163 research outputs found
Heartland Wainuiomata: Rurality to suburbs, black singlets to naughty lingerie
No full textRobyn Longhurst and Carla Wilson enlarge the question of both national identity and gender by investigating the aptly-named Heartland documentary series. They analyse both the series itself and the discourses around it from the book of the series to the press cuttings. In doing so they pinpoint images of nation, masculinity and femininity that are both stable and transgressive and which emerge through the documentaries themselves, their presenter Gamy McCormack and the celebrated Chloe of Wainuiomata
A Geografia Mais Íntima: O Corpo
No full textEl cuerpo como lugar, se centra en la geografía del cuerpo como un lugar colonizado, moldeado por el poder pero, que a su vez, ofrece resistencia. Es un espacio socialmente construido donde se toma al cuer-po como lugar, como primer territorio a ser defendido, sobre todo en el contexto brasileño, según Joseli Maria Silva, Marcio Jose Ornat y Alides Baptista Chimin Junior, en el cual se analizan las Expedições sobre corpos na geografia brasileira: trilhas equivocadas e rumos encontrados. También, seguido por el entramado de relaciones de poder que operan en diferentes escalas, ello es planteado por los autores Lynda Johnston y Robyn Longhurst, en su texto A Geografia mais íntima: o corpo.
El cuerpo como lugar, focuses on the geography of the body as a colonised place, shaped by power, but which in turn offers resistance. It is a socially constructed space where the body is taken as a place, as the first territory to be defended, especially in the Brazilian context, according to Joseli Maria Silva, Marcio Jose Ornat and Alides Baptista Chimin Junior, in which the Expeditions on bodies in Brazilian geography are analysed: mistaken trails and directions found. Also, followed by the entanglement of power relations that operate at different scales, this is put forward by the authors Lynda Johnston and Robyn Longhurst, in their text The most intimate geography: the body - Translated with DeepL
Cultural geography : Different encounters, encountering difference
No full textIn the first half of this paper it is argued that cultural geography is a dynamic and diverse field that extends well beyond a single branch of human geography. The boundaries between it and other sub-disciplines are often blurred. People have «different» encounters with cultural geography depending on their sub-disciplinary convergences. People also have different encounters with cultural geography depending on where they live and work. «Place matters» in the construction, production and representation of cultural geography. It takes different forms in different places. In the second half of the paper it is argued that as cultural geography continues to encounter «difference» in many guises, four possible future trends are likely: first, it is probable that there will be continued growth in cultural geography; second, there may be mounting recognition that cultural geography needs to be critical offering possibilities for radical critique and reflection; third, cultural geographers are likely to continue with their efforts to think about what, if anything, might lie beyond representation; and finally, cultural geographers are likely to deepen their reflections on the politics of knowledge production leading to more multi-language publishing practices in this area.A la primera part d'aquest article, s'hi defensa que la geografia cultural és un camp prou dinàmic i divers com per ser considerat una simple branca de la geografia humana. Els límits entre aquesta subdisciplina i d'altres són sovint difícils de discernir. Hi ha tantes visions de la geografia cultural com subdisciplines a partir de les quals s'hi convergeix. També hi ha tantes aproximacions possibles a la geografia cultural com llocs on es viu o es treballa. En la construcció, producció i representació de la geografia cultural, el lloc hi és important, ja que la geografia cultural adquireix formes diferents en llocs diferents. En la segona meitat de l'article, s'hi argumenta que, mentre la geografia cultural continua presentant moltes diferències en facetes distintes, s'hi aventuren quatre possibles tendències futures. En primer lloc, és probable que continuï l'expansió de la geografia cultural; en segon lloc, existeix un reconeixement creixent que la geografia cultural necessita ser crítica i oferir, així, possibilitats per a la crítica i la reflexió radicals; en tercer lloc, és probable que els geògrafs culturals continuïn esforçant-se a esbrinar què hi ha més enllà de la representació si és que hi ha res. Finalment, és probable que els geògrafs culturals aprofundeixin les seves reflexions sobre la política de producció de coneixement que porti a una diversitat lingüística més gran en les publicacions d'aquesta àrea.En la primera parte de este artículo, se defiende que la geografía cultural es lo suficientemente dinámica y diversa como para no ser considerada una simple rama de la geografía humana. Los límites entre ésta y otras subdisciplinas son a menudo difíciles de discernir. Existen tantas visiones de la geografía cultural como subdisciplinas a partir de las cuales nos aproximamos a ella. También existen tantas visiones de la geografía cultural como lugares de residencia o de trabajo. En la construcción, la producción y la representación de la geografía cultural, el lugar es importante, ya que la geografía cultural toma formas distintas en lugares diferentes. En la segunda parte del artículo, se argumenta que, mientras la geografía cultural continúa presentando muchas diferencias en distintas facetas, se entrevén cuatro posibles tendencias futuras. En primer lugar, es probable que continúe la expansión de la geografía cultural; en segundo lugar, existe un reconocimiento creciente del hecho que la geografía cultural necesita ser crítica y ofrecer así posibilidades para la crítica y la reflexión radical; en tercer lugar, es probable que los geógrafos culturales continúen esforzándose en averiguar qué hay más allá de la representación, si es que hay alguna cosa, y, finalmente, es probable que los geógrafos culturales amplíen sus reflexiones sobre la política de producción de conocimientos, lo cual puede comportar una mayor diversidad lingüística en las publicaciones de esta área.Dans la première moitié de cet article on constate que la géographie culturelle est un terrain d'étude si dynamique et divers et qu'elle ne peut pas être comprise simplement comme une branche de la géographie humaine. Les limites entre la géogrpahie culturelle et d'autres subdisciplines sont souvent difficiles d'écarter. Il y a autant de visions de la géographie culturelle comme subdisciplines prochaines. Aussi, existent autant de visions de la géographie culturelle comme des espaces de résidence ou travail. Dans le processus de construction, production et représentation de géographie culturelle, le lieu est important parce que la géographie culturelle prend des formes différentes dans les lieux différents. Dans la deuxième moitié de l'article on dit que comme la géographie culturelle continue à rencontrer beaucoup de différences en relation à des aspects différents, quatre tendances futures possibles sont possibles. D'abord, c'est probable qu'elle continue en avant; en deuxième partie, il y a une reconnaissance que la géographie culturelle a besoin d'être critique et offrir des possibilités à la critique et la réflexion radical; en troisième partie, des géographes culturels continuent avec leurs efforts de penser à propos de qu'est-ce qu'il y a au-delà de la représentation (s'il y a quelque chose); et, finalement, les géographes culturels ont des chances d'approfondir leurs réflexions sur la politique de la production de connaissance conduisant à plus de pratiques de publication multi langue dans cette branche géographique
Journeys and battles: Spatial and gendered discourses of obsessive-compulsive disorder
No full textObsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a (mental) health condition that, despite its highly spatial characteristics and high prevalence, has been largely overlooked by human geographers. This thesis seeks to help rectify this oversight by examining the ways in which OCD is gendered, especially in relation to the metaphors used to describe the condition. A conceptual model for a “radical body politics” provides the theoretical framework for this research. Semi-structured interviews, critical reading of stories published by and about people with OCD, and autobiography are used in order to investigate the ways in which men and women utilise discourse in order to represent and make sense of their experiences with OCD. I argue that the ways in which men and women choose to represent through discourse their experiences of OCD have profound implications for their sense of self. Two over-arching discourses are discussed: that of the journey and that of the battle. The more feminised discourse of a journey suggests that the experience of women with OCD is a cathartic pathway of self-realisation with the end-goal of recovery. The more masculinised discourse of battle positions OCD as being both Other to the self and a struggle within the self. Both discourses invoke spatial imagery and have profound implications for how individuals with OCD experience and manage the condition. I also suggest some possible avenues for further geographic research into OCD
Stories of relocation to the Waikato: Spaces of emotion and affect in the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes, Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textEmotion and affect are enmeshed in the lives of relocated Cantabrians. A project on the lived geographies of relocation disrupts the predominance of model based approaches in hazards and disaster literature. The previously taken-for-granted aspects of how people relate to one another and are in turn shaped by those relationships are of central concern.
The research brings together the stories of people from 19 households who moved to the Waikato region of New Zealand as a result of the Canterbury earthquakes and aftershocks. It is argued that exploring relocation through the lens of emotion and affect can give rise to an understanding of the collective aspects of non-conscious, embodied and emotional life-worlds of relocatees. Semi-structured interviews, spontaneous focus groups and follow-up interviews were used to access emotional and affectual geographies and participants’ life experiences.
Three main themes are addressed in relation to disasters: 1) bodies which are proximate and connected to other bodies; 2) sub-conscious and psychosocial aspects of relocation, especially ambivalence; and 3) the co-mingling of materials (buildings, architecture) with an emotional and affective sense of self. To explain each of these themes in turn, attention is paid to what bodies do to illustrate that proximity and connection are both present and desired by respondents in post-disaster and relocated spaces. The second theme of sub-conscious and psychosocial impacts explores how ambivalence exposes complexity and contradiction, which are tightly bound to the experience of relocation. The third theme of materiality is used to make clear how bodies and buildings are co-constituted. Homes, churches and other city buildings can become containers of memory inspiring feelings of dread, loss, and grief but also, comfort, belonging and identity. Emotion and affect, then, are critical to understanding the impacts of the earthquakes and relocation on people and communities, they are a call to think about complexity and are considered to be a large component of the human experience of surviving a disaster
'Home is where the heart is': everyday geographies of young heterosexual couples' love in and of homes
No full textThis thesis focuses on the relationships between heterosexuality, love, and home. It examines the homemaking practices and relationship activities of 14 heterosexual couples, and in particular the experiences of women in these relationships, who are aged between 20-40 years, have no children, and live in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand. It is argued that heterosexual bodies that ‘love’, and the domestic spaces they occupy, are mutually constituted and continually reproduced through the everyday practices of homemaking. ‘Couple’ interviews, solicited diaries and self-directed photography, follow-up individual interviews and evaluation questionnaires are used to access couples’, and in particular women’s, everyday geographies of heterosexuality, love and home. A combination of qualitative research methods and feminist poststructuralist theory is used to give rise to an embodied, emotionally situated and partial geography. My findings are organised around three spatial scales: body, dwelling, and household and beyond. Focusing on the first scale – body – provides an opportunity for foregrounding gendered and sexed bodies as important sites of homemaking. A multiplicity of homemaking practices occur at the site of the body, including: the feelings, emotions, sensations, and language of love; the expressions and spaces of physical affection and intimacy; and the presence of corporeal and domestic dirt. Focusing on the second scale – dwelling – allows for an understanding of the ways in which discourses of love are mapped on to specific materialities of home. Issues of privacy and the negotiated use of shared domestic spaces, the creation and enactment of domestic activities and routines, and the accumulation and arrangement of material domestic objects all come to the fore when considering dwellings. The third scale – household and beyond – is used to examine some of the ways in which households and homemakers are connected to broader social, cultural, political and economic relations of power beyond the physical dwelling. Paying attention to the household and beyond prompts a consideration of the ways in which housing tenure and the practices of household consumption can dissolve the public and private boundaries that surround home. The heteronormativity of geographical discourse means that the relationship between heterosexuality, love and home is often taken-for-granted as ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ and as such is left ‘invisible’ and unremarked upon. Making the relationship between heterosexuality, love and home explicit in the production of geographical knowledge displaces ontological and epistemological assumptions about the naturalness and normality of heterosexuality. This study responds to the lack of critical attention paid to the relationship between love, heterosexuality and home in geography. Considering the homemaking practices and relationship activities of heterosexual couples encourages a more critical understanding of the normative and powerful ways in which heterosexual bodies and domestic spaces are mutually constituted
'Thinking-through-Complicity' with Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti: Towards a Critical Use of Participatory Video for Research
No full textThis thesis explores some of the seductions and dangers of participatory video for research (PVR) involving Indigenous Māori and Pākehā research partners. The project within which PVR was used focused on exploring relationships between place, identity and social cohesion within ‘remote’ rural communities. It involved about 15 members of the Potaka whānau of Te Iwi o Ngāti Hauiti in the central Rangitīkei district of the North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand. A small group of iwi members, myself and an audiovisual specialist and trainer negotiated the project’s focus, process and ethics during 1998. A different group of iwi members were then trained in video production and community research methods later that year and supported to produce their own productions, and carry out video research interviews with other iwi members. The entire process of negotiation, training and collaborative research was filmed for archival and research purposes with everyone’s consent, and several collaborative publications and presentations have been produced since 1999.
The discursive space opened up by Ngāti Hauiti’s engagement with, and use of, video provides an opportunity to attend to the ‘cultural mediations’ that occurred throughout the research partnership and to inquire into the possible ‘empire building effects’ of visual technologies within participatory research more generally. The focus on PVR within a Māori context also prompts questions about the visual’s transformative potential within geographic research, and the implications of working through the use of a visual medium for rethinking disciplinary practices and knowledges, particularly when working cross-culturally.
In the thesis, I first review the evolution and attendant challenges associated with both the use of participation and video within research contexts. I trace their similar origins in modernist attempts to ‘know’ and ‘empower’ marginalised others, and highlight the ongoing marginalisation of Indigenous perspectives within mainstream debates. I then engage with conceptualisations of complicity and develop an analytical framework that expands on current discursive and ideological discussions to also attend to its material, embodied and spatial dimensions.
Using this framework and a complementary autoethnographic and ‘hyper-self-reflexive’ approach, I track aspects of my own power, complicity and desire within my research practice in the PVR project during the period 1998-2001. This approach involves the development of a particular reading position to focus on critical incidents of my research practice and a means of grappling productively with the polyvalent nature of my audiovisual and other information sources. I discuss these critical incidents within three processes associated with the research: facilitation, production and reception, attending to the complex and multifaceted interplay of audiovisual texts, their producers and their audiences throughout.
Such a thesis is expedient given that powerful and often uncritical rhetoric that besets participatory research and development is fast taking hold within geography. It is also timely given the proliferation of affordable and accessible audiovisual technology and its increasing use within geography and other social sciences. As geographers respond to calls to embrace more visual, tactile and other methods, this thesis offers possibilities for the repoliticisation of participatory discourse within social geography, through a more considered engagement with participatory action research, Indigenous research practices and audiovisual media such as video. I offer cautionary insights into the ‘power-full’ effects of these ways of working
Te Awa Atua, Te Awa Tapu, Te Awa Wahine: An examination of stories, ceremonies and practices regarding menstruation in the pre-colonial Māori world.
No full textThis thesis examines Māori cosmological stories, ceremonies, and traditional practices regarding menstruation in pre-colonial Māori society. I use kaupapa Māori and mana wahine as a theoretical and methodological framework, contextualising these stories within Māori cultural paradigms.This is important because menstruation has been framed within deeply misogynist, colonial ideologies in some ethnographic accounts, distorting menstrual rites and practices beyond recognition. These interpretations have been used to inform colonialist narratives of female inferiority in traditional Māori society, attempting to change Native constructs of womanhood. Such narratives have been perpetuated in contemporary literature, reinforcing powerful discourses of menstrual pollution and female inferiority. This thesis is a challenge to such representations. By examining menstrual stories located in Māori cosmologies, and investigating tribal histories, oral literatures, ceremonies and rites, I argue that menstruation was seen as a medium of whakapapa (genealogy) that connected Māori women to our pantheon of atua (supernatural beings). A study of ancient menstrual rites, recorded in tribal songs and chants, reveal that menstrual blood was used for psychic and spiritual protection. These examples unveil striking Indigenous constructs of womanhood that transform colonialist interpretations and radically challenge notions of female inferiority and menstrual pollution. I maintain in this thesis that presenting menstruation and menstrual blood as putrid is a politically motivated act of colonial violence that specifically targets the source of our continuity as Indigenous People, the whare tangata (house of humanity – womb of women). I pose the question ‘if menstrual blood symbolises whakapapa, what does it mean to present it as ‘unclean’ and how do such representations cut across the politics of tino rangatiratanga (autonomy)?’ Through in-depth semi-structured interviews, kōrero (dialogue), and wānanga (series of conversations) with Māori women, including cultural experts, scholars, artists, and mana wahine exponents, I gather a collection of ceremonies, stories, and wisdoms that reclaim Māori spiritualities which celebrate menstruation as divine. Within the context of a colonial history of marginalisation, this work is an activist site of political resistance which takes a step towards re-threading the feminine strands in the spiritual fabric of our world, torn asunder by the ideological imposition of a colonial, Christian male god. I argue, that menstruation is a potent site of decolonisation, cultural reclamation, and resistance toward the perpetuation of colonial hegemony
Negotiating Noise in the Home
No full textThinking about how to visually observe space and place has long been central to the theory and practice of geographic enquiry. This preoccupation with vision is by no means isolated to geography, and is embedded in the Western privileging of sight as the primary source of knowledge acquisition. Researchers who have sensed the effect that the ‘myopic’ Western sensorium has had on geographic knowledges are engaging more nuanced approaches which acknowledge that the production of places and spaces is multi-sensory. Such perspectives open up new ways to explore the embodied, emotional, and sensuous production of space. With home at the nexus, this thesis contributes to critical geographic thought by exploring the ways in which the senses mediate socio-spatial power relations. In particular, the analysis centres on how experiences of abject and taboo noises affect the production and maintenance of bodies, identities, and spaces. Within a qualitative, poststructuralist approach, I move beyond Foucault’s panoptic surveillant gaze to instead listen to the disciplinary effects of listening and hearing. Feminist discourses of embodiment and gender, Kristeva’s conceptualisation of abjection, and Eliasian notions of manners and etiquette are drawn on to help flesh out the disciplining effects of aurality.
Twenty individual and four couple semi-structured in-depth interviews with people living in and around Hamilton, New Zealand, are drawn on to explore the means employed to negotiate abject noises. Attention is paid to how these strategies shape, and are shaped by, expectations of self-discipline and bodily comportment. Dominant narratives that emerged relating to the transgressive experience of noises from sexual activity, toileting, and domestic violence problematise the tendency of the (privileged) Western gaze to fix identity and meaning to boundaries and scales. Revulsion, fascination, imagery, ‘dirt’, and other non-aural phenomena, which abject noises readily communicate across partitioned spaces, suggest that listening and hearing do not happen in isolation. The sensory cross-talk invoked by abjection serves to expose the partiality of the Western five discrete senses model, and affects an ontological and epistemological rethink of how geographers engage with the world.
Moving beyond the traditional Western geographic paradigm, I employ sensuous and emotions scholarship from multiple disciplines to offer new ways to understand constructions of corporeal and domicile privacy, discourses which dominate the politics of abject noises in the home. Acknowledging that exposure to abject noises is not uniform across social strata, gender, class, ethnicity, and age are incorporated into the analysis of the flow of power within the socio-spatial experience of abjection. Various cultural sensoria are drawn on to sound out how, through the transgression of bodily and domicile boundaries, abject noises cause the subject and space to leak into each other, and into other bodies. In doing so, I contribute to critical geographies that position the relationship between bodies and place as mutually constitutive
Inside the Resource Management Act: A Tainui Case Study
No full textUnder the Resource Management Act (RMA) 1991 councils are required to promote the sustainable management of physical and natural resources within their respective areas. In carrying out their duties, councils are obliged to recognise and provide for the relationship of Māori with their culture, traditions, lands, waters and other taonga. They are also required to have regard to kaitiakitanga, and to take into account the principles of te Tiriti o Waitangi when making decisions.
This thesis focuses on the RMA experiences of Tainui, a hapū in Whaingaroa. It sets out to prove that in the last 19 years, since the enactment of the RMA, Waikato councils have failed to honour these obligations to Tainui. While the RMA specifically provides for Māori interests, in reality those interests are contested and eroded by decision makers who write and enforce rules which inequitably affect Māori relationships with land and other taonga.
The thesis engages multiple theories and methodologies including Kaupapa Māori, critical theory, autobiography, and a longitudinal case study to expose personal experiences that bring the realities of planning impacts on Tainui to life. The fact that Tainui has successfully appealed several council decisions to the Environment Court indicates that councils are failing to meet their obligations as laid out in the legislation.
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