title: Ballycross RFC: Sectarianism, masculinity and racism in a Northern Irish rugby club

authors: Kavanagh, Thomas Richard

subjects: Ethnography

abstract: This thesis is a study of Ballycross RFC, a rugby club in Northern Ireland. With a history of violent conflict and a society that remains largely segregated by religion, politics, education and housing, Northern Ireland provided a dynamic and complex context to this season-long ethnography. 
As a British sport, rugby has traditionally been a Protestant domain and the Catholic minority population at the club were made very aware of this. Through the use of banter, sectarian statements that sought to maintain the status quo were justified with disclaimers of humour. A male-only environment, the rugby club provided members of Ballycross RFC with multiple discourses of masculinity. Problematic performances were frequent, but there was also evidence of more positive masculine identities. As an all-white club in a country with little ethnic diversity, I explore how discourses of whiteness function to highlight and ‘other’ those from different ethnic groups, and simultaneously strengthen in-group bonds. 
Playing, training and socialising as a full member of the club, I utilised participant observation, focus groups and semi-structured interviews to understand the experiences of Ballycross RFC members. Through the use of a novella, I attempt to represent my experiences at Ballycross RFC and the complex, fluid, and at times contradictory issues of politics and identity in a Northern Irish rugby club.

text: Ballycross RFC: Sectarianism, masculinity and racism in a Northern Irish rugby club This thesis is a study of Ballycross RFC, a rugby club in Northern Ireland. With a history of violent conflict and a society that remains largely segregated by religion, politics, education and housing, Northern Ireland provided a dynamic and complex context to this season-long ethnography. 
As a British sport, rugby has traditionally been a Protestant domain and the Catholic minority population at the club were made very aware of this. Through the use of banter, sectarian statements that sought to maintain the status quo were justified with disclaimers of humour. A male-only environment, the rugby club provided members of Ballycross RFC with multiple discourses of masculinity. Problematic performances were frequent, but there was also evidence of more positive masculine identities. As an all-white club in a country with little ethnic diversity, I explore how discourses of whiteness function to highlight and ‘other’ those from different ethnic groups, and simultaneously strengthen in-group bonds. 
Playing, training and socialising as a full member of the club, I utilised participant observation, focus groups and semi-structured interviews to understand the experiences of Ballycross RFC members. Through the use of a novella, I attempt to represent my experiences at Ballycross RFC and the complex, fluid, and at times contradictory issues of politics and identity in a Northern Irish rugby club.

year: 2019

title: In a World of its Own:  How Operative Closure Limits the Law's Ability to Protect Children from Maltreatment.

authors: Peploe, Matthew

subjects: Law

abstract: New Zealand's figures for child maltreatment are consistently amongst the highest in the OECD. The purpose of this thesis is to understand what the legal system can do to protect children in New Zealand from maltreatment and why legal responses to child maltreatment often appear to be ineffectual or of limited effect.  

This thesis uses the theories of Luhman and Teubner to argue that the law's ability to protect children from maltreatment is limited because the legal system creates and responds to its own abstract world.  This process arises from the functional requirements of the law and its operation as an autopoietic system of power that produces its own abstract knowledge about the world.  The legal system's function within New Zealand society is to stabilise behavioural expectations and maintain society's coherence and it does so by reducing the complexity of subjective human existence into binary alternatives.  However, this process of reducing complexity limits the way in which the law produces its knowledge about the world and controls how power is distributed within the law's abstract world to such an extent that the legal system is closed from the world of subjective experience.  This closure from the world outside the legal system limits the law's ability to regulate and reform that outside world and protect the children who live within it.  By identifying these limits, this thesis will contribute to an understanding of the limits of the law's ability to protect children from maltreatment and thereby improve the effectiveness of New Zealand society's attempts to protect its children.

text: In a World of its Own:  How Operative Closure Limits the Law's Ability to Protect Children from Maltreatment. New Zealand's figures for child maltreatment are consistently amongst the highest in the OECD. The purpose of this thesis is to understand what the legal system can do to protect children in New Zealand from maltreatment and why legal responses to child maltreatment often appear to be ineffectual or of limited effect.  

This thesis uses the theories of Luhman and Teubner to argue that the law's ability to protect children from maltreatment is limited because the legal system creates and responds to its own abstract world.  This process arises from the functional requirements of the law and its operation as an autopoietic system of power that produces its own abstract knowledge about the world.  The legal system's function within New Zealand society is to stabilise behavioural expectations and maintain society's coherence and it does so by reducing the complexity of subjective human existence into binary alternatives.  However, this process of reducing complexity limits the way in which the law produces its knowledge about the world and controls how power is distributed within the law's abstract world to such an extent that the legal system is closed from the world of subjective experience.  This closure from the world outside the legal system limits the law's ability to regulate and reform that outside world and protect the children who live within it.  By identifying these limits, this thesis will contribute to an understanding of the limits of the law's ability to protect children from maltreatment and thereby improve the effectiveness of New Zealand society's attempts to protect its children.

year: 2008

title: Māori education as justice and reckoning

authors: Hemi, Keakaokawai Varner

abstract: Hypothetical musings on what constitutes justice have been taking place at least since the ancient Greek philosopher Plato recorded the above debate between Socrates and Cephalus in Republic circa 380 BCE. Modem philosophical notions of justice have also often been heady stuff relying on heuristic "device[ s] of representation"², "thick and thin"³ theories and other abstract conceptions to untangle real-world inequalities. In comparison, current questions of access to justice are earthy, grunty and real. Increasingly vociferous access to justice claims cite the actual injustice-laden histories of particular groups, speak in terms of harm already inflicted and call for reparative, restorative or healing justice. Indigenous peoples, African-Americans and other disenfranchised, excluded and oppressed groups quote dates, casualty numbers and the legislative section or treaty responsible. For many indigenous people, any single incident is always just one among many in the collective memory; there are always more dates, cases,⁴ facts and figures in the "litany of injustices"⁵ which evidence denial of justice. Gritty statistics in one area of well-being flow into another and over generations. This is justice in the trenches, a place where numbers and statistics are what they are.

text: Māori education as justice and reckoning Hypothetical musings on what constitutes justice have been taking place at least since the ancient Greek philosopher Plato recorded the above debate between Socrates and Cephalus in Republic circa 380 BCE. Modem philosophical notions of justice have also often been heady stuff relying on heuristic "device[ s] of representation"², "thick and thin"³ theories and other abstract conceptions to untangle real-world inequalities. In comparison, current questions of access to justice are earthy, grunty and real. Increasingly vociferous access to justice claims cite the actual injustice-laden histories of particular groups, speak in terms of harm already inflicted and call for reparative, restorative or healing justice. Indigenous peoples, African-Americans and other disenfranchised, excluded and oppressed groups quote dates, casualty numbers and the legislative section or treaty responsible. For many indigenous people, any single incident is always just one among many in the collective memory; there are always more dates, cases,⁴ facts and figures in the "litany of injustices"⁵ which evidence denial of justice. Gritty statistics in one area of well-being flow into another and over generations. This is justice in the trenches, a place where numbers and statistics are what they are.

year: 2017