title: Future Nostalgia: Performing David Bowie

authors: Perrott, Lisa

subjects: Arts & Humanities

abstract: This article reviews the book “Future Nostalgia: Performing David Bowie”, by Shelton Waldrep.

text: Future Nostalgia: Performing David Bowie This article reviews the book “Future Nostalgia: Performing David Bowie”, by Shelton Waldrep.

year: 2018

title: A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu)

authors: Rangelov, Tihomir Rumenov

subjects: Ahamb

abstract: A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu) offers a description of the endangered and previously undocumented Ahamb language spoken by around 950 people. This grammatical description is one of the main outcomes of the Ahamb Language Documentation Project, which involved over 8 months of data collection with Ahamb speakers in Vanuatu and resulted in an archived collection of over 50 hours of recorded speech and other materials. This description is based on a corpus of around 22 hours of annotated Ahamb speech and other texts. 
This thesis starts with an introduction to the Ahamb language, its speakers and the contexts in which it is spoken. The grammatical description that follows consists of a description of Ahamb’s phonology, morphology and syntax. Ahamb’s phonology is characterised by distinctive prenasalisation in its plosives and trills. There are four contrastive trills, including the typologically rare plain bilabial trill. The vowel inventory is also relatively large compared to other related languages, with eight contrastive vowels. 
The description of nominals and noun phrases in Ahamb spans four chapters. Nouns in Ahamb are classified as common, personal and local. They can also be classified as alienable and inalienable, which corresponds to a structural distinction in possessive constructions involving classifiers (general and alimentary) or direct suffixation respectively. Noun phrases consist of a nominal head and various modifiers that follow it in a relatively flexible order.
Verbs in Ahamb can be transitive and intransitive. Intransitive verbs are further classified as active or stative. Detransitivisation is possible with the use of prefixation or reduplication. Verbs can take a number of prefixed tense/aspect/mood/polarity modifiers and commonly feature a subject index. Subject indexes come in three paradigms with forms for all person, number and clusivity distinctions. Neutral subject indexes are used in a variety of situations and combine most freely with other preverbal modifiers. Sequential event subject indexes are used to mark the second and subsequent verb in complex clauses that encode sequential events with the same subject. Irrealis subject indexes are used in interrogatives and negative modality constructions, among others. The objects of transitive verbs can be encoded by an object pro-index, which can take four different forms. 
Ahamb has SVO word order. Negation can be expressed in a number of ways, including a separate prohibitive coding and a negative modality particle. Different verb-like forms can function as prepositions and deictic markers. Complementation can be expressed with or without a complementiser, corresponding to a distinction in the semantic properties of the complement taking verb. Verb serialisation has been attested on the nuclear and core level. A special type of nuclear serialisation-like construction involves coverbs – non-prototypical verb forms that are only attested in such constructions. On the core level, switch-function and ambient serialisation is attested. Subordination is possible with a large variety of conjunctions. Other complex clause types include sequential event constructions and both syndetic and asydentic coordinating constructions.

text: A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu) A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu) offers a description of the endangered and previously undocumented Ahamb language spoken by around 950 people. This grammatical description is one of the main outcomes of the Ahamb Language Documentation Project, which involved over 8 months of data collection with Ahamb speakers in Vanuatu and resulted in an archived collection of over 50 hours of recorded speech and other materials. This description is based on a corpus of around 22 hours of annotated Ahamb speech and other texts. 
This thesis starts with an introduction to the Ahamb language, its speakers and the contexts in which it is spoken. The grammatical description that follows consists of a description of Ahamb’s phonology, morphology and syntax. Ahamb’s phonology is characterised by distinctive prenasalisation in its plosives and trills. There are four contrastive trills, including the typologically rare plain bilabial trill. The vowel inventory is also relatively large compared to other related languages, with eight contrastive vowels. 
The description of nominals and noun phrases in Ahamb spans four chapters. Nouns in Ahamb are classified as common, personal and local. They can also be classified as alienable and inalienable, which corresponds to a structural distinction in possessive constructions involving classifiers (general and alimentary) or direct suffixation respectively. Noun phrases consist of a nominal head and various modifiers that follow it in a relatively flexible order.
Verbs in Ahamb can be transitive and intransitive. Intransitive verbs are further classified as active or stative. Detransitivisation is possible with the use of prefixation or reduplication. Verbs can take a number of prefixed tense/aspect/mood/polarity modifiers and commonly feature a subject index. Subject indexes come in three paradigms with forms for all person, number and clusivity distinctions. Neutral subject indexes are used in a variety of situations and combine most freely with other preverbal modifiers. Sequential event subject indexes are used to mark the second and subsequent verb in complex clauses that encode sequential events with the same subject. Irrealis subject indexes are used in interrogatives and negative modality constructions, among others. The objects of transitive verbs can be encoded by an object pro-index, which can take four different forms. 
Ahamb has SVO word order. Negation can be expressed in a number of ways, including a separate prohibitive coding and a negative modality particle. Different verb-like forms can function as prepositions and deictic markers. Complementation can be expressed with or without a complementiser, corresponding to a distinction in the semantic properties of the complement taking verb. Verb serialisation has been attested on the nuclear and core level. A special type of nuclear serialisation-like construction involves coverbs – non-prototypical verb forms that are only attested in such constructions. On the core level, switch-function and ambient serialisation is attested. Subordination is possible with a large variety of conjunctions. Other complex clause types include sequential event constructions and both syndetic and asydentic coordinating constructions.

year: 2020

title: Housing quality, health and whānau wellbeing

authors: Kukutai, Tahu

abstract: Shelter is a basic human need (Maslow 1943) and access to housing is a fundamental human right. A house is more than a physical dwelling that offers shelter; for many, it is a space that provides structure and meaning, and relates to feelings, emotions, memories and experiences, whether raising a whānau or discovering newfound independence. 
For Māori, the multi-layered concept of kāinga is broader still. Literally meaning ‘village’, kāinga is a home space where identity, whakapapa and whenua come together (Henare 2014). Kāinga is where individuals and whānau can sustain and care for themselves and others through practices of whanaungatanga (connecting with kin) and manaakitanga (acts of reciprocal caring). 
Kāinga is also closely related to the concept of tūrangawaewae, denoting a sense of physical and spiritual belonging or attachment to a place. Kāinga and tūrangawaewae thus share similarities with the meaning of home but mean much more than simply ‘being housed’ (Brown 2017). 
While housing and housing quality form only part of what it means to be ‘at home’, access to a warm, dry, safe, secure and watertight house is a basic right for all whānau and tamariki. 
In this section, we focus on the relationships between housing quality, health and wellbeing to better understand the extent of housing quality issues that whānau Māori face, and how housing quality, in turn, affects health and wellbeing. To our knowledge, this is the first nationally representative study that focuses specifically on Māori assessments of housing quality. It does so using data from the Māori Social Survey Te Kupenga.

text: Housing quality, health and whānau wellbeing Shelter is a basic human need (Maslow 1943) and access to housing is a fundamental human right. A house is more than a physical dwelling that offers shelter; for many, it is a space that provides structure and meaning, and relates to feelings, emotions, memories and experiences, whether raising a whānau or discovering newfound independence. 
For Māori, the multi-layered concept of kāinga is broader still. Literally meaning ‘village’, kāinga is a home space where identity, whakapapa and whenua come together (Henare 2014). Kāinga is where individuals and whānau can sustain and care for themselves and others through practices of whanaungatanga (connecting with kin) and manaakitanga (acts of reciprocal caring). 
Kāinga is also closely related to the concept of tūrangawaewae, denoting a sense of physical and spiritual belonging or attachment to a place. Kāinga and tūrangawaewae thus share similarities with the meaning of home but mean much more than simply ‘being housed’ (Brown 2017). 
While housing and housing quality form only part of what it means to be ‘at home’, access to a warm, dry, safe, secure and watertight house is a basic right for all whānau and tamariki. 
In this section, we focus on the relationships between housing quality, health and wellbeing to better understand the extent of housing quality issues that whānau Māori face, and how housing quality, in turn, affects health and wellbeing. To our knowledge, this is the first nationally representative study that focuses specifically on Māori assessments of housing quality. It does so using data from the Māori Social Survey Te Kupenga.

year: 2018