This study examines aspects of how dental therapy began and developed, since it was introduced as one of the first public health occupations in New Zealand, in 1921. Dental therapy began as dental nursing, and was introduced by visionary dentists in order to treat widespread dental disease within the New Zealand population. The occupation gained international recognition. Dental nurses performed their tasks under the direct supervision and direction of a public health dentist and the occupation was restricted to females and child-patients. Investigating issues that have influenced the development of dental therapy is critical in today�s climate. Background research in the thesis reveals an interplay of issues relating to gender, professional development and measures of how successful the occupation has been in relation to oral health need. The latter is particularly questionable for our indigenous people in New Zealand. How has the role of the dental therapist in New Zealand been utilised? Has the delivery of care been based on sound knowledge and dental need? Has the role progressed in order to provide effective and appropriate care within a publicly funded system? These issues are important issues, particularly when New Zealand�s dental therapy profession becomes one of the many health professions that will be affected by the new Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act when it is implented over the following year. In order to improve oral health for the population, it is vital that the dental therapist is appropriately and effectively utilised. How oral health workers perceive the past role and future role in achieving oral health gain is investigated in this study by using interviews and postal surveys, and the results are discussed. The findings show that the dental therapist has not always been utilised and developed using sound epidemiological evidence. Elements of professional protection by the dental profession coupled with depleted health funding rather than dental need have appeared as driving factors. Furthermore, the dental therapy profession has remained in a sub-ordinate role to the dental profession. The findings of this study show that a large number of the current dental therapy workforce do not feel that they are ready to provide dental care autonomously. Information in the thesis argues that past legislation and subordination to the dental profession has largely affected the development of dental therapy, and whether this has always assisted in improving oral health for the New Zealand population is questioned in this work. With a depleted number in the workforce, the role has become focussed on a reparative form of care, not one that promotes and improves oral health. This is not acceptable in a publicly funded system. Implementing changes to the dental therapy role must be undertaken, but undertaken with caution and based on progressive health-promoting ideology.

This thesis describes a systemic approach to the study of shell remains, using material from the site of Shag Point (J43/11), in North Otago. This approach analyses the relationship between sampling, identification, quantification, and site formation processes. An historical and methodological framework is used to assess the analysis of shell-bearing deposits in New Zealand, and provide innovative solutions to bias. Historical research outlines the common research methods in New Zealand, which are relevant to Shag Point. Methodological research outlines the range of potential research methods used in the study of shell-bearing deposits. Reviewing the data from Shag Point, sampling, identification, quantification, and site formation processes are used to assess the quality of data from the site. Data from coastal sites are commonly used to generate regional level syntheses. These syntheses do not deal with all of the possible sources of bias in shell-bearing deposits. Cumulative sampling is used to assess representativeness. The data from Shag Point are indicative of a representative sample. The site is compared to three other coastal southern South Island assemblages: the nearby Shag River Mouth, Pleasant River, and Pounawea. The data from Shag River Mouth may be representative; the same cannot be said for the Pleasant River and Pounawea archaeological assemblages, thus hampering regional-level syntheses.

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 assesses the historical and current legislative provision for including nga iwi Maori in the management of national parks. The method of assessment is one of comparison between the legislative provisions and the guarantees promised to nga iwi Maori in te Tiriti o Waitangi. Part One, Chapter One, establishes the relevance of te Tiriti o Waitangi to the management of national parks. This chapter is designed to act as the benchmark for the assessment of national park legislation. Part Two outlines the early national park legislation. Chapter Two begins by focusing on the emergence of the national park estate in the late nineteenth, and early twentieth, centuries. Chapter Three focuses on the first consolidated national park statute, the National Parks Act 1952. Part Three assesses the present statutory provision for including nga iwi Maori in national park management. Chapter Four focuses on the original provisions of the National Parks Act 1980. Chapters Five, Six and Seven focus respectively on the major statutory amendments since made to the National Parks Act 1980: the Conservation Act 1987, the Conservation Law Reform Act 1990, and the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998. Chapter Eight turns to assess national park management documents. Part Four, Chapter Nine, concludes by exploring how legislation could be used in the future to provide for the Tiriti right of nga iwi Maori to be included in the management of national parks.

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.

This thesis sets out to examine issues of selectivity and availability in fishing and shellfish gathering by pre-European Maori at Triangle Flat in western Golden Bay. Faunal remains from four archaeological sites have revealed new and valuable information about economic subsistence practices in this region. It is proposed that exploitation of these important coastal resources was based on factors other than the availability of, proximity to resource patches. Evidence from the Triangle Flat sites is compared to that from Tasman Bay and the southern North Island to gain a regional perspective on fishing and shellfish gathering strategies. The most definitive evidence for selective targeting is provided by tuatua, an open beach species that has been found to dominate in sites based adjacent to tidal mud and sand flats. Also of interest is the dominance of mud snail in a site that is adjacent to large cockle and pipi beds. When regional sites were examined it was found that this pattern was also recorded for the site of Appleby in Tasman Bay. Selectivity in fishing strategies is also apparent with red cod and barracouta dominating the Triangle Flat assemblages. This pattern conforms to evidence from both eastern Golden Bay and Tasman Bay but does not reflect evidence from the southern North Island. Of particular interest is the apparent dearth of snapper in the sites at Triangle Flat, since snapper abounds in the area today. An explanation based on climatic change is considered to be the most feasible. This indicates that enviromentalal availability was at least in part responsible for the archaeological evidence of fishing. The consistency of the catch of red cod and barracouta in Golden Bay, and the pattern of shellfishing preferentially for tuatua suggests that cultural choice was also a significant selective factor.

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.

This research critically engages with the history and practice of Maatua Whangai within Aotearoa/New Zealand. Specifically it focusses on Maatua Whangai O Otepoti, examining the discourses of care-givers within this context. Further, this research is constructed within a Maori world view of both traditional fostercare practices and State interpretations of those practices. Case studies of the discourses of caregivers within the Maatua Whangai Programme are described and articulated in terms of kaupapa Maori research methods. The data generated identifies the discourses of the caregivers and their desire to have their voices heard. In contrast, the discourse of the state is examined in the light of reports such as Puao-Te-Ata-Tu (1986), and the work of Bradley (1994) and Ruwhiu (1995). It is argued that any shift in the current dominance of power relationships surrounding the Maatua Whangai Programme and fostercare practices in relation to Maori would entail a strengthening of ties between service providers, Iwi and the Crown. This would go some way towards redressing Crown dominance of Maori fostercare practices. Keywords: Maatua Whangai, Fostercare, Tamaiti Whangai, Maori, Iwi, Power, Dominance.

Achieving �justice� is the overriding aim of the Treaty settlement process. This process was established to resolve Maori historical grievances against the New Zealand Crown for alleged breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. Because historical injustices involve the interactions of cultures over time, justice in the Treaty settlement process is shaped, and constrained, by two main factors: �culture� and �time�. The settlement of Ngai Tahu�s historical grievances, and in particular the return of pounamu as part of the settlement, achieved a large measure of this limited kind of justice. The Ngai Tahu settlement and the return of pounamu suggest that Treaty settlements are achieving, and may continue to achieve, a large measure of the justice available in the Treaty settlement process. Examination of the return of pounamu to Ngai Tahu reveals, however, that new injustices may have been created in the Ngai Tahu settlement. These new injustices are critically analysed, and recommendations for maximising justice in the Treaty settlement process are suggested. If Treaty settlements are to achieve the maximum justice available in the Treaty settlement process, the Treaty partners must heed the warning signs arising from the possible creation of new injustices in the Ngai Tahu settlement.