title: Location-independence?  Exploring the digital geographies of work, mobilities and place

authors: Methorst, Joke Jalina

subjects: digital nomads

abstract: This thesis focuses on the phenomenon of location-independence and its implications for place, work and mobilities in the digital age. The dynamic mechanisms of location-independence are examined in connection with two interrelated-yet-distinct vantage points: digital nomads (a group of location-independent workers from predominantly affluent countries working in locations with lower living costs), and coworking spaces in Aotearoa New Zealand (shared workspaces that provide socio-material and technological infrastructure for mobile workers to work from). 
Critical social theories – feminist, postcolonial, new mobilities, and embodied geography perspectives – provide a framework for analysing the concept of location-independence and uneven relations of power and subjectivities such as gender, ethnicity, class, and age. These perspectives not only emphasise Indigenous geographies that give voice to non-dominant epistemologies of knowledge but also bring attention to the body and highlight how work, place, and mobility are experienced differently.
The research employs feminist methodologies for conducting qualitative research, including 12 online interviews with digital nomads globally, and 11 in-person semi-structured interviews with managers of coworking spaces or of the coworking community within these spaces in Aotearoa New Zealand. Reflexive thematic analysis is applied to interview transcripts, texts and images from websites promoting digital nomad visa schemes that surround the concept of location-independence. 
This thesis demonstrates that location-independence is constituted through relational geographies of subjectivities, mobilities, materials, and organisations. The findings are organised around three themes: digital nomads; coworking spaces; and, COVID-19. Focusing on the first theme – digital nomads – provides an opportunity for foregrounding how location-independence can be partly understood as an imagined and desired geography. Digital nomads experience both flexibility and freedom afforded by location-independence, but also challenges related to social isolation, precarious work conditions, and balancing work and personal life. Focusing on the second theme – coworking spaces – allows for an understanding of how these places are curated to be inclusive yet are also subject to gendered, raced, and classed power relations. The third theme – COVID-19 – is used to examine the ways in which location-independence was disrupted and repaired. The disruption of many infrastructures that facilitate location-independence has not only accelerated the shift towards the normalisation of remote work, but also highlights the need for emergent infrastructures of repair, shedding light on the importance of place, mobilities, materiality, and embodiment in the constitution of location-independence digital geographies.

text: Location-independence?  Exploring the digital geographies of work, mobilities and place This thesis focuses on the phenomenon of location-independence and its implications for place, work and mobilities in the digital age. The dynamic mechanisms of location-independence are examined in connection with two interrelated-yet-distinct vantage points: digital nomads (a group of location-independent workers from predominantly affluent countries working in locations with lower living costs), and coworking spaces in Aotearoa New Zealand (shared workspaces that provide socio-material and technological infrastructure for mobile workers to work from). 
Critical social theories – feminist, postcolonial, new mobilities, and embodied geography perspectives – provide a framework for analysing the concept of location-independence and uneven relations of power and subjectivities such as gender, ethnicity, class, and age. These perspectives not only emphasise Indigenous geographies that give voice to non-dominant epistemologies of knowledge but also bring attention to the body and highlight how work, place, and mobility are experienced differently.
The research employs feminist methodologies for conducting qualitative research, including 12 online interviews with digital nomads globally, and 11 in-person semi-structured interviews with managers of coworking spaces or of the coworking community within these spaces in Aotearoa New Zealand. Reflexive thematic analysis is applied to interview transcripts, texts and images from websites promoting digital nomad visa schemes that surround the concept of location-independence. 
This thesis demonstrates that location-independence is constituted through relational geographies of subjectivities, mobilities, materials, and organisations. The findings are organised around three themes: digital nomads; coworking spaces; and, COVID-19. Focusing on the first theme – digital nomads – provides an opportunity for foregrounding how location-independence can be partly understood as an imagined and desired geography. Digital nomads experience both flexibility and freedom afforded by location-independence, but also challenges related to social isolation, precarious work conditions, and balancing work and personal life. Focusing on the second theme – coworking spaces – allows for an understanding of how these places are curated to be inclusive yet are also subject to gendered, raced, and classed power relations. The third theme – COVID-19 – is used to examine the ways in which location-independence was disrupted and repaired. The disruption of many infrastructures that facilitate location-independence has not only accelerated the shift towards the normalisation of remote work, but also highlights the need for emergent infrastructures of repair, shedding light on the importance of place, mobilities, materiality, and embodiment in the constitution of location-independence digital geographies.

year: 2024

title: Minding the aesthetic: The place of the literary in education and research.

authors: Locke, Terry

subjects: aesthetics

abstract: The article discusses the significance of aesthetic as a mode of cognition and means of social cohesion. It notes the relation of aesthetic knowledge with the perception or intuition, the emergence of such awareness into something durable and the response to the embodiment. It describes the evolution of aesthetic delight in the human species, the sense of sense of beauty arising on one's realization of the formal qualities of something, through the poem presented by the author on achievement.

text: Minding the aesthetic: The place of the literary in education and research. The article discusses the significance of aesthetic as a mode of cognition and means of social cohesion. It notes the relation of aesthetic knowledge with the perception or intuition, the emergence of such awareness into something durable and the response to the embodiment. It describes the evolution of aesthetic delight in the human species, the sense of sense of beauty arising on one's realization of the formal qualities of something, through the poem presented by the author on achievement.

year: 2010

title: A Māori Perspective of Whānau and Childrearing in the 21st Century Case Study

authors: Morehu, Colleen

subjects: childrearing

abstract: Ngā Kupu Whakataki: Abstract

The study focuses on identifying how the reconstruction of the whānau and its approach to childrearing through the colonisation of Māori society can be perceived within the experiences of the case study of four generations of one whānau.  A kaupapa Māori approach to research provided a framework for members of our whānau to socially construct their realities regarding the dynamics of our four generation whānau collaboratively.  Socio-cultural theoretical frameworks were used to analyse approaches to whānau and childrearing.

text: A Māori Perspective of Whānau and Childrearing in the 21st Century Case Study Ngā Kupu Whakataki: Abstract

The study focuses on identifying how the reconstruction of the whānau and its approach to childrearing through the colonisation of Māori society can be perceived within the experiences of the case study of four generations of one whānau.  A kaupapa Māori approach to research provided a framework for members of our whānau to socially construct their realities regarding the dynamics of our four generation whānau collaboratively.  Socio-cultural theoretical frameworks were used to analyse approaches to whānau and childrearing.

year: 2005