title: Pratchett and patriarchy: A ‘masculinity studies’ reading of Terry Pratchett’s City Watch series

authors: Morgan, Kahi

abstract: Despite gender being a key focus of academic discussion on Discworld, there is minimal scholarly engagement with Pratchett’s masculine spheres. The aim of this thesis is to address the gap in scholarship that discusses Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and apply a ‘masculinity studies’ lens to Discworld. However, this is not an aim easily accomplished.
Masculinity presents a theoretical space that is complicated and difficult to navigate. Although ‘masculinity studies’ is no longer a new theoretical lens (having been established for more than 30 years at the time of writing), scholarship that seeks to engage with the complexities of masculinity is frequently ineffective. ‘Masculinity studies’ thrives on decrying patriarchy and critiquing toxic masculinity, but the discipline still struggles to explore more positive readings of masculinity without slipping into conservative rhetoric that calls for a return to more ‘traditional’ modes of masculinity. I embrace the problems of masculinity in all their complexity. This thesis does not shy away from applying the harshest critiques of men in its analysis of the men of Discworld. It takes on the nigh impossible task and attempts to move towards a rhetoric that enables a greater understanding of the tools of transgression available to men that are firmly embedded within the dominant positions of patriarchy.
The first half of the thesis will establish the foundational theories of masculinity and gender. It will then draw these frameworks into conversation with the theoretical composition of genre. This marriage between theoretical frames will reveal that Discworld is perfectly situated to identify subversive masculinities, creating a strong foundation for the close readings of Pratchett’s work that follow. Despite Discworld’s relationship to genre, making it the ideal space for subversive masculinities to thrive, previous scholarship has been unable to effectively apply a ‘masculinity studies’ perspective to the series. Before I attempt my own reading of subversive masculinities within Discworld it is necessary to unpack why previous Discworld scholarship has been so ineffective at engaging with masculinity.
The second half of this thesis will explore how Samuel Vimes of the City Watch sub-series is able to operate as a subversive masculinity. This will be done in two steps. The first will explore how he is able to deliver a subversive performance of masculinity within his personal life, operating within the genres of fantasy and romance. I will demonstrate that these subversions within his personal life are largely enabled by his cynicism. The second step will be testing the limits and sustainability of his subversions. This investigation will find that Vimes’ role as a policeman comes with a set of obligations to patriarchal systems that inhibit his ability to be subversive. However, he is still able to deliver a subversive performance of gender in marginal situations where the law is in flux.

text: Pratchett and patriarchy: A ‘masculinity studies’ reading of Terry Pratchett’s City Watch series Despite gender being a key focus of academic discussion on Discworld, there is minimal scholarly engagement with Pratchett’s masculine spheres. The aim of this thesis is to address the gap in scholarship that discusses Terry Pratchett’s Discworld and apply a ‘masculinity studies’ lens to Discworld. However, this is not an aim easily accomplished.
Masculinity presents a theoretical space that is complicated and difficult to navigate. Although ‘masculinity studies’ is no longer a new theoretical lens (having been established for more than 30 years at the time of writing), scholarship that seeks to engage with the complexities of masculinity is frequently ineffective. ‘Masculinity studies’ thrives on decrying patriarchy and critiquing toxic masculinity, but the discipline still struggles to explore more positive readings of masculinity without slipping into conservative rhetoric that calls for a return to more ‘traditional’ modes of masculinity. I embrace the problems of masculinity in all their complexity. This thesis does not shy away from applying the harshest critiques of men in its analysis of the men of Discworld. It takes on the nigh impossible task and attempts to move towards a rhetoric that enables a greater understanding of the tools of transgression available to men that are firmly embedded within the dominant positions of patriarchy.
The first half of the thesis will establish the foundational theories of masculinity and gender. It will then draw these frameworks into conversation with the theoretical composition of genre. This marriage between theoretical frames will reveal that Discworld is perfectly situated to identify subversive masculinities, creating a strong foundation for the close readings of Pratchett’s work that follow. Despite Discworld’s relationship to genre, making it the ideal space for subversive masculinities to thrive, previous scholarship has been unable to effectively apply a ‘masculinity studies’ perspective to the series. Before I attempt my own reading of subversive masculinities within Discworld it is necessary to unpack why previous Discworld scholarship has been so ineffective at engaging with masculinity.
The second half of this thesis will explore how Samuel Vimes of the City Watch sub-series is able to operate as a subversive masculinity. This will be done in two steps. The first will explore how he is able to deliver a subversive performance of masculinity within his personal life, operating within the genres of fantasy and romance. I will demonstrate that these subversions within his personal life are largely enabled by his cynicism. The second step will be testing the limits and sustainability of his subversions. This investigation will find that Vimes’ role as a policeman comes with a set of obligations to patriarchal systems that inhibit his ability to be subversive. However, he is still able to deliver a subversive performance of gender in marginal situations where the law is in flux.

year: 2025

title: Sickness experience and language : aspects of Tongan and Western accounting

authors: Parsons, Claire D.F.

abstract: In this study of Tongan healing practices, the author has chosen not simply to record participants’ roles or medicinal preparations but rather, the concern of this study is to understand the ‘doing’ of sickness as a social practice. 

Two main sociological techniques have been applied. Firstly, a hermeneutic - phenomenological approach was used to attain recordings of, and to analyze, the sickness theorizing of members of Tongan society. The ‘sickness talk’ of these members provides a record of some aspects of contemporary Tongan healing practices. The ‘sickness talk’ is also analyzed using Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘rule-usage’ in the ‘language game’ of sickness. This form of analysis indicated certain individual and public relevances which are grounded upon the Tongan way of life. Thus speakers’ accounts are analyzed in terms of what sickness talk ‘shows’ as well as what it ‘says’, disclosing cultural process instead of simply cultural product.

Discussion on ‘diagnosis’ shows that in order to define the problematic situation of sickness, the phenomena are organized into a classification, that is, members have to ‘capture’, ‘fix’, ‘concretize’ the confronting transient phenomena and apply a sickness label as a ‘working definition’. Tongan sickness ‘types’ are shown to be not only different from Western ‘types’, but aspects of the process of constructing that difference are also shown to be implicit in the sickness talk. Diagnosis as a social process is not seen as the labelling of an ‘objective fact’, ‘a sickness’; nor is therapy understood as being some ‘thing’ that gets a person ‘better’. Tongan explanatory models, developed to explain sickness causation, differ essentially from Western explanatory models of sickness in that Tongans have developed a social model of prevention and cure while in the West, a biological model has been developed. Explanation is understood here not as the causal accounting of sickness but as the explanation of enigmatic consequences.

The latter sections of the study on doing sickness as ‘kinship’ and as ‘healer’ not only add to the record on contemporary healing practices but also emphasize the Tongan social model of sickness. This study therefore, is not only a record, albeit a partial one, of contemporary Tongan healing practices, it also shows how these particular Tongans define certain sickness situations and devise a strategy to resolve that problematic situation. That is, it shows how committing certain experiences to language ‘is’ the ordering process. Rather than any magico-religious or scientific-biological model providing the basis of sickness practice in Tongan society, kinship is proposed as the underlying organizing principle. 

The comparative mode of analysis, in relation to Tongan and Western sickness theorizing, avoids presenting Western explanation as a model by which Tongan theorizing can be evaluated. Instead, in analyzing Tongan healing practices showing knowledge and relevance(s), substantive dimensions of Western theorizing and practice are disclosed.

In selecting a limited number of members’ sickness accounts over a period of six and a half months in Tonga, I have not attempted to randomly sample the Tongan population in order to generalize my ‘findings’ to the whole of Tongan society. Instead my interest has been to give an interpretation of some aspects of Tongan sickness theorizing which may or may not be altered by similar and more extensive studies in the future.

Contrary to what may be seen as being medical and anthropological expectations, Tongan traditional healing practices have not declined since Western contact, rather, they have developed from reportedly limited skills at that time, to an extensive network of healing practice today.

text: Sickness experience and language : aspects of Tongan and Western accounting In this study of Tongan healing practices, the author has chosen not simply to record participants’ roles or medicinal preparations but rather, the concern of this study is to understand the ‘doing’ of sickness as a social practice. 

Two main sociological techniques have been applied. Firstly, a hermeneutic - phenomenological approach was used to attain recordings of, and to analyze, the sickness theorizing of members of Tongan society. The ‘sickness talk’ of these members provides a record of some aspects of contemporary Tongan healing practices. The ‘sickness talk’ is also analyzed using Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘rule-usage’ in the ‘language game’ of sickness. This form of analysis indicated certain individual and public relevances which are grounded upon the Tongan way of life. Thus speakers’ accounts are analyzed in terms of what sickness talk ‘shows’ as well as what it ‘says’, disclosing cultural process instead of simply cultural product.

Discussion on ‘diagnosis’ shows that in order to define the problematic situation of sickness, the phenomena are organized into a classification, that is, members have to ‘capture’, ‘fix’, ‘concretize’ the confronting transient phenomena and apply a sickness label as a ‘working definition’. Tongan sickness ‘types’ are shown to be not only different from Western ‘types’, but aspects of the process of constructing that difference are also shown to be implicit in the sickness talk. Diagnosis as a social process is not seen as the labelling of an ‘objective fact’, ‘a sickness’; nor is therapy understood as being some ‘thing’ that gets a person ‘better’. Tongan explanatory models, developed to explain sickness causation, differ essentially from Western explanatory models of sickness in that Tongans have developed a social model of prevention and cure while in the West, a biological model has been developed. Explanation is understood here not as the causal accounting of sickness but as the explanation of enigmatic consequences.

The latter sections of the study on doing sickness as ‘kinship’ and as ‘healer’ not only add to the record on contemporary healing practices but also emphasize the Tongan social model of sickness. This study therefore, is not only a record, albeit a partial one, of contemporary Tongan healing practices, it also shows how these particular Tongans define certain sickness situations and devise a strategy to resolve that problematic situation. That is, it shows how committing certain experiences to language ‘is’ the ordering process. Rather than any magico-religious or scientific-biological model providing the basis of sickness practice in Tongan society, kinship is proposed as the underlying organizing principle. 

The comparative mode of analysis, in relation to Tongan and Western sickness theorizing, avoids presenting Western explanation as a model by which Tongan theorizing can be evaluated. Instead, in analyzing Tongan healing practices showing knowledge and relevance(s), substantive dimensions of Western theorizing and practice are disclosed.

In selecting a limited number of members’ sickness accounts over a period of six and a half months in Tonga, I have not attempted to randomly sample the Tongan population in order to generalize my ‘findings’ to the whole of Tongan society. Instead my interest has been to give an interpretation of some aspects of Tongan sickness theorizing which may or may not be altered by similar and more extensive studies in the future.

Contrary to what may be seen as being medical and anthropological expectations, Tongan traditional healing practices have not declined since Western contact, rather, they have developed from reportedly limited skills at that time, to an extensive network of healing practice today.

year: 1981

title: Insanity and ethnicity in New Zealand: Māori encounters with the Auckland Mental Hospital, 1860—1900

authors: Barry, Lorelle

subjects: cultural alienation

abstract: This article examines Māori patients at the Auckland Mental Hospital between 1860 and 1900. We argue that the patient case notes reveal ‘European’ categories in which Māori were situated, and demonstrate the extent to which the authorities at the hospital grappled with their appearance, their language and their culture, all of which were elements of their ethnicity. We argue that the use of institutional case records is highly suggestive of some of the historical meanings of insanity for Māori, including the lack of detailed or sustained collection of information about patients’ tribal affiliations, the interest shown in their rights to land in maintenance payment inquiries, the experiences of cultural alienation or mate Māori, and the sad outcomes for Māori.

text: Insanity and ethnicity in New Zealand: Māori encounters with the Auckland Mental Hospital, 1860—1900 This article examines Māori patients at the Auckland Mental Hospital between 1860 and 1900. We argue that the patient case notes reveal ‘European’ categories in which Māori were situated, and demonstrate the extent to which the authorities at the hospital grappled with their appearance, their language and their culture, all of which were elements of their ethnicity. We argue that the use of institutional case records is highly suggestive of some of the historical meanings of insanity for Māori, including the lack of detailed or sustained collection of information about patients’ tribal affiliations, the interest shown in their rights to land in maintenance payment inquiries, the experiences of cultural alienation or mate Māori, and the sad outcomes for Māori.

year: 2011