title: A sense of Place: A study of nineteenth and twentieth century material culture within the public historic site of The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga

authors: Stegen, Elisabeth

subjects: material culture

abstract: This thesis examines the material culture of a public historic space, assessing how the meanings embedded in objects may develop more nuanced narratives in the house museum. 
The material culture in this thesis is part of the collection of The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga, a house museum in Tauranga, New Zealand. The museum offers a history of Māori settlement, bi-cultural relations between Māori and Pākehā, the Land Wars and the changing socio-cultural landscape of Tauranga from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. 

The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga is largely comprised of original objects of the successive residents. My research focused on three art forms: an Aeolian harp, a crazy quilt, and a carved picture frame. Art is a medium through which people express who they are; by studying the material culture of The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga, we recognise the larger events, social patterns, and cultural trends that impacted individual lives. Through these items, we may compare the cultural ideals with the more complex realities of residents’ lives, noting the tensions, reconfigurations, and nuances as cultural practices were transported, adopted and adapted within the imperial context. 

There has been a growing desire, and debate, around teaching a public history that focuses on New Zealand, acknowledging the difficult moments of New Zealand’s past. This study 
demonstrates that within the house museum stories may be shared in which the specific histories of a local setting are also interwoven with the broader context of nation and 
imperialism. 

Studies in New Zealand have explored the relationship between material culture and the stories we tell in historical sites. The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga, as a house museum, has two 
elements that have contributed to this approach. Firstly, the collection is interpreted without a glass barrier: this study expands this interpretation by reflecting on the sensory 
characteristics of objects as a part of the museum interpretation. Secondly, The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga is a museum comprised of buildings and a garden environment entwined with the same contextual history. This work explores the connecting threads between the interior domestic space and the exterior garden site, examining the socio-cultural landscape in connection with the changing environmental landscape. As the museum is a space which has often portrayed nation and settler belonging, this history develops a more complicated narrative around settler belonging in Aotearoa New Zealand.

text: A sense of Place: A study of nineteenth and twentieth century material culture within the public historic site of The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga This thesis examines the material culture of a public historic space, assessing how the meanings embedded in objects may develop more nuanced narratives in the house museum. 
The material culture in this thesis is part of the collection of The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga, a house museum in Tauranga, New Zealand. The museum offers a history of Māori settlement, bi-cultural relations between Māori and Pākehā, the Land Wars and the changing socio-cultural landscape of Tauranga from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. 

The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga is largely comprised of original objects of the successive residents. My research focused on three art forms: an Aeolian harp, a crazy quilt, and a carved picture frame. Art is a medium through which people express who they are; by studying the material culture of The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga, we recognise the larger events, social patterns, and cultural trends that impacted individual lives. Through these items, we may compare the cultural ideals with the more complex realities of residents’ lives, noting the tensions, reconfigurations, and nuances as cultural practices were transported, adopted and adapted within the imperial context. 

There has been a growing desire, and debate, around teaching a public history that focuses on New Zealand, acknowledging the difficult moments of New Zealand’s past. This study 
demonstrates that within the house museum stories may be shared in which the specific histories of a local setting are also interwoven with the broader context of nation and 
imperialism. 

Studies in New Zealand have explored the relationship between material culture and the stories we tell in historical sites. The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga, as a house museum, has two 
elements that have contributed to this approach. Firstly, the collection is interpreted without a glass barrier: this study expands this interpretation by reflecting on the sensory 
characteristics of objects as a part of the museum interpretation. Secondly, The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga is a museum comprised of buildings and a garden environment entwined with the same contextual history. This work explores the connecting threads between the interior domestic space and the exterior garden site, examining the socio-cultural landscape in connection with the changing environmental landscape. As the museum is a space which has often portrayed nation and settler belonging, this history develops a more complicated narrative around settler belonging in Aotearoa New Zealand.

year: 2024

title: Comments on the historical bases of the Rayleigh and Ritz methods

authors: Ilanko, Sinniah

subjects: The Rayleigh-Ritz Method

abstract: In a recent article entitled “The historical bases of the Rayleigh and Ritz methods”, Professor Leissa raised the issue of using two different names, “The Rayleigh-Ritz Method” and “The Ritz Method” for the same procedure. While the discusser shares Professor Leissa's view that the success of the method can be attributed to the way in which it was applied by Ritz, he does not endorse the position that it should not be referred to as the Rayleigh-Ritz method for the reasons given below.

text: Comments on the historical bases of the Rayleigh and Ritz methods In a recent article entitled “The historical bases of the Rayleigh and Ritz methods”, Professor Leissa raised the issue of using two different names, “The Rayleigh-Ritz Method” and “The Ritz Method” for the same procedure. While the discusser shares Professor Leissa's view that the success of the method can be attributed to the way in which it was applied by Ritz, he does not endorse the position that it should not be referred to as the Rayleigh-Ritz method for the reasons given below.

year: 2009

title: Echoed silencing in Te Whare/Tangata

authors: Lewis, Cassandra Louise Terauhina

subjects: Mana Wāhine

abstract: Wāhine Māori voices are suppressed due to multiple intersecting factors in Aotearoa which negatively impact our lived realities. The aim of this thesis is to foreground wāhine voice and identity within a settler colonial housing system. The current ‘housing crisis’ has been an issue of interest in academia focusing on housing insecurity, homelessness and neoliberalism. Additionally, the criminalisation of Māori has been explored by scholars to a similar extent, especially the pipelining of Māori into incarceration and precarity through policing and surveillance strategies. However, how the criminal justice system and the housing systems interact is scarcely investigated in Aotearoa, and moreover, has not been examined through a Mana wāhine theoretical framework. Mana Wāhine scholars have long critiqued colonisation and the accompanying practices, ideologies and discourses of difference that misrepresent wāhine as the ‘savage other’. How wāhine Māori are constructed through political discourse and factors leading to the silencing of wāhine are at the forefront of this inquiry and moreover, wāhine resistance, survival and aspirations while navigating a discriminatory housing system is examined.

Political and Western discourse contributes to the criminalisation and deficit framing of wāhine as the ‘undeserving poor’ and ‘criminal other’ which subsequently silences wāhine and encourages discriminatory practices. This thesis contends that the channelling of wāhine Māori into a precarious population, the criminalisation of wāhine Māori, and the colonial discourses surrounding wāhine interact together and create barriers to wāhine Māori access to housing. An analysis of housing discourse, alongside wāhine perspectives provides a counter-narrative of the lived reality and voice from wāhine who reside in a predominantly precarious and Māori populated area. The findings show cases of surveillance, discrimination, social policing and steering wāhine Māori into unhealthy living conditions, however, wāhine were also creative in their practices of resistance and survivance.

text: Echoed silencing in Te Whare/Tangata Wāhine Māori voices are suppressed due to multiple intersecting factors in Aotearoa which negatively impact our lived realities. The aim of this thesis is to foreground wāhine voice and identity within a settler colonial housing system. The current ‘housing crisis’ has been an issue of interest in academia focusing on housing insecurity, homelessness and neoliberalism. Additionally, the criminalisation of Māori has been explored by scholars to a similar extent, especially the pipelining of Māori into incarceration and precarity through policing and surveillance strategies. However, how the criminal justice system and the housing systems interact is scarcely investigated in Aotearoa, and moreover, has not been examined through a Mana wāhine theoretical framework. Mana Wāhine scholars have long critiqued colonisation and the accompanying practices, ideologies and discourses of difference that misrepresent wāhine as the ‘savage other’. How wāhine Māori are constructed through political discourse and factors leading to the silencing of wāhine are at the forefront of this inquiry and moreover, wāhine resistance, survival and aspirations while navigating a discriminatory housing system is examined.

Political and Western discourse contributes to the criminalisation and deficit framing of wāhine as the ‘undeserving poor’ and ‘criminal other’ which subsequently silences wāhine and encourages discriminatory practices. This thesis contends that the channelling of wāhine Māori into a precarious population, the criminalisation of wāhine Māori, and the colonial discourses surrounding wāhine interact together and create barriers to wāhine Māori access to housing. An analysis of housing discourse, alongside wāhine perspectives provides a counter-narrative of the lived reality and voice from wāhine who reside in a predominantly precarious and Māori populated area. The findings show cases of surveillance, discrimination, social policing and steering wāhine Māori into unhealthy living conditions, however, wāhine were also creative in their practices of resistance and survivance.

year: 2021