title: Recognising Autistic women: A minority within a minority

authors: Hefferon, Kyle Anne

subjects: autism

abstract: Evidence is emerging from the Western world that, when seeking assistance, Autistic women are remaining unrecognised, or are being misdiagnosed with mental illness by the clinical professionals they approach. However, as a result of their relative invisibility there is very limited academic literature on the occurrence of the mis(sed)diagnosis of Autistic women, as these women only draw statistical interest when they eventually become formally diagnosed. This thesis provides for an exploration of this usually hidden topic. As such it is an exploratory, inductive study that is guided by a transformative worldview. I use triangulation as a methodology in the corroboration of views found to be underpinned by opposing philosophical stances. I then consider the lived experience of unrecognised autism, the clinical context of mental healthcare, and the guiding documents and reports for the provision of autism services and support for Autistic adults in the government-funded New Zealand healthcare system. This information is supported by data collected from an online questionnaire of healthcare practitioners with a specialised knowledge of autism, specifically how it presents in females. I conclude that there is a longstanding and harmful relationship between Autistic women and madness in part driven by a negative interface between psychiatric services and women in general. Issues for Autistic women are exacerbated by a lack of understanding over time of neurodevelopmental conditions within the healthcare professions that I contend could be contributing to the ongoing, and harmful phenomenon of under-recognition of Autistic women.

text: Recognising Autistic women: A minority within a minority Evidence is emerging from the Western world that, when seeking assistance, Autistic women are remaining unrecognised, or are being misdiagnosed with mental illness by the clinical professionals they approach. However, as a result of their relative invisibility there is very limited academic literature on the occurrence of the mis(sed)diagnosis of Autistic women, as these women only draw statistical interest when they eventually become formally diagnosed. This thesis provides for an exploration of this usually hidden topic. As such it is an exploratory, inductive study that is guided by a transformative worldview. I use triangulation as a methodology in the corroboration of views found to be underpinned by opposing philosophical stances. I then consider the lived experience of unrecognised autism, the clinical context of mental healthcare, and the guiding documents and reports for the provision of autism services and support for Autistic adults in the government-funded New Zealand healthcare system. This information is supported by data collected from an online questionnaire of healthcare practitioners with a specialised knowledge of autism, specifically how it presents in females. I conclude that there is a longstanding and harmful relationship between Autistic women and madness in part driven by a negative interface between psychiatric services and women in general. Issues for Autistic women are exacerbated by a lack of understanding over time of neurodevelopmental conditions within the healthcare professions that I contend could be contributing to the ongoing, and harmful phenomenon of under-recognition of Autistic women.

year: 2020

title: Inscribing traumatic experience: Allusion and satire in poetry

authors: Rose, Brittany Melinda

abstract: That rape trauma is unspeakable is a damaging myth for those who experience sexual assault. The work of poets Pascale Petit, Fiona Benson, Vanessa Place and Patricia Lockwood showcases the broad range of strategies that women can employ in poetry to speak about rape and rape trauma within a rape culture. This thesis asserts that poetry is a particularly effective mode through which to express, possibly convey, and definitely inscribe the traumatic experience.

One aspect of the difficulty of speaking or writing about rape is the constraints of language, the grammatical bind of subject and object; the impossibility of the phrase “When I was raped,” as though “I” was the one actively making decisions. What makes it difficult is the bitterness of the phrases “victim” and “survivor”, particularly given these labels apply directly to the event itself, rather than the aftermath in which this thesis is interested. Thus, the use of phrases with high lexical density such as “those who have experienced rape,” or the neologism “endurer” which turns the verb into noun.

This thesis begins with reference to the body of theoretical and scientific knowledge which asserts a connection between mind, body and self in the experience of trauma, and draws attention to the social framework within which rape poetry is written. Throughout, there is a discussion of the personal biography of the studied poets, and the ways in which raped bodies speak through fragmented, figurative and imagery-rich language. In this thesis, it is not the event of rape itself that is of interest, rather the experience of subsequent trauma which seeps into the mind and body of a rape victimised woman, the wounded body.

As a literary device, the wound as metaphor for pain and trauma is well established. Chapter One extends the wound image in order to explore the distancing effect of allusion employed by Pascale Petit in The Wounded Deer: Fourteen poems after Frida Kahlo, and Fiona Benson’s Vertigo & Ghost. While Petit relies on the biographical detail of Frida Kahlo to create an analogous inscription of the experience of trauma, Benson draws on mythological allegory to convey the specific experience of rape trauma, and the fear that trauma endurers embody in the wake of such an event. In continuing the wound imagery, Petit’s approach is considered comparable with the idea of the callous as there is a thick layer of hardened skin between writer and audience. In the callous approach to writing the rape experience, Petit opts for a masking of the personal, while Benson’s approach is categorised as one that blisters after the burn—it is confessional. Throughout this chapter, and the thesis as a whole, there is an exploration of the ways in which poetry can mimic the disruption to temporality which is experienced during a trauma flashback, and the ways in which sensory-rich imagery is bound to any expression of the experience.

Chapter Two surveys the landscape in which we laugh at rape. From the misogynist, to the feminist, the rape joke acts a site of subversion, particularly for poets. Rape culture is explored in reference to popular culture and stand up comedy, before a critical lens is applied to a close reading of the symbolic violence inherent in the format and content of rape jokes in Vanessa Place’s You Had To Be There: Rape Jokes. The internet, and online culture is an ever present thread in the work of Place (as this is where she drew her material from), and in Patricia Lockwood’s Rape Joke. The ways in which rape culture at large plays into personal and individual confession or disclosure of rape is evident in the responses to Lockwood’s “viral” Rape Joke poem, as well as in the content itself where the damaging psychological impact of victim blaming is evident. While Lockwood’s tone lends itself to satirising victim blaming, it also exists within the framework whereby women who are raped are subsequently silenced and disbelieved, complicating notions of subversion and perpetuation of the patriarchy. The voice of the patriarchy is illustrated throughout Place’s onslaught of hate speech rape jokes, and a discussion of the role of the reader/listener/audience in participating in making meaning of rape culture follows.

This thesis is closed with a sequence of poems entitled & therefore bodies. The sequence is written from the raped body using similar techniques of allusion and humour as discussed in reference to Petit, Benson, Place and Lockwood. The techniques are employed in order to inscribe a version of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of rape. The sequence of poems seeks to speak an individual rape trauma as experienced amongst misogynistic social messaging in the context of contemporary New Zealand rape culture.

text: Inscribing traumatic experience: Allusion and satire in poetry That rape trauma is unspeakable is a damaging myth for those who experience sexual assault. The work of poets Pascale Petit, Fiona Benson, Vanessa Place and Patricia Lockwood showcases the broad range of strategies that women can employ in poetry to speak about rape and rape trauma within a rape culture. This thesis asserts that poetry is a particularly effective mode through which to express, possibly convey, and definitely inscribe the traumatic experience.

One aspect of the difficulty of speaking or writing about rape is the constraints of language, the grammatical bind of subject and object; the impossibility of the phrase “When I was raped,” as though “I” was the one actively making decisions. What makes it difficult is the bitterness of the phrases “victim” and “survivor”, particularly given these labels apply directly to the event itself, rather than the aftermath in which this thesis is interested. Thus, the use of phrases with high lexical density such as “those who have experienced rape,” or the neologism “endurer” which turns the verb into noun.

This thesis begins with reference to the body of theoretical and scientific knowledge which asserts a connection between mind, body and self in the experience of trauma, and draws attention to the social framework within which rape poetry is written. Throughout, there is a discussion of the personal biography of the studied poets, and the ways in which raped bodies speak through fragmented, figurative and imagery-rich language. In this thesis, it is not the event of rape itself that is of interest, rather the experience of subsequent trauma which seeps into the mind and body of a rape victimised woman, the wounded body.

As a literary device, the wound as metaphor for pain and trauma is well established. Chapter One extends the wound image in order to explore the distancing effect of allusion employed by Pascale Petit in The Wounded Deer: Fourteen poems after Frida Kahlo, and Fiona Benson’s Vertigo & Ghost. While Petit relies on the biographical detail of Frida Kahlo to create an analogous inscription of the experience of trauma, Benson draws on mythological allegory to convey the specific experience of rape trauma, and the fear that trauma endurers embody in the wake of such an event. In continuing the wound imagery, Petit’s approach is considered comparable with the idea of the callous as there is a thick layer of hardened skin between writer and audience. In the callous approach to writing the rape experience, Petit opts for a masking of the personal, while Benson’s approach is categorised as one that blisters after the burn—it is confessional. Throughout this chapter, and the thesis as a whole, there is an exploration of the ways in which poetry can mimic the disruption to temporality which is experienced during a trauma flashback, and the ways in which sensory-rich imagery is bound to any expression of the experience.

Chapter Two surveys the landscape in which we laugh at rape. From the misogynist, to the feminist, the rape joke acts a site of subversion, particularly for poets. Rape culture is explored in reference to popular culture and stand up comedy, before a critical lens is applied to a close reading of the symbolic violence inherent in the format and content of rape jokes in Vanessa Place’s You Had To Be There: Rape Jokes. The internet, and online culture is an ever present thread in the work of Place (as this is where she drew her material from), and in Patricia Lockwood’s Rape Joke. The ways in which rape culture at large plays into personal and individual confession or disclosure of rape is evident in the responses to Lockwood’s “viral” Rape Joke poem, as well as in the content itself where the damaging psychological impact of victim blaming is evident. While Lockwood’s tone lends itself to satirising victim blaming, it also exists within the framework whereby women who are raped are subsequently silenced and disbelieved, complicating notions of subversion and perpetuation of the patriarchy. The voice of the patriarchy is illustrated throughout Place’s onslaught of hate speech rape jokes, and a discussion of the role of the reader/listener/audience in participating in making meaning of rape culture follows.

This thesis is closed with a sequence of poems entitled & therefore bodies. The sequence is written from the raped body using similar techniques of allusion and humour as discussed in reference to Petit, Benson, Place and Lockwood. The techniques are employed in order to inscribe a version of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of rape. The sequence of poems seeks to speak an individual rape trauma as experienced amongst misogynistic social messaging in the context of contemporary New Zealand rape culture.

year: 2021

title: Enacting Kaitiakitanga Challenges and Complexities in the Governance and Ownership of Rongoā Research Information.

authors: Boulton, Amohia

subjects: Indigenous

abstract: This article explores the tensions one research team has faced in securing appropriate governance or stewardship (which we refer to as kaitiakitanga) of research data. Whilst ethical and regulatory frameworks exist which provide a minimum standard for researchers to meet when working with Māori, what our experience has highlighted is there is currently a “governance” gap in terms of who should hold stewardship of research data collected from Māori individuals or collectives. In the case of a project undertaken in the traditional healing space, the organisation best placed to fulfil this governance role receives no funding or support to take on such a responsibility; consequently by default, this role is being borne by the research team until such time as capacity can be built and adequate resourcing secured. In addition, we have realised that the tensions played out in this research project have implications for the broader issue of how we protect traditional knowledge in a modern intellectual property law context, and once again how we adequately support those, often community-based organisations, who work at the interface between Indigenous knowledge and the Western world.

text: Enacting Kaitiakitanga Challenges and Complexities in the Governance and Ownership of Rongoā Research Information. This article explores the tensions one research team has faced in securing appropriate governance or stewardship (which we refer to as kaitiakitanga) of research data. Whilst ethical and regulatory frameworks exist which provide a minimum standard for researchers to meet when working with Māori, what our experience has highlighted is there is currently a “governance” gap in terms of who should hold stewardship of research data collected from Māori individuals or collectives. In the case of a project undertaken in the traditional healing space, the organisation best placed to fulfil this governance role receives no funding or support to take on such a responsibility; consequently by default, this role is being borne by the research team until such time as capacity can be built and adequate resourcing secured. In addition, we have realised that the tensions played out in this research project have implications for the broader issue of how we protect traditional knowledge in a modern intellectual property law context, and once again how we adequately support those, often community-based organisations, who work at the interface between Indigenous knowledge and the Western world.

year: 2014