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Insight into consumer behaviour
Full text linkThe way that individuals clothe their bodies is an active process, with decision making going into what clothing to purchase. With the current drive towards creating a more sustainable fashion industry, the research here asks, what makes people retain clothing items and continue wearing them over several years?
During Fashion Revolution week 2019, interviews were conducted in the Waikato region, Aotearoa New Zealand, across a range of genders, ethnicities and ages. Participants were asked to identify their most loved item of clothing and their understanding of ethical and sustainable fashion.
Through a series of short case studies this paper seeks to show how, while it might be the visual, such as colour and texture, or the practical, that play a role in initially purchasing a piece of clothing, items of clothing that are kept, treasured and worn over several years have a deeper meaning in relation to the identity of the individual.
Themes such as memory and a sense of place are examined here in relation to the key role they play in an individual treasuring clothing from the past, wearing it in the present and keeping it for the future.
The aim here is to show insight, along with a possible vision for the future of sustainable clothing, encouraging consumers to create love stories with clothing, hereby engaging with sustainable practices
New Chinese immigrants in New Zealand: Floating families?
No full textThis book focuses on new immigrant families from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to New Zealand and investigates how these new Chinese migrants have adapted to NZ immigration policy regime, which does not accommodate their cultural preference to live as multi-generational families.
The book analyzes a three-generation framework: first-generational immigrants parents, their children and older parents. It examines how migratory mobility and inter-generational dynamics configure migratory trajectories of individual family members and shape immigrants’ family life and sense of identity. The book also sheds light on how the different generations pursue their own interests and goals while maintaining family unity and cohesiveness in contexts of increasing mobility opportunities and constraints. Finally, the authors investigate how familial ties, transnational connections and a sense of identity and belonging being defined and redefined during the process of transnational migration. This book serves as a heuristic reference to and meaningful comparative parameter for studying family migration in other contexts.
A significant theoretical contribution to the theory of transnational family formation in contexts where restrictive immigration policies result in members of multi-generational families living across different countries, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of sociology, anthropology, race and ethnic studies as well as Asian and Chinese studies
Mum's kitchen: Scoring loss in a contemporary New Zealand musical
Full text linkThis paper functions in part as an exegesis of a recently premiered New Zealand musical, Mum’s Kitchen, which was collaboratively written and composed by a team of four creatives (Nick Braae, composer-lyricist; Kyle Chuen, librettist; Jeremy Mayall, orchestrator; David Sidwell, composer). The show centres around three brothers who return to their family farm after their Mum passes away, and they must settle the estate, while processing their various states of grief for their childhood home and family. Mum’s Kitchen treads relatively familiar New Zealand theatrical ground, then, in terms of exploring themes of masculinity, emotional performance, and familial communication.
The question of a distinct New Zealand musical language is one that has occupied writers for many years, and this becomes even more pressing in an idiom (musical theatre) that has such a limited tradition in this country (di Somma, 2016) – in other words, how to write musical theatre songs to tell a distinctly New Zealand story when such a musical language (arguably) does not exist? While the musical was not created to answer this question, the creative responses of the two primary composers (Braae and Sidwell) provides some answers to this question, which, in turn, is revealing of how style and compositional choices are perceived to function in a musical.
Taking its cue from Murphy (2014), this paper analyses the songs in Mum’s Kitchen that directly addresses themes of loss and nostalgia. I suggest that despite the different composers on the project, there is a unified set of strategies as to how loss is “scored” into the songs: use of “anachronistic” styles (such as the country waltz) to evoke a past era, and a collection of contemporary harmonic devices (open chord voicings, harmonic ambiguity) that evoke emptiness and uncertainty
Convenor of creative practice at/and the In-Betweens Research Symposium, Wintec, 1 July 2021.
Full text linkCreative practitioners within a tertiary education context may identify a number of strands of in-betweens in their existence. For some, this takes the form of multi-, inter-, or trans-disciplinary practices: producing work that fuses and utilises different media to articulate a singular meaning; or exploring how different forms of knowledge can be used to solve a common problem. In other instances, the in-between may be result of cross- and multi-cultural creative dialogue: how different artistic traditions and cultural practices can be brought into a fruitful embrace; or how one locates a space, metaphorical or literal, between different cultural identities.
We might also reflect on our dual roles as creative practitioners and educators – how do our experiences in each
area of life relationally inform and shape the other? Or, alternatively, what experiences should be informing the other? How does artistic practice relate to best teaching practice? On a final and related point, there is the ever- pressing role that Te Pūkenga – not only as an educational institution but as an educational framework – might play in influencing creative practice and how those skills and knowledge are taught and researched. What are the different regional artistic voices within Aotearoa? What do they look and sound like? And how might they operate within a national context?
While we should not be so presumptuous to think that answers to these questions will necessarily materialise today, it is hoped that there may be room for contemplation and discussion at the very least. Moreover, we hope that the sharing of perspectives, methodologies, and projects in these realms may spark interest and connections amongst participants, with a view of developing further collaborations, extending artistic work, and demonstrating the need for creative arts research within our sector and society at this time
Bold words, a hero or a traitor? – Fang Fang’s diaries of the Wuhan lockdown on Chinese social media
No full textThe central Chinese city of Wuhan was the initial epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first city to experience lockdown. The 11 million residents of Wuhan were locked down for seventy-six consecutive days, beginning in late January 2020. Fang Fang, a well-known Chinese writer, as well as a resident of the city published her personal accounts of the lockdown experience in the form of diaries on Weibo and WeChat, two of the most popular Chinese social media platforms. At the beginning, the diaries were well-received by Chinese netizens because of their bold critique of social injustice, corruption, abuse of power, and other sensitive issues in China that deterred the efficient government response to the pandemic. However, soon after the diaries were translated in English and German and published with a fast-track process overseas, Chinese public views towards the diaries drastically swung against it. Many initial supporters turned to express their concerns and suspicions of the intention of the publication. The prevailing opinion was that the writing sabotaged China’s efforts to fight the pandemic and fed into conspiracy theories and wider anti-China political sentiment. The author was criticised as an opportunist and traitor who capitalised on the health crisis to enhance her own credentials. In Chinese social media, a polarised reception of the diaries emerged.
This chapter explores how the diaries have provided a rare discursive site for the Chinese public to engage in political deliberations and ideological debate on democratic liberalism and populist patriotism which co-exist in contemporary China. Empirical data includes some key commentary articles1 about the diaries from both sides of arguments that circulated on WeChat and the responses these articles attracted. The chapter also explores some of the lived experiences during lockdown, as described in Fang Fang’s diaries
The potential contribution of soy isoflavones in the health of menopausal women, revealing the avenues for soy food manufacturing industry
Full text linkMost of the women above the age of 45years are experiencing the consequences of natural menopause.
Menopausal women simultaneously face the challenge of menopausal symptoms plus the risk associated with non-communicable diseases. Cardiovascular diseases and
steoporosis are abundant. Natural remedies are sought widely for this condition rejecting hormone replacement therapy blaming the risks associated. The intake of soybean isoflavones is the best choice as the natural treatment strategy for both symptom relief and disease prevention. This review focused on general information about soy isoflavones, their impact on menopausal health, isoflavone contents in different soy food, and their manufacturing suggestions. Founded in the literature evidence, soy food and isoflavones are satisfactorily effective and secure for menopausal health
Youth in care with emotional and behavioural challenges: Alternative pathways to tertiary education
Full text linkThis article aims to start a discussion on whether an alternative pathway to tertiary education can be found for
New Zealand youth who are in care and who are experiencing mental health and/or behavioural difficulties and,
more specifically, conduct problems. Our purpose is to challenge the conventional approaches to education and
to propose a method that could support the development of more tailored and effective educational pathways.
These proposed, potentially more effective, pathways would see youth in care – who would not ordinarily achieve
New Zealand’s National Certificate of Education Achievement (NCEA) levels 1 and 2 (due to externalising
behaviours which impact progress to tertiary education) – gain success in these qualifications
Effect of shroud in plasma spraying on chemical composition and thickness of titanium coatings
Full text linkTitanium and its alloys are wildly used in industries. Shrouded plasma spray can be considered as a useful technology to produce low oxide containing titanium coatings. In this paper, the effect of shroud in plasma spraying on chemical composition and thickness of titanium coatings were investigated. Shrouded plasma-sprayed titanium coatings were deposited onto mild steel
substrates. Air plasma-sprayed titanium coatings were also deposited for comparison under the same spraying parameters. Those titanium coatings were then studied in terms of microstructure, oxygen and nitrogen contents and coating’s thickness. The titanium coatings were assessed by scanning electron microscopy and quantitative chemical analysis. The results showed that the shroud
played a key role in protecting the particles from oxidation in flight. The shrouded titanium coatings
exhibited lower oxygen content and an enhanced microstructure. The reduction in air entrainment
with the shroud resulted in better heating of the particles and increases in deposition efficiency and
coating thickness
Developing Soft Skills to produce Work-Ready International Graduate Diploma Students in Engineering: a Comparative Study
Full text linkIntroduction: Engineering education has increased its emphasis on the development of soft skills to produce work-ready Engineers to meet the requirements of professional accrediting institutions. One key soft skill is confident public speaking. A major impediment to this is confidence with English language, particularly for EAL (English as and Additional Language) students.
New Zealand, like many countries, has an “export education” sector: many international students come to study in New Zealand as an EAL speaker. One offering for International students is the Graduate Diploma, a one year qualification for graduate international students which aims to produce work-ready engineers.
This paper investigates how performance of Graduate Diploma International (GDI) students differed across two cohorts, the 2019 and 2020 intake, in the area of oral presentation skills, when the classes were structured differently: GDI mixed with Bachelor of Engineering Technology (BET) students, and GDI students placed into a separate group from BET students.
Literature: “Soft skills”, such as interpersonal communication, teamwork and professionalism are critical for success in an environment of global competition (Farr and Brazil, 2009) and for developing leadership (Robles, 2012; Development Dimensions International, 2016, as cited in Dishman, 2016). Undergraduate research projects develop soft-skills, especially communication (Carter, Ro, Alcott, and Lattuca, 2016), which can be assessed formally via oral presentations. Oral presentations can be particularly anxiety-inducing for EAL students, due to the additional impediment of speaking in a language with which they are less confident (Woodrow, 2006; Mak, 2011).
Methods: We compare the performance of GDI students across two years’ cohorts: 2019 and 2020 in two oral presentations for the Final Year Project (FYP) course: the early presentation occuring in April/May, and the final presentation, in November. Due to class size and staff availability, the students in the 2020 FYP course were split into two groups, one containing all international students (GDI students) and one which contained mainly domestic students (the BET). This resulted in some “field data” on the impact of such a split. We compare the performance of the 2020 cohort of GDI students (n = 43) in their FYP presentations to the performance of the 2019 cohort of GDI students (n = 23).
Results: GDI students in the 2020 cohort on average performed better in their oral presentations at both points in the course than GDI students in the 2019 cohort.
Conclusion: Oral Communication is a key soft-skill required of work-ready engineers. The Graduate Diploma is a one year qualification that aims to produce work-ready engineers. When Graduate Diploma International students were placed into a group by themselves, they performed better in oral presentations than when placed into a class mixed with Bachelor of Engineering Technology students
Caucusing: Creating space to confront our fears.... Twelve years on
Full text linkBreaking into Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti caucuses during classes regarding Aotearoa’s colonizing history, is a practice employed at Wintec on undergraduate Social Work and Counselling programs (Bachelor of Social Work and Paetahi Tumu Korero, Wintec, 2021) continuously for approximately 15 years. In 2009 research of students’ experience of the practice was published revealed among other things marked differences between the way Māori and non-Māori students experienced the practice, positive shifts in consciousness regarding white privilege and development of cultural identity. Since 2009 both programs have been re-developed. While aspects of the teaching differ today, caucusing and adjacent supporting practices remain. Tutors continue to observe relevant benefits gained by students, as well as grappling with challenges provided by the approach.
Twelve years since the study the original researchers prepare to investigate the practice, including current students’ experiences, so as to establish further understanding. In preparation they invite symposium participants to a discussion of the practice, original research and plans for the next stage