title: "The milk of human kindness?": Responding to precarity and hunger with the private sector and a return to charity

authors: Jackson, Kimberly M.

abstract: This research investigated the phenomenon of free school milk in Aotearoa New Zealand as an exemplar for broader shifts in understandings of poverty and hunger, responsibility and citizenship. The provision of free milk to school children has occurred in two distinct periods in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand. The first school milk initiative was introduced in 1937 to bolster childhood nutrition after the deprivations of the Great Depression, as part of the formation of the welfare state. This first free milk scheme lasted until 1967. The re-introduction of school milk nationally in 2013 occurred amidst public concerns about growing numbers of hungry children in schools and the consequent proliferation of ad hoc food in schools schemes.
The theoretical framework of community psychology provides a broad framework for an interdisciplinary project that contextualises the material and symbolic object of school milk. The everyday lifeworlds of those experiencing hardship was part of this investigation, both historically and in the present period. Narrative psychology methods were applied to the collection and analysis of empirical materials that relate to hunger and responses to hunger in the 1930s, and the 2000s. A narrative approach provided continuity across three categories of empirical materials, incorporating an historical analysis; a contemporary media and policy analysis; and extended semi-structured interviews with parents feeding their families on low incomes. The analysis incorporated complexity and identified structures of feeling, which are tacit but knowable sets of historically and culturally constructed understandings that shape responses to hungry children and their parents.
This investigation found that approaches to hungry children and families around the period that school milk was re-introduced in 2013 were situated within neoliberal narratives that emphasised children in schools as targets for compassion without acknowledgement of the historical, social, political and economic context for contemporary food insecurity. A dominant settler context that values self-reliance and aspiration in a presumed land of plenty shapes persistent notions of the ‘deserving and undeserving poor’. Diversified non-state responses to hunger and increased targeting in the contemporary period reflect historical assumptions that are further amplified within the neoliberal characterisations of ‘welfare dependent’ parents. Neoliberal narratives also build and sustain the notion that the market can provide the appropriate solution to hunger in schools. My research found that although both the 1937 and 2013 schemes occurred in contexts of poverty and hunger, there are important differences between the two schemes. During the 1930s, milk in schools formed part of a society-wide effort to reduce the harms of poverty for families and their children. In contrast, the promotion of school milk in 2013 avoided connection to either poverty or parents, treating schools as spaces carved out for commercial interests. In rendering parents and whānau invisible, and prioritising the child as a future consumer, milk in schools reflects the position of many contemporary responses to hungry children. What is distinctive about school milk in Aotearoa New Zealand is its symbolically important role in drawing attention away from contemporary precarity and towards a nostalgic imagined past.

text: "The milk of human kindness?": Responding to precarity and hunger with the private sector and a return to charity This research investigated the phenomenon of free school milk in Aotearoa New Zealand as an exemplar for broader shifts in understandings of poverty and hunger, responsibility and citizenship. The provision of free milk to school children has occurred in two distinct periods in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand. The first school milk initiative was introduced in 1937 to bolster childhood nutrition after the deprivations of the Great Depression, as part of the formation of the welfare state. This first free milk scheme lasted until 1967. The re-introduction of school milk nationally in 2013 occurred amidst public concerns about growing numbers of hungry children in schools and the consequent proliferation of ad hoc food in schools schemes.
The theoretical framework of community psychology provides a broad framework for an interdisciplinary project that contextualises the material and symbolic object of school milk. The everyday lifeworlds of those experiencing hardship was part of this investigation, both historically and in the present period. Narrative psychology methods were applied to the collection and analysis of empirical materials that relate to hunger and responses to hunger in the 1930s, and the 2000s. A narrative approach provided continuity across three categories of empirical materials, incorporating an historical analysis; a contemporary media and policy analysis; and extended semi-structured interviews with parents feeding their families on low incomes. The analysis incorporated complexity and identified structures of feeling, which are tacit but knowable sets of historically and culturally constructed understandings that shape responses to hungry children and their parents.
This investigation found that approaches to hungry children and families around the period that school milk was re-introduced in 2013 were situated within neoliberal narratives that emphasised children in schools as targets for compassion without acknowledgement of the historical, social, political and economic context for contemporary food insecurity. A dominant settler context that values self-reliance and aspiration in a presumed land of plenty shapes persistent notions of the ‘deserving and undeserving poor’. Diversified non-state responses to hunger and increased targeting in the contemporary period reflect historical assumptions that are further amplified within the neoliberal characterisations of ‘welfare dependent’ parents. Neoliberal narratives also build and sustain the notion that the market can provide the appropriate solution to hunger in schools. My research found that although both the 1937 and 2013 schemes occurred in contexts of poverty and hunger, there are important differences between the two schemes. During the 1930s, milk in schools formed part of a society-wide effort to reduce the harms of poverty for families and their children. In contrast, the promotion of school milk in 2013 avoided connection to either poverty or parents, treating schools as spaces carved out for commercial interests. In rendering parents and whānau invisible, and prioritising the child as a future consumer, milk in schools reflects the position of many contemporary responses to hungry children. What is distinctive about school milk in Aotearoa New Zealand is its symbolically important role in drawing attention away from contemporary precarity and towards a nostalgic imagined past.

year: 2023

title: Canine scent detection: Lung cancer target acquisition

authors: Crawford, Margaret

abstract: A growing body of research has developed over the last 30 years exploring disease scent detection using animals. Research project methodologies and results in this field vary significantly, including some which are quite promising. Critiques of aspects of current and past practice in disease scent detection using animals inform recommendations for the development of scientifically robust standard operating procedures in this field. Greater standardisation and transparency of practice has the potential to strengthen and clarify disease scent detection results. My primary aim was to contribute to this standardisation by using a theoretical understanding of concept formation and learning acquisition to inform three experiments in which pet dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) were trained to detect the presence of lung cancer in human breath and saliva samples. Operant conditioning processes and an automated apparatus were used to train and test the dogs. Data for all three experiments were collected concurrently. The experiments involved: designing a process for evaluating sample comparisons; evaluating the efficacy of sample re-use for training purposes; and developing a mathematical model to support decision-making about the transition from training to testing of detector organisms. Firstly, we evaluated the comparative utility of human breath and saliva samples to train and test dogs for lung cancer detection. Signal detection measures were used to gauge the dogs’ target acquisition and concept formation during the training process. The dogs acquired the lung cancer target concept more quickly from breath samples, but also demonstrated higher-than-chance recognition using saliva samples. Secondly, we systematically evaluated the effect of breath sample re-use on dogs’ performance during lung cancer scent detection training. There were no significant changes associated with the detectability of the target across samples re-used up to four times, and observed changes in performance were small. Finally, we explored methods of evaluating when a detection animal is performing at or near the highest accuracy of which they are capable with a view to identifying the optimal point at which to transition from training to testing. A quantitative model was most informative during our work training dogs to detect lung cancer. Ongoing testing of the dogs’ abilities using novel samples occurred during training. However, the final testing (and intermittent training) needed to measure and maintain the dogs’ performance against asymptotic predictions was beyond of the scope of the current project. Notwithstanding this, each of the experiments described herein provides both specific data on the performance of our dogs, and procedural information about ways in which different components of scent detection methodology using detector organisms could be strengthened. Both of these resources could be used in concert with other methods of scent detection. Relevant theory on concept formation was reviewed and used to plan and interpret the acquisition of the target scent. Likewise, theoretical explanations of target acquisition and associative learning informed our analysis of data. In this way, each of these experiments contribute to improving practice in the field of disease detection by providing model procedures from which other methods for evaluating sample types and the reuse of samples could evolve. The development of a standardised measure for determining when to stop training and start testing a detecting organism might also be applied to a wide range of learners in myriad contexts to good effect.

text: Canine scent detection: Lung cancer target acquisition A growing body of research has developed over the last 30 years exploring disease scent detection using animals. Research project methodologies and results in this field vary significantly, including some which are quite promising. Critiques of aspects of current and past practice in disease scent detection using animals inform recommendations for the development of scientifically robust standard operating procedures in this field. Greater standardisation and transparency of practice has the potential to strengthen and clarify disease scent detection results. My primary aim was to contribute to this standardisation by using a theoretical understanding of concept formation and learning acquisition to inform three experiments in which pet dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) were trained to detect the presence of lung cancer in human breath and saliva samples. Operant conditioning processes and an automated apparatus were used to train and test the dogs. Data for all three experiments were collected concurrently. The experiments involved: designing a process for evaluating sample comparisons; evaluating the efficacy of sample re-use for training purposes; and developing a mathematical model to support decision-making about the transition from training to testing of detector organisms. Firstly, we evaluated the comparative utility of human breath and saliva samples to train and test dogs for lung cancer detection. Signal detection measures were used to gauge the dogs’ target acquisition and concept formation during the training process. The dogs acquired the lung cancer target concept more quickly from breath samples, but also demonstrated higher-than-chance recognition using saliva samples. Secondly, we systematically evaluated the effect of breath sample re-use on dogs’ performance during lung cancer scent detection training. There were no significant changes associated with the detectability of the target across samples re-used up to four times, and observed changes in performance were small. Finally, we explored methods of evaluating when a detection animal is performing at or near the highest accuracy of which they are capable with a view to identifying the optimal point at which to transition from training to testing. A quantitative model was most informative during our work training dogs to detect lung cancer. Ongoing testing of the dogs’ abilities using novel samples occurred during training. However, the final testing (and intermittent training) needed to measure and maintain the dogs’ performance against asymptotic predictions was beyond of the scope of the current project. Notwithstanding this, each of the experiments described herein provides both specific data on the performance of our dogs, and procedural information about ways in which different components of scent detection methodology using detector organisms could be strengthened. Both of these resources could be used in concert with other methods of scent detection. Relevant theory on concept formation was reviewed and used to plan and interpret the acquisition of the target scent. Likewise, theoretical explanations of target acquisition and associative learning informed our analysis of data. In this way, each of these experiments contribute to improving practice in the field of disease detection by providing model procedures from which other methods for evaluating sample types and the reuse of samples could evolve. The development of a standardised measure for determining when to stop training and start testing a detecting organism might also be applied to a wide range of learners in myriad contexts to good effect.

year: 2024

title: A jade door: Reconciliatory justice as a way forward citing New Zealand experience

authors: Joseph, Robert

subjects: New Zealand

abstract: Greenstone (jade) was highly valued in New Zealand because it was durable, beautiful, and precious. Greenstone is found only on the west coast of the South Island and was used as a means of exchange. In times of trouble, peace could be secured by ending warfare through a political marriage. Peace, thus established, was often likened figuratively to a greenstone door as both the woman and the peace ceremony were seen to be durable, strong, and valuable.

text: A jade door: Reconciliatory justice as a way forward citing New Zealand experience Greenstone (jade) was highly valued in New Zealand because it was durable, beautiful, and precious. Greenstone is found only on the west coast of the South Island and was used as a means of exchange. In times of trouble, peace could be secured by ending warfare through a political marriage. Peace, thus established, was often likened figuratively to a greenstone door as both the woman and the peace ceremony were seen to be durable, strong, and valuable.

year: 2008