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.

The primary aim of this thesis Me he korokoro kōmako [‘With the throat of a bellbird’] is to demonstrate the existence of a distinctive Māori aesthetic in Māori literature written in English. Its introductory section, of three chapters, investigates the ways in which mainstream critical discourse in various ways appropriates Māori literature to its own Western-derived models of meaning and values, and proposes instead a definition of a Māori aesthetic grounded in the principle of whakapapa, whose whole cultural components for Māori literature include distinctive textual functions for myth, orality, acts of naming, other aspects of language, and symbolism. The concept of whakapapa also provides the organizing principle and methodology of the central chapters of the thesis, which are divided into two Parts – each of six chapters. These are framed by a Prologue and Epilogue, whose subject is the profound cultural symbolism of the waka in the work of a founding figure for Māori writing in English, Jacqueline Sturm, and in Star Waka, by a major later writer in English, Robert Sullivan. Part One devotes three chapters each to the adult fiction of one female writer, Patricia Grace (Potiki and Baby No-Eyes), and one male writer, Witi Ihimaera (The Matriarch). Part Two, following the principle of whakapapa, devotes six chapters to Māori literature for children. Its primary text is the major anthology of such writing – Te Ara O Te Hau: The Path of the Wind, Volume 4 of Te Ao Mārama, edited by Witi Ihimaera, with Haare Williams, Irihapeti Ramsden and D.S. Long. It grounds its reading of the volume’s many texts (literary and visual, in Māori and in English) in the many distinctive cultural behaviours and meanings attached to the figure of Māui. Each of the authors and texts has been chosen in order to study and exemplify a particular aspect of the Māori aesthetic defined in the Introduction, through close readings which draw strongly on the work of major Māori social historians, authors of iwi histories and genealogies, and interpreters of cultural meanings attaching to the natural worlds, and recent work on literary stylistics by Geoffrey Leech and others. It also draws on conversations with numerous Māori informants, including some of the authors discussed. The readings are designed to reveal the rich, culturally contextualised knowledges which Māori readers bring to the texts, and which their authors share and invoke through their deployment of the values and practices of whakapapa. While such representations and explorations of self offer new interpretive possibilities for Pākehā readers, they are also part of a global movement in which indigenous peoples engage in the politics of decolonisation from a position of strength, the stance of self-knowledge. E kore e hekeheke he kākano rangatira Our ancestors will never die for they live on in each of us. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

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 thesis is an investigation of writing by New Zealand children in the Children's Pages of five New Zealand newspapers: the New Zealand Herald, Christchurch Press and Otago Daily Times in the 1930s and 1980s, the Dominion in the 1930s; and the Wellington Evening Post in the 1980s. Its purpose is to show how children reflected their world, interacted with editors, and interpreted the adult world in published writing, and to examine continuities and changes between the 1930s and 1980s. It seeks evidence of gender variations in writing. and explores the circumstances in which the social role of writing was established by young writers. It considers the ways in which children (especially girls) consciously and unconsciously used public writing to create a public place for themselves. It compares major themes chosen by children, their topic and genre preferences in writing, and the gender and age differences evident in these preferences. The thesis is organised into three Parts, with an Introduction discussing the scholarly background to the issues it explores, and its methodology. Part One contains two chapters examining the format and tone of each Children's Page. And the role and influence of their Editors. Part Two (also of two chapters) investigates the origins and motivations of the young contributors, with a special focus on the Otago Daily Times as a community newspaper. Part Three. of four chapters, explores the children's writing itself, in separate chapters on younger and older children, and a chapter on the most popular genre, poetry. The conclusion suggests further areas of research, and points to the implications of the findings of the thesis for social history in New Zealand and for classroom practice. The thesis contains a Bibliography and an Appendix with a selection of writings by Janet Frame and her family to the Otago Daily Times Children's Page in the 1930s. / Note: Whole document restricted at the request of the author, but available by individual request, use the feedback form to request access.

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 establishes a natural acquisition order for 18 nominal structures in Mandarin SLA, and assesses the extent to which that order can be explained as a consequence of cognitive processing demands. The natural acquisition order is based on a longitudinal study of three adults learning Mandarin in a classroom environment in Auckland, New Zealand. Two representatives of an average emergence order are derived from the three individual orders: a ranking of mean emergence times (RMT) and a ranking of mean emergence ranks (RMR). Processing demands are calculated in three different ways: once on the basis of six developmental stages identified in Pienemann’s Processability Theory (Pienemann, 1998c), once on the basis of a detailed analysis of each nominal structure according to the generative grammar of LFG (Bresnan, 1982, 2001); and finally on the basis of the Minimalist Programme (Chomsky 1995; 1999; 2000). All rest upon a prior analysis of lexical feature structures and constituent structures evident in the learner’s output over the course of a year. The standard six-stage model of Processability Theory proves unable to differentiate between most nominal structures, because they fall within the single developmental category of so-called ‘phrasal’ structures. However, processing demands calculated on the basis either of LFG or of the MP prove to be highly correlated with both individual and average emergence orders. On the basis of these results, various generalisations are made about the relevance of different kinds of syntactic processes to the determination of emergence order. In particular, c-structural complexity and thematic structure are found to be factors most significantly associated with later emergence times. LFG and MP each provide interesting insights into different aspects of syntactic processing that impact on the acquisition of a second language; LFG throws light on the significance of the grammaticalisation of thematic structure; the MP throws light on the processes of lexical construction, and the interactions between this and constituent structure. Both indicate the significance of delays in feature valuation or unification as c-structural complexity increases.

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.