This thesis draws upon anarchist communist theory in order to provide a historical account of the New Left and the anarchist movement in New Zealand from 1956 to the early 1980s. This account explains, describes and evaluates critically these movements. The praxis of the New Left and the anarchist movement can be explained by a variety of social, economic, political, cultural and psychological factors. However, overall, it is argued that these movements were largely shaped by the underlying antagonisms of global capitalism. Because the New Left emerged during a lull in working-class self-activity, the politics of the early New Left and the anarchist movement from 1956 to the late 1960s were generally reformist and quietist. The later New Left emerged during a global resurgence in class-struggle from 1968 to the early to mid 1970s. Consequently, the demeanour of the later New Left and anarchism during this period was boisterous and ebullient. The New Left in New Zealand was unique in that, compared with the New Left overseas, its major organisations were neither campus-based nor dominated by students. It consisted of young workers and students who jointly established numerous small affinity groups. The early New Left was less action-oriented than the later New Left. It was formed by dissidents from the Old Left and was closely associated with anti-nuclear protest. The later New Left issued from the more confrontational wing of the anti-Vietnam War and anti-apartheid movements, and then dispersed into various new social movements from the early 1970s onwards. The anarchist movement of the 1960s and 1970s was intimately interrelated with the New Left, and hence shared most of its characteristics. This work employs anarchist communism as a theoretical tool to evaluate critically the innovations and limitations of the New Left and the anarchist movement. In particular, the class-based "non-market" anarchist communist theory of Peter Kropotkin is utilised. The main criterion used for judging the New Left and anarchist movement is their emancipatory capacity to spark a process whereby the underlying social relations of capitalism are fundamentally transformed. The key strengths of the New Left and the anarchist movement were their sweepingly broad anti-authoritarianism, their festive politics and their focus upon everyday life. The primary weakness of these movements was their isolation from the working-class. The New Left concentrated on supporting nationalist struggles overseas and mostly overlooked domestic class-struggle. Numerous New Leftists and anarchists championed self-management yet did not question the market and the wage-system. This thesis highlights the complexities of the New Left. For instance, the later New Left was genuinely anti-disciplinarian yet often supported totalitarian Stalinist regimes overseas. As a result, it is argued that the New Left was paradoxically both anti-authoritarian and authoritarian. It is claimed that an updated anarchist communism, integrating the best qualities of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s with classical anarchist communism, is highly relevant today because of the rise of neo-liberalism and the anti-capitalist movement, and the demise of Stalinism and social democracy.

Most adult smokers begin smoking during adolescence; nicotine dependence can develop relatively quickly and, once established, most smokers smoke for approximately 40 years. For adolescents dependent upon nicotine, cessation interventions are not well established. It is, therefore, essential that public health interventions focus on preventing initiation and maintenance and decreasing the prevalence of youth smoking. In spite of legislation to protect New Zealand adolescents, a large proportion continues to use tobacco at least weekly. Recent surveys have shown a slight decrease in cigarette smoking prevalence, overall, but, no reduction and marked increases have been reported within some subgroups. The overall aim of this research was to identify school and personal factors associated with secondary school students smoking. The specific research objectives included: a) identifying factors at the personal, family, peer, school and 'tobacco-genic' environment levels which were associated with regular and established cigarette smoking; b) describing the extent of smoke-free policy and health education programmes in secondary schools; and, c) evaluating the relations between cigarette smoking among students and potential protective factors, smoke-free policies and practices and health education programmes. The research was based on data from 3,434 secondary school students from 82 schools. The multi-stage sampling procedures and data analyses ensured that the results were able to be generalised to the New Zealand secondary school student population. Smoking was more prevalent amongst girls for all measures of smoking frequency and significant differences were found for smoking prevalence between ethnic groups and school decile. In terms of family influences, the smoking behaviours of parents were not associated with increased odds of smoking nor were perceived relationships between students and their parents, or exposure to SHS. In contrast, the smoking behaviour of siblings was associated with increased odds of smoking but it is likely that both student and sibling smoking are both influenced by the same processes within the family. Similarly, low levels of self-concept were not associated with increased odds for daily smoking. The smoking behaviour of a best friend was a pervasive risk factor as was a high level of disposable income, frequent episodes of unsupervised activities, and 'pro-smoking' knowledge. Being male, visiting a place of worship, and the intention to stay at school until after Year 13 reduced the odds of daily smoking among students. Multilevel models were used to identify school level effects. After adjusting for student, family and school characteristics significant between-school variance in smoking prevalence remained and this suggests that there are factors, arguably beyond the immediate control of the student or family that may influence a student�s smoking behaviour. The presence of a school effect also supports the WHO concept of 'health promoting schools' in that schools can make a difference to health outcomes. Understanding how the health promoting schools model has been interpreted and implemented in NZ schools, along with critique of the implementation of the amended legislation making all schools smoke-free, would be a pertinent 'next-step' in identifying characteristics of schools which are associated with decreased tobacco use.

The aims of this study were to find endophytic brown algae in marine macroalgae from New Zealand, isolate them into culture and identify them using morphological as well as molecular markers, to study the prevalence of pigmented endophytes in a representative host-endophyte relationship, and to reveal the ultrastructure of the interface between the obligate parasite Herpodiscus durvillaeae (LINDAUER) SOUTH and its host Durvillaea antarctica (CHAMISSO) HARRIOT. Three species of pigmented endophytic Phaeophyceae were isolated from New Zealand macrophytes. They were distinguished based on morphological characters in culture, in combination with their distribution among different host species and symptoms associated with the infection of hosts. ITS1 nrDNA sequences confirmed the identity of two of the species as Laminariocolax macrocystis (PETERS) PETERS in BURKHARDT & PETERS and Microspongium tenuissimum (HAUCK) PETERS. A new genus and species, Xiphophorocolax aotearoae gen. et sp. ined., is suggested for the third group of endophytic Phaeophyceae. Three genetic varieties of L. macrocystis as well as two varieties each of M. tenuissimum and X. aotearoae were present among the isolates. L. macrocystis and X. aotearoae constitute new records for the marine flora of the New Zealand archipelago, on genus and species level. The red algal endophyte Mikrosyphar pachymeniae LINDAUER previously described from New Zealand is possibly synonymous with Microspongium tenuissimum. The prevalence of infection by Laminariocolax macrocystis was investigated in three populations of Macrocystis pyrifera along the Otago coast. Two of the populations situated inside and at the entrance of Otago Harbour showed high infection rates (average between 95 and 100%), while an offshore population was less infected (average of 35%). The phylogenetic affinities of the parasitic brown alga Herpodiscus durvillaeae, an obligate endophyte of Durvillaea antarctica (Fucales, Phaeophyceae) in New Zealand, were investigated. Analyses combined nuclear encoded ribosomal and plastid encoded RuBisCO genes. Results from parsimony, distance and likelihood methods suggest a placement of this species within the order Sphacelariales. Even though H. durvillaeae shows a reduced morphology, molecular data were supported by two morphological features characteristic for the Sphacelariales: the putative presence of apical cells and the transistory blackening of the cell wall with 'Eau de Javelle'. Ultrastructural sections showed evidence for a symplastic contact between the cells of the parasite H. durvillaeae and its host D. antarctica. Within the host cortex, parasite cells attack the fields of plasmodesmata connecting host cells. In these areas, parasite cells squeeze between the host cells and form secondary plasmodesmata connecting the primary plasmodesmata of the host cells with the cytoplasma of the parasite cell. Moreover, despite being described as lacking pigments, H. durvillaeae possesses a rbcL gene, and its plastids show red autofluorescence in UV light, suggesting the presence of a possibly reduced, but functional photosynthetic apparatus. Vestigial walls between developing spores in the 'secondary unilocular sporangia' of H. durvillaeae confirm the identity of these sporangia as plurilocular gametangia, derived from reduced gametophytes which were entirely transformed into gametangia.

Asylum seekers have become the primary symbols of - as well as participants in - contemporary struggles over geo-political, intellectual and moral terrain. By moving place, by their mere presence in western industrial states, by demanding their refugee status claims be examined, by exposing themselves to all the techniques of scrutiny and evaluation in the presentation of their claims, asylum seekers displace traditional western ways of feeling at 'home,' and of knowing about and acting in the world. In doing so, they reveal the extent to which the legal system of rights upon which the international refugee regime is based is a messy zone of contested demands, refracted by the varying material circumstances and political power of participants. This thesis looks at asylum in Aotearoa New Zealand from the perspective of those most involved; asylum seekers, lawyers, adjudicators, members of non-government organisations and medical professionals. Situated mid-way between abstract human rights talk and the details of individual claims, it presents refugee status determination as a complex negotiation through culturally-laden frameworks of understanding and operation that are as prevalent as they are often camouflaged. In doing so, it explores how we are to evaluate the credibility and legitimacy of representations of the cultural 'other.'

Increased functional diversity has been linked to an increase in ecosystem level processes (ELPs), such as productivity, ecosystem reliability and invasion resistance. However, there has been no exact definition of functional diversity and it is not known which indices are appropriate for its measurement. Consequently, continuous indices have rarely been applied in examination of relationships between functional diversity and ELPs and little is known of the mechanisms linking functional diversity to ELPs. This thesis begins by providing an exact definition of functional diversity, identifying its primary components and devising appropriate continuous indices for the measurement of these components. These indices are used to examine relationships between functional diversity and three ELPs - biomass production, the reliability of biomass production and invasion resistance. Initially these examinations are conducted using a mechanistic community assembly and dynamic model. This model is based on physiological and morphological character data for species occurring in the short-tussock grassland communities of the Luggate field experiment, in the southern South Island, New Zealand. Finally, relationships between functional diversity, mean annual community cover and the reliability of cover are examined in the Luggate field experiment. Functional composition (i.e. the actual functional characters of the species within a community) appeared to exercise the greatest influence on ecosystem reliability in the community assembly and dynamic model. However, there was evidence that functional diversity increased the reliability of productivity via the co-variance effect. Functional composition also exercised the greatest influence over mean annual productivity in the model, almost completely accounting for the negative relationship between functional diversity and mean annual productivity. These results are respectively analogous to the positive and negative selection effects seen in species richness / ELP relationships. Both functional diversity and functional composition influenced community invasion resistance in the model. Here, increased functional diversity acted to increase community resistance to invasion. In the Luggate field experiment, neither functional diversity nor functional composition was related to mean annual cover, though species richness was positively related to it. Increased functional diversity acted to increase the reliability of cover. However, this did not appear to occur via the co-variance effect, but as a result of increased functional diversity increasing consistency in the species composition of experimental plots through time. These results demonstrate that studies examining functional diversity must account for the effects of species identity. A framework is proposed to accommodate selection effects associated with functional diversity / ELP relationships. The usefulness of the co-variance effect as a testable mechanism linking functional diversity to ecosystem reliability in the field is questionable, as there is no objective way of measuring it.

This thesis describes and demonstrates the use of discourse analysis as a means of facilitating critical awareness and stimulating research practice within a consumer research context. In a generic sense, discourse analysis applies to a range of semiotic methods for studying text (including talk, writing and visual images), where the objective is to gain insight into both the meanings of a text and what it signifies. Emphasis is placed on the constructive use of language, where texts of various kinds are said to construct our social world. Two approaches to discourse analysis are detailed. Firstly, Foucauldian discourse analysis is shown to operate more generally and globally as a social and cultural resource that underpins many human endeavours and activities. Under this approach, discourses are seen as resources that interact with one another. Foucauldian discourse analysis is therefore quite a different enterprise from the finer-grained investigation of talk and texts that is undertaken in discourse analysis and discursive psychology. Instead, discourses are treated as being dynamic in nature, having the ability to mutate over time, and gain dominance in certain settings and cultural locations. Discourse analysis under this approach facilitates critical awareness because it seeks to uncover the ways in which such discourses produce, maintain and constrain people within particular positions and relationships. Secondly, a discursive psychological approach to discourse analysis focuses on the strategic use of discourse within a particular piece of text, where interaction and the acknowledgement of such interaction by the researcher underscores the importance of language and the ways that people purposefully and strategically use language to achieve particular outcomes or goals. A discursive psychological approach focuses upon discursive practices and constructions, rather than cognitive-perceptual processes. A discourse analytic approach is therefore able to potentially redefine and stimulate current research practice. Psychological phenomena that might have traditionally been framed and studied as 'cognitive' and 'internal' processes can be recast as particular situated discursive accomplishments that people are able to draw upon. Because analysis is not subject to what may be termed 'cognitive reductionism' (where attempts to explain social events and processes are made entirely by reference to events and structures in the mental processes of individuals), a discursive analytic approach suggests new insights into current research practice. The specific context for analysis within this thesis is provided by an advertising campaign for Xenical, a pharmaceutical product promoted as a treatment for obesity. Xenical was one of the first prescription medications to be marketed directly to consumers in New Zealand via the use of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA), a relatively recent form of marketing communication. The Xenical advertising campaign created both controversy and high awareness for the product. Contributing to this controversy was the overt use of DTCA itself, which critics suggest influences patient demand, encourages the use of expensive and sometimes unnecessary medications and in effect, 'creates' disease. As argued here, positioning obesity as a disease in effect justifies (warrants) the pharmaceutical industry�s efforts to offer medical solutions. In addition to the use of DTCA, the nature of the Xenical advertisements was also controversial. Critics suggested that the Xenical advertisements were based upon negative emotions, associating the state of being overweight with feelings of sadness, shame and embarrassment. These 'emotions' become a key subject in the current study. But in this thesis, rather than viewing such emotions as internal and mental phenomena, the use of discourse analysis focuses on the socio-cultural nature of emotions. Discourse analysis is concerned with uncovering the ways in which bodily sensations are rendered into language and what the subsequent implications for the speaker might be as a result. Using the advertising campaign for Xenical as context then, discourse analysis is used as a research approach to examine the television advertisements from multiple perspectives. Analysis includes the study of the casting tapes that were used by the advertising agency as source material to inform the creative strategy for the advertisements. In addition, one of the Xenical advertisements is deconstructed in greater detail, outlining the effects of visual and aural discourses that weave together to convey meaning within the advertisement. Analysis is informed by interviews conducted with the creative director of the advertisements as well as the marketing manger for Xenical. Discourse analysis allows us to examine the ways in which the producers of an advertisement purposefully (although perhaps unknowingly) create particular effects for strategic reasons, and how advertisements may be subsequently read as a consequence. The final analysis is based on a reader-response to the advertising campaign. Analysis focuses on the �emotional� talk contained within a particular interview, and how talk functions as performance. Rather than treating emotional talk as a description or reflection of inner psychological worlds, discourse analysis examines participant talk in terms of its content and meanings and how participants use such talk to construct their worlds. Although often overlooked within traditional forms of consumer research, the importance of representing social interaction through detailed interview transcripts is demonstrated, underscoring the analysis provided. Results suggest that the language of description and the methods of data capture that are typically utilised within consumer research are not able to provide an accurate account of the external world. This is because the only way we can know our world is always going to be mediated by and through language, and as a consequence, the meanings and interpretations available to us are never going to be transparent or neutral representations. The findings suggested in this thesis are intended as a starting point for subsequent research into the study of language in use and human meaning making within advertising and consumer research environments. Because consumer research has borrowed heavily from the social sciences and particularly from psychology, then it is important that researchers within the discipline re-examine many of the psychological topics that we commonly take for granted by considering the way such talk and text is used in action. Discourse analysis provides a research approach that enables such a re-examination.

Dress and appearance constitute the visual realm in the dialectic of identity construction and are powerful communicators in this process, since dress and appearance are the symbolic means by which we locate ourselves and others through interaction within social contexts. Dress is used to differentiate and create boundaries for group belonging and exclusion, and in the uniform has been understood to have a capacity to suppress individuality and to identify the wearer with objectives beyond the self. Adolescence is a time of intense identity work and in New Zealand coincides with secondary schooling during which school uniforms are usually worn. Is freedom in dress necessary for development of personal identity? The effects of same-dressing on identity development in adolescence were investigated in the context of the history, practice, and meanings of school uniform in New Zealand secondary schools. This was investigated through a nationwide survey, analysis of selected school photographs and records, interviews with students, review of legal and bureaucratic structures supporting the practice, and review of the literature of school uniforms, and education and social history of New Zealand. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods contributed to analysis of both dress practices in wider New Zealand contexts, and more personal use of dress in the formation of personal identity. Analysis of school uniforms as mechanisms of power, constituting both the student and the self, drew on symbolic interactionist theory and on Foucault�s later interpretations of power, while also linking material culture and social structures. New Zealand has a strong and continuing tradition of school uniform in secondary schools, yet this practice is characterised by change, variety, and differences, challenging the sameness which uniforms are supposed to embody. Meanings and functions of uniforms have changed considerably over the twentieth century, evolving through extreme and diverse expressions of the expectations of social, political, and education systems towards their young people, and mediated in turn by students themselves. While school uniforms both manifest and mediate the power of the school over the bodies of children, the power embodied in uniforms is not always and only a repressive power, but is also a generative, productive power. Students described uniforms as a form of shelter and protection, embodying belonging and participation in the school and a projected future of success and engagement in adult society and work. Uniforms also maintained a breadth of possibilities consistent with a fluid class system and egalitarian ideals of New Zealand society. While students believed self-expression essential for the formation of a self, they believed this need could be met through the use of minor differences in uniforms, while uniforms allowed them to retain the advantages of group belonging. Schools allowing some personal expression effectively strengthened the sense of belonging and participation, by maintaining the individual in positive relation to the group. The interaction that creates a self consists in symbols, involving meanings, appearances, and communication: differences and similarities from part of these complex interactions.

The flora of New Zealand has evolved largely in the absence of terrestrial mammals, the predominant frugivore guilds being birds and reptiles. The evolution of divergent fruit traits in New Zealand may be a consequence of different selection pressure by these two guilds, and two contrasting putative dispersal syndromes have been proposed for New Zealand fleshy fruited plants. Coprosma (Rubiaceae: subtribe Coprosminae) is a speciose and morphologically diverse genus, which is distributed throughout the South Pacific and which also produces variably coloured drupes. It was selected as a model genus to investigate the evolution of fruit traits within this context. For this purpose, a molecular phylogeny for the subtribe Coprosminae and Coprosma was inferred using parsimony, likelihood and split decomposition analysis on sequences from the 16rps intron of cpDNA and ETS and ITS region of nrDNA. Up to 32 species were included in the subtribal analyses, whilst 53 species of Coprosma were used in subgeneric studies. The basis for the variety of fruit colours seen in New Zealand was determined using histology and pigment extractions. To test the assumption that fruit traits among species evolved in concert under selection from frugivore guilds, fruit shape, size and nutrient composition were determined in order to test predictions that these would co-vary with fruit colour. In the Coprosminae, fleshy drupes have arisen from dry fruited schizocarps and with two possible reversals to semi-dry drupes. Within Coprosma, fruit colour was found to be evolutionarily labile and varied both among and within lineages, particularly within two main groups where fruit colour had shifted from orange to blue and white, or red, pink and black colours respectively. The evolution of novel (non-orange) fruit colours was restricted to New Zealand, as was the small-leaved, divaricate growth form, the combination of which has been associated with a putative reptile dispersal syndrome. Several trans-oceanic dispersals out of New Zealand were also inferred from the phylogeny, these extending into Australia, New Guinea and Hawai�i. In these instances, fruit colour did not appear change markedly after establishment in a new country. Within New Zealand, fruit sizes were found to vary with colour as predicted, although the majority of species produced small (< 8 mm), elliptical fruits. There was no clear association between fruit colour and fruit nutrient composition. It would appear that these small, succulent, carbohydrate-rich and lipid-poor fruits cater to a wide range of generalist frugivores. The variety of fruit colours in Coprosma stemmed from qualitative and quantitative differences in carotenoid and anthocyanin composition. The genetic basis for the control of these pathways is currently unknown, but it is assumed that a few regulatory genes can control a substantial amount of phenotypic variation. Considering the evolutionary history of Coprosma, it would appear that a history of recent and rapid speciation, hybridisation and reticulate evolution may have increased the tempo of fruit colour evolution in the genus.

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) was introduced to inform decision-makers of the potential environmental effects of the decision before them. It has been adopted worldwide and functions as one of the primary instruments for taking account of environmental consequences in project approval decision-making. To date, there has been very little systematic investigation that explores whether the decision-makers for whom the EIA information is produced actually use it, although there are indications that EIA information is not always effective in influencing decisions. This thesis examines how, and indeed if, environmental effects information influences the decision-making processes for which it is produced, and which factors determine the use of this information. Three main areas of concern are identified and investigated: the responses of individual decision-makers to environmental effects information; the characteristics of the effects information that influence these responses; and the processes by which the effects information is dealt with. At the core of the methodology employed for this research is the development of an exploratory model of EIA-based decision-making. This model builds on the insights into decision processes from a variety of disciplines, including psychology and planning. To test the utility of the model, it is evaluated against the New Zealand system of resource consent approval decision-making under the Resource Management Act, by means of case studies. Through interviews, direct observation, and analysis of written documents the decision processes in these cases are analysed. These techniques have been augmented by psychosocial methods that allow further probing into the decision processes that takes place in a decision-maker�s head. The research results show that the effort that is spent on the preparation of EIA reports and the improvement of EIA processes is not wasted. The EIA information clearly influences the decision processes for which it is intended but it is not influencing decisions optimally. EIA information often competes with information on environmental effects from other sources that is of higher quality, more credible, or better tailored to the decision-makers� information needs. A number of ways in which the use of EIA information could be enhanced is explored in this thesis. Foremost, the improvement of the effectiveness of EIA requires a wider adoption of a decision-making perspective on EIA, and a broader recognition of the information needs of the different decision processes for which EIA is prepared.

This thesis explores the nature of public access rights for outdoor recreation in New Zealand. It aims to improve understanding of these rights by examining the New Zealand public policy framework for public access, the social constructions of access rights and the interaction of these dimensions via analysis of two contemporary New Zealand access issues: the foreshore access debate and the state-sponsored Land Access Review. An institutional arrangements framework forms the study�s conceptual basis and is critiqued for its value in the examination of rights of public access. Multiple qualitative methods were employed to collect data, including interviews with access actors, submission analysis, examination of public policy documents and critical interpretation of the access discourse within the mass media. Key themes from the international access literature are identified and the disparate nature of much of this research is highlighted. Within New Zealand, public access represents an area of research neglect. This thesis provides the first comprehensive study of rights of public access for outdoor recreation in New Zealand. A threshold has been reached in the evolution of access rights in New Zealand. Societal changes are perceived to be reducing the public�s traditional rights to access land for outdoor recreation. Owing to the importance of these rights within conceptions of New Zealand national identity, the Government is codifying access rights in a bid to protect them. Thus a shift in access arrangements is occurring, from reliance upon social customs to increasing use of public policy instruments. Access rights are being renegotiated within a highly contested environment. The debate is being staged within the political arena and via the national news media; access has become a significant national issue. As a result, the level of engagement has shifted from localised access transactions between landholders and recreationists, to a national discussion regarding competing rights to land. Access actors have reacted in different ways to the reforms of access arrangements, driven by the manner in which the proposals affect their property rights, social values and norms. Some reactions have been strident and confrontational. Inadequate public policy arrangements for access have created the 'space' for these multiple social constructions of access to develop. Convergence of a disparate and poorly enforced access public policy framework with varying social representations of access rights is influencing the access outcomes. The 'place' of public access within New Zealand society occurs at the intersection of several strongly-held cultural traditions, including private property rights, Maori customary rights, and a belief that it is a birthright to freely access the outdoors. The tension between these values underpins New Zealand�s unique (and changing) manifestation of the rights of the public to access land for recreation.