ephemeral by-product of ongoing social struggle for survival, recognition and political power. The objective is to undercut current ideological propositions and demand a just, equitable and democratic approach to the conceptualization of nationhood in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The trickster is a powerful figure of transformation in many societies, including Native Canadian and Maori cultures. As a demi-god, the trickster has the ability to assume the shape of a variety of animals and humans, but is typically associated with one particular form. In Native Canadian tribes, the trickster is identified as an animal and can range from a Raven to a Coyote, depending on the tribal mythologies from which he/she is derived. In Maori culture, Maui is the trickster figure and is conceptualised as a human male. In this thesis, I discuss how the traditional trickster is contexualised in the contemporary texts of both Native Canadian and Maori writers. Thomas King, Lee Maracle, Witi Ihimaera, and Patricia Grace all use the trickster figure, and the tricksterish strategies of creation/destruction, pedagogy, and humour to facilitate the decolonisation of culture within the textual realms of their novels. The trickster enables the destruction of stereotyped representations of colonised peoples and the creation of revised portrayals of these communities from an indigenous perspective. These recreated realities aid in teaching indigenous communities the strengths inherent in their cultural traditions, and foreground the use of comedy as an effective pedagogical device and subversive weapon. Although the use of trickster is considerable in both Maori and Native Canadian texts, it tends to be more explicit in the latter. A number of possibilities for these differences are considered.

This thesis is a comparative study of the West�s intellectual responses to the indigenous inhabitants of Australia and New Zealand from the period of first contact through until 1850. The thesis does not attempt a comprehensive history of the West�s encounters with Australasia nor does it attempt to discuss the role of the indigene within these encounters. The thesis does, however, discuss the formulation and expression of those intellectual traditions that informed the Western response to the Maori and Aborigine. Specifically, each chapter addresses a particular aspect of the West�s interaction with the indigenous peoples of Australasia in order demonstrate how the Western narratives of exploration, travel and settlement were informed by the wider discourse of colonialism. Amongst some of the themes addressed in the course of this thesis are: the ideal of the �Good Savage�, the shifting notion of a �Great Chain of Being�, the rise of natural history as a system for classifying human difference and the importance of ideas of savagery in framing the colonial response to the Maori and Aborigine were characterised by similarities and continuities as much as by the more commonly acknowledged differences and discontinuities.

The concept of cultural safety arose in Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu/New Zealand in the late 1980�s in response to the differential health experience and negative health outcomes of the first nation people of Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu/New Zealand, the New Zealand Maori. It was introduced and developed by Maori nurses initially, as they recognised the effect culture had on health and understood safety as a common nursing concept. The concept of cultural safety has developed into a disipline which is taught as part of all nursing and midwifery curricula in Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu/New Zealand. As cultural safety has developed the concept of culture has been extended to include people who differ from the nurse by reason of: age, migrant status, sexual preference, socioeconomic status, religious persuasion, gender, ethnicity, and in Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu/New Zealand, the Treaty of Waitangi status of the nurse and recipient/s of her/his care. Nationally and internationally, health experience and health outcomes are poorer for people of minority group status than for people who are part of the dominant group. Public-health research is therefore generally conducted on, or with, people with minority group status. Public-health researchers, by education, are members of the dominant culture and may be unaware that their own and their clients; responses may relate to one/other or both cultures being diminished do not always ensure the safety of their own culture or the culture being researched. This study�s objective was to develop a flexible, culturally safe public health research framework for researches to use when researching people who are culturally different from themselves. The study will argue that the use of such a framework will contribute significantly to improved health outcomes for people with minority status and will assist the movement towards emancipatory social change. The methods undertaken included: gaining permission from Irihapeti Ramsden, the architect of cultural safety to undertake the research, conducting a literature review, consideration of primary sources and their key concepts, consulting widely with people in the field of public health and cultural safety, self reflecting on the writers own personal and professional experience and finally designing the culturally safe public health research framework.

The world�s indigenous peoples have been subjected to exploitation, discrimination, dispossession, relocation, assimilation and in some cases genocide since contact with the Western world. They have been the victims of an invasion which has since secured their position among the lowest social qualifiers. For centuries, they have been ignored by nation-states throughout the world. However, a new dawn has risen for the first peoples of the world, and for the past two decades thaey have experienced a cultural, political and social revival which has been gaining in popularity, intensity and effectiveness since it�s inception. The politicisation of indigenous movements and their fundamentally local characteristics has occurred at the same time that the world is experiencing a sense of accelerated globalisation. Economic integration through trade agreements has diminished boundaries and has allowed multinational corporations to travel, sell and trade at will. The sense that the world is �one place� has fast become a reality through "the increasing volume and rapidity of the flows of money, goods, people, information, technology and images." (Featherstone, 1995:81) The simultaneous globalisation and localisation of the world seems to be two contradictory phenomenon acting in opposition to one another. However, as several theorists have pointed out, the two are actually related and each to some degree attributes to the existence of the other (Eriksen, 1993:9; Featherstone, 1990:10; Friedman, 1990:327). In fact, indigenous movements themselves, while asserting local issues and rights, have undergone a recent transformation and now attempt to achieve their goals through global strategies. They have expanded their methods and now not only at the community and national levels, but also within the international arena. The Maori and the Native Hawaiians are two groups of indigenous peoples who have been fighting for their rights and land for over a century. Both groups represent small percentages of their nation-states� population. This has forced them to pursue their struggle with creative strategies and persistent, patient pressure. Thus, their struggles have undergone continouos transformations in attempts to discover the most effective formula which would eventually cause their respective nation-states to recognise and address their grievances. Recently, the Maori and the Native Hawaiians, have broadened their movement to incorporate an international tier. Activity on the international level includes international conferences, international visits/exchanges, ratification of indigenous declarations, indigenous networking, and international indigenous solidarity organisations. These activities have increased over the past twenty years as the effectiveness of such activity has also increased. New Zealand, the United States and other nation-states are being held more accountable for past injustices and are being driven to answer to the world�s indigenous community.

The Treaty of Waitangi specifically recognises the rights of Maori to control and manage their fisheries resources. However, since the imposition of fisheries legislation in New Zealand, this right has been consistently eroded. It is only recently that Maori customary fisheries rights have been given a degree of recognition in New Zealand�s fisheries management regime. The taiapure provisions of the Fisheries Act 1996 are one of the few policy initiatives available for Maori to manage their fisheries resources in accordance with their customary tikanga. This study examines the effectiveness of the taiapure legislation in providing for Maori customary fisheries management. The Maketu taiapure in the Bay of Plenty is studied to analyse the implementation of the initiative at the local level. The study has found that there are limitations inherent in the legislation and that these are further complicated by inadequacies in its implementation. Recommendations regarding the size, management and establishment process, are made at the conclusion of the study to highlight the amendments needed for the taiapure provisions to properly recognise and provide for the role of Maori, as Treaty partners, in the management of their local fisheries.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 258-275).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Delaware, 2006. / Principal faculty advisor: Daniel Green, Dept. Political Science & International Relations. Includes bibliographical references.